May 2013

Well, spring is supposed to be here but all it does is rain, rain, rain - with big thunderboomers and sheets of rain.  And it's cold!!  So perhaps no spring this year - even if some of the flowers are still poking their heads above the earth.

May is a month of Broadway - The Chalk Circle play, Cuff Me, the musical, The Great Comet, an immersion experience set in a wonderful Russian Cafe and the play goes on around you as you eat and drink.  A wonderful ballet comedy, then a concert by Erik Burdon & The Animals in a small venue where I sat FRONT ROW!!

My friend's grandson was baptized so we went to Philadelphia and stayed in a lovely hotel for the night.  And on Memorial Day I was surprised with a few days in a seaside inn in Fairfield CT.  We had been there last year, and loved it.  Of course it RAINED the first day and a half, but eventually the sun came out (even though it stayed very cool) and we walked on the beach.  The very next weekend we went to the beach again, for a birthday party, and stayed at the same little motel where I had stayed two years ago.  The Point Pleasant Beach has come back from the hurricane, the motel rebuilt, and the boardwalk looks great.  A lot of houses are still in repairs - some will probably be torn down - but the town looks great!

We saw Fast & Furious 6, the movie - and had a LOT of fun. 

I see that you are traveling around having fun too.  I am so proud of you Taylor, for your gymnastics and skiing medals.  And Emmerson - how much fun you are having learning to play tennis like big brother.

I love you both and miss you very much.

Grandma

April 2013

April was such a nice month.  Easter celebration was with the daughters and grandchildren of my friend, so I brought Beanie Baby bunnies for them to love and stuffed eggs.  Taylor might remember the baskets the Easter Bunny left when he was little - so they were baskets like those.

The next weekend we went on a road trip to a wonderful museum called "The Cloisters".  It is made from old monasteries, brought to the United States and reassembled - then filled with medieval art (that's art from the time of the knights and damsels and kings!)

Theater is always big - so Breakfast at Tiffany's, a play, then Motown, a musical with oldies music grandma likes to dance to.  A concert to see Bob Seeger, and the opera "Rigoletto" set in 1960's Las Vegas.

At the end of the month we went to St. Louis to see Great-Grandma King who is 85 and quite spry for her age.  We visited the Train Station, and the Arch, and the Cathedral.  It didn't feel much like home anymore, though.  So i guess New York has become my new home!!

Love you my darlings

Grandma

Easter is Coming

My goodness, how fast time goes.  Happy birthday Emmerson - you are a big FOUR!  Grandma's birthday is the day right after yours and I had a nice celebration too.

Taylor - congratulations on your awards for gymnastics and skiing!  You have always been so adventurous and ready to try anything - it is paying off.  You can teach Emmerson next year how to ski too!

Grandma went to see the Grand Canyon in Arizona this month.  Something I wanted to do all my life and it was my birthday present.  A really BIG birthday present, wasn't it?

I've been going to see a lot of plays too, and learning to like Opera (which isn't very easy!!)  A very different kind of music, that's for sure.  Cinderella, the musical, is playing in the theater next to my work so several of us went to see it after work one day.

Easter is this Sunday, and my friend and I are going to visit with his daughters and their children.  So I will enjoy having little ones around for the day - even if I wish they were the two of you.

Miss you, my sweet little ones, and send my love to you every single day.

Grandma Nici

Snow, Snow Snow

Hello my darlings!  Grandma had a lot of snow this weekend, almost a foot!  It starting falling on Friday and didn't stop until Saturday. That was good, though, because everyone got home from work before the weather got really slippery and wet. 

On Saturday Grandma went back into New York City and went to an Opera called Carmen.  The music is very pretty, especially the Toreadore song about bullfighters.

On Sunday I went to Grand Central Terminal - the big, big train station in downtown New York that was celebrating it's 100 year anniversary.  It is a beautiful place with wonderful architecture, big windows, statues and carvings and, of course, a big clock.  A famous President's wife, Jackie Kennedy, helped to save it from being torn down and it is now a national Historic Landmark.  It was wonderful to walk around inside and see all the views.

I made plans to go see great-Grandma Margaret in St. Louis in a few weeks.  You've never met her, but she has seen your pictures and thinks you are both beautiful children.  I will tell her stories of all the fun we had when you were little and living with me.  And how I held each of you the day you were born and whispered in your ear - I love you, and always will.

