Last Wednesday afternoon, we drove down to NY for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. We talked before we left about going to New York and all the people we would see there. Finley enjoyed saying "Noo Yurk" and listing the names of those we'd be visiting on the car ride down. GG and Geeka's house was soon filled to the brim and buzzing with family and friends. Finley didn't take as long to warm up as he has in the past, but perhaps that was due to the fact that he seemed to remember their house and where all the toys were!
Finley's Aunt Caitlin came out from Manhattan to see him and eat some of GG's delicious food even though she's not Jewish, what a gal! We tried several times to get a photo of the two of them, but silly Finley just wouldn't sit still.
Finley went off to bed and we had a lovely dinner before going to bed ourselves. The next morning, we got all dressed up and put Finley in his wrinkly button down shirt (I don't iron my own stuff so I certainly wasn't going to iron a toddler's!) for temple. Finley was quite stimulated looking around at all the people, lights, stained glass windows, and rows and rows of chairs. We found our seats and he snacked on some raisins while the Rabbi talked. Since the Rabbi had walked by our row as we were sitting down, we had told Finley his name was Gordon. That proved to be a misstep since Finley continued to call out "Go-don" throughout his sermon...whoops. Soon the cantor was singing and Finley also called out "Jack!" What a coincidence that both names of those guys up on the bima are also names of trains from Thomas and Friends. By far, Finley favorite part was hearing the shofar blow. He was entranced! We lasted as long as we could before hanging out with a sleeping Charlie and her parents, Karen and Dave, in the hall. Later, we went home for lunch and a long nap before getting ready for dinner at Linda and Jacob's.
Finley was up for about an hour before we put him to sleep at Linda's upstairs and he made the best of every minute of it! He was thrilled to see Oreo, the dog, and kept calling out "A-o" and looking all around for the canine. Oreo was a good sport letting Finley pet her (or him?). Finley also enjoyed some chips and enjoyed dipping them in some guacamole. However, the appetizer highlight by far was the freshly make arepa that Finley declared to be "chicken" and then ate it up. I figured I shouldn't correct him since he rarely eats things that aren't in his comfort zone and that was a good call :) Linda gave us several more to take home and Dan is excited to give one to Finley when he wakes up from his nap this afternoon!
The following day we returned to temple and got to hear Aunt Ellie sing with Jack, which was spectacular as usual and Finley did a nice job playing with his trucks, eating his bagel, listening to teh shofar, and watching all that was going on. At one point, he even found his own chair and picked up the Siddur and told us he was reading it. What a good boy, he even opened it up the correct way (backwards for Hebrew reading).
Just before leaving, it occurred to me I hadn't taken many photos so I snapped away! Here Finley is laughing with Geeka at lunch:
Cooking for GG with his beloved spatula.
Playing Ring-Around-the-Rosie with Ellie
And playing with the tractor/front loader that is by far his favorite toy at his grandparents house. We were impressed how much better he was at "driving" it all around the house this time. He even pressed the button for the reverse alarm when he would go backwards!
Also, Finley had fun playing with a crane that Dan had as a little boy. This picture is of Dan in the early 80s moving some blocks with the crane.
Our last stop on the New Year road tour was at Pat and Marty's for dinner before driving back to Boston. Finley got to meet Henry and Isabell, twins about his age, and he gorged on grapes and challah. Life is good, huh Geeka?
No comments:
Post a Comment