surprise saturday

i couldn't sleep last night :p i think i was too excited to continue unpacking and putting our stuff away, so around 4:30am, i got up and tiptoed out of the bedroom and continued to move, unpack, and put away our kitchen. la di la. kevin got up and rolled his eyes far far back into the back of his head when he saw me busy in the kitchen around 7:30am.

yes, i have problems getting up before 7am on weekdays, but no problems on the weekends. it's a disease i think.

it was raining lightly out, but we went to the UN for a quick 5k race through the streets of manhattan. there were so many people from so many different countries running! i think they were all in town for the marathon, and marathon runners registered their families so there were lots of kids in this run. we ran down 1st ave, across 42nd street, and back up sixth ave entering central park and finishing at the marathon finish line. kevin and i took it easy and ran it like a slow recovery run. apparently gwen jorgensen won!!! so cool ... 

then back to the apt where our friend gary had arrived from a red-eye flight from la and had let himself him. gary is running the marathon too (for the second time!) so we headed out to gotham west for some grub and jacob javitts to check out the expo. we finally got to try ivan ramen ~ it was pretty darn tasty! i am a fan of his chicken soup base ramen, it's so light! and there were some fun booths at the expo. i decided to give the saucony booth a try and see if i could win a trip to vancouver - ha.

then surprise #1 - my gf, susan, and i had been planning a surprise baby shower for elyse, who is due next month for the last couple weeks. we were going to take her for mani-pedis and then an afternoon brunch at laduree, all under the guise that she was meeting susan for coffee. but elyse felt what may have been early contractions last night so we decided to bag it and she stayed in new jersey. brad is out of town for five days so the baby cannot come out yet!!!

then surprise #2 - i received a voicemail from my dad telling me that he's coming into the city in the afternoon! :) we haven't seen him in +3 months since his retirement in august because he has been in taiwan, but he was coming up to spend the afternoon-evening with us because my mom was going to be busy in flushing with her Qband performance. 

first thing he said when he entered the apartment: "hi kevin, jen, gary. what's the network wifi name and password?" hahaha ... so the rest of the afternoon was spent catching up with my dad, who was busy chatting away with gary and kevin about guy stuff aka jeremy lin ALL AFTERNOON LONG. lol.

for our pre-race dinner, we were originally supposed to have a dinner with cmu friends at spasso, but decided to take my dad out separately and walked over to the meatball shop in chelsea (not to be confused with the west village meat-bola shop). conversation over dinner was much more diverse and interesting, and my dad thanked kevin for paying the bill at the end - what about MOI?? ahem.

i brought my dad about 10 years into the future by introducing him to a few new iphone apps that would simplify his life: njtransit, yelp, and uber, and then he was on his way back to penn station to take train back to holmdel with his senior citizen discounted fare. i'm loving that the apt is so close to penn station so my parents will be able to easily come and go without needing to drive in the future :)

kevin, gary, and i organized our "outfits" for the next day, went to sleep around 10:30 ... 

best: surprise visit from my dad! it was great father-daughter-SIL bonding time. also very glad he could comfortably take the train both ways, and not have to deal with driving, traffic, and parking.

worst: couldn't figure out how to turn the radiators off so the apt is super warm and dry bleghh. sleeping with the windows open and a humidifier helps a bit.

smile: listening to my dad go on and on about jeremy lin's relationship with kobe bryant, and how kobe told him to LEAD THE TEAM and that instantly gave jlin the vote of confidence to up his game. and then listening to my dad watch youtube clips of old jlin nynicks games for hours. it sounded like we had a TV on ALL afternoon, when actually none of the tv's are working yet. my dad is hilarious.