Love,
Grandma Nici

Post Christmas

Hello my dear ones.  Christmas has come and gone and I thought about you constantly as I spent time with my dear friend's grandchildren who are 4 and 5.  They opened their prezzies and I could remember Taylor opening his and getting his first tricycle under the giant tree he helped to decorate.  Of course I saw the pictures of you both with Grandpa in Germany, and other places just before and during the Christmas holidays.  I am glad you have at least one grandparent in your lives and close to you - because it is important to get viewpoints from another generation.  Don't worry, Taylor, I'm not dead, but alive and well here in Jersey City in the house where you lived and loved me and where Emmerson was born.  Emmerson, dear one, I wish I had gotten to know you while you are still a little girl.  Your pictures are so beautiful and girly pink (for which I am grateful, as the girly outfits I bought for you when you were born were given away as "too" girl).  The Santa picture is a treasure, now I have one for almost every year of your lives.  Missing you both has become everyday but you will find me someday.  As for everything else - just know I love you both more than any words ever written, said or sung.  Be good, my angels, and grow up beautiful inside and out.

Post-Thanksgiving, Nearly Christmas

Here we are past the Thanksgiving holiday.  Grandma's friend Charlie came up to visit over the holiday and I made the traditional food we are all used to.  Sweet Potatoes topped with marshmallows, Green Beans topped with fried onions, baked beans, sherbert jello salad with mandarin oranges, cranberry chutney, biscuits and a big fat turkey!!  The table was complaining there was too much food on it, but that meant there were leftovers to send home with Charlie, and plenty for me the next week to have for dinner in the evening.

New York city is all dressed up for Christmas.  The Macy's and Lord & Taylor windows are open to see and are quite wonderful.  I went on Sunday to see them with my friend and his daughter's family.  The little girl is about Emmerson's age and there is a baby just over a year old.  It was nice to see the windows and ride the carousel in Bryant park looking through their eyes.  I did the same with you, Taylor, when you were small.  Everything was so much more special seeing the way you saw it.

I put some lights up outside the house, and may dress up the staircase - but no place for a tree anymore.  People live in the space where we used to put it and they don't celebrate Christmas, but they do like the lights so I do those.

I am flying to New Orleans this weekend just to eat!  We already have several restaurant reservations made at special places where we can get all dressed up.  I'm also hoping to get to see The Nutcracker here in New York before it goes away - it makes a special Christmas. 

It has been nice to enjoy so much of what New York has to offer the last year or so.  Everything from Carnegie Hall to the Metropolitan Opera.  And, of course, lots of restaurants, movies, comedy clubs and plays.  There is nothing like this city.

I hope you are enjoying your new school.  I haven't read anything about how you and Emmerson are doing so i don't know what language you are learning in.  I worry that you will lose your English and never really learn how to speak, write, and understand the language really well.  If you don't learn it when you are young, it will always be more difficult.  At least you will be able to speak other languages fluently which is an advantage if you are not living in the United States.

I love you Taylor and Emmerson.  I miss you very much, but I just know I will see you again before I die because someday, somehow, you will find me.  Just do an internet search for my name and you will find my address, email and phone.  Call me when you are old enough to do it on your own.  I will always be waiting for you.

Love,
Grandma

School Days

Hello my darlings!

Well, here it is September and time for school.  You both looked so adorable for your first day in the new Monaco school.  I hope everything is going well and you will make a lot of new friends.  Emmerson managed quite a lot better than her first day in Nice, didn't she?  Lots of smiles instead of tears.  You have gotten so much braver!!

My little man accepted the change with his usual energetic happy self as I would expect.  You are always Grandma's happy little boy.

Grandma's arm is getting better - I am able to use it a lot more.  Not everything of course - still needs to get lots and lots of muscles back which all went away while it was healing.  But time will make things better.  I still haven't gotten the car our of the driveway - the poor thing has been sitting there since May.  Do you suppose cars can get lonely?  Perhaps I should go sit in it from time to time and talk just to keep it company.

The cruise from New York to Bermuda was just wonderful.  Seven whole days of living on a boat and eating wonderful food and three days of walking around the islands with all the colors of the rainbow in the houses.  On one of the nights back the moon was completely full and because there were no city lights around it was huge and gleaming - reflecting into the sea.  I couldn't get a good photo, but I will always remember how wonderful it looked.

I miss you both and hope the move has not been too awful.  Changing houses all the time is always an adventure and you must look at it as just that - an adventure.  Think of all the tales you will tell YOUR grandchildren because you will be able to.  Don't ever do to your children what has been done to me.  You must always be close to your family and love them with all your heart.

I adore you both, and miss you very much.  Someday you will come back to the US to visit and you will find me.  I love you.

Grandma Nici