On the morning of the big day, everyone let me sleep in while they went out for breakfast. Meredith took this photo of my parents coming in to wake me up! Haha.
Time to check in and see how everyone's feeling after Ming Dynasty Buffet! My mom was totally full but my dad was fine. (He is the kind of person responsible for the restaurant's need to alter the MAXIMUM BUFFET TIME hours. Haha)
After dinner, my parents came downtown to our place so they could say hi to the dogs. Maddy is a face licker with a long reach so you have to be careful or she'll French you before you know what hit you.
On the way to the airport, we stopped off at a restaurant on the harbor to have lunch with June. June was the woman my grandfather dated after his wife Connie died. She was like second grandma to me for a couple years when I was a kid. My grandfather died in 1988 when I was eleven and we kind of lost touch with her after that. I hadn't seen her twenty years and it was fantastic to catch up with her and her husband.
My parents were in the midst of buying new furniture for the place and while we were there there were we had to listen to all sorts of heated debates between them about how the new furniture should be arranged when it arrived.
When my dad reached into the bottom of his stocking for one last item and then pulled out this teeny tiny copy of FENG SHUI FOR DUMMIES, I nearly lost my mind laughing. Santa is king of the subtle slaying (sleighing?). Hahaha.
Mom and dad getting ready to empty their stockings. Christmas is the one time of the year when my mom explicitly buys my dad candy - the rest of the year she gives him a hard time every single time he wants to have a treat. Look how excited he is to get his candy on. Awesome.
...and I headed out with my parents to play "a few" holes. I was like "What do you mean 'a few' holes? My dad pointed out into the backyard and explained, "That's the 15th tee right there." Hahaha. So we walked right out the back door and just started playing some golf. Here's Big Bri, teeing off.
Meredith thought she'd be okay sans crutches, but right when we got off the plane she reinjured it pretty badly and it swelled right back up. After we'd finished our latkes, we ran out to the store to pick up ANOTHER pair of crutches. (Which was no big deal because crutches are WAY easier to find near a retirement village in Florida than they are in the East Village.)
My dad picked us up at the airport and the mustache that he'd so proudly presented to me a month prior had blossomed into even greater beauty! My dad's deep pride about his new 'stache was clearly starting to cause concern with Brett and Amy; their wedding was coming up in a couple of weeks and they were starting to worry that a certain uninvited guest was going to make an appearance in all their wedding photos. (Spoiler alert: Mr. Mustache ends up attending the wedding! Yes!)
It's like a photo of Peter Griffin going skiing! (PS - Remember when Fatty and I borrowed all my parents old ski gear to go skiing and it ended up looking like we were going to an 80s party in Williamsburg?)
Also found a bunch of fantastic old photo albums. I snapped a couple of pics of my favorite pics. Here me with my parents and brother. I think this was from my 5th birthday - which would make it August 1981.
My dad picked me up at the Morristown train station. Check out the mustache he was sporting when I arrived. It's a on-going joke that none of us (except my dad's brother, Bruce) can grow a mustache - so as sparse as this bad-boy was, my dad was still super proud of it. (Personally, I think I gave him a run for his money with the mustache I grew while I was away on a meditation retreat).
On Saturday morning I got up bright and early and took the train out to suburban New Jersey to help my parents clean out the basement. They had recently sold the home that I spent most of my formative years in (in Succasunna, NJ) and were getting ready to move down to Florida! After an early lunch, my dad and I....
Check out the my mom and dad in 1975! (Grant, check out my dad wearing BIG BLUE! Big Blue is a ski jacket that I found in my dad's closet and fell in love with and wore it for like 10 years in a row and always caught flack for. Hahah. God, I love that jacket.)
He even wears cute little sweatshirts with the team he's routing for on them when we watches football. I know you're not really supposed say that sports fans are kind of adorable...but what can I say? Tell me this photo isn't a little adorable. Happy Birthday, Dad!
