Day 4 and 5 in the Big Apple

Day 5 - Mary Poppins

I won't even attempt to go through the events of this evening, except to say Nicki did an excellent job driving in Times Square, she was under a lot of stress. The plan was to drive to the city, go to dinner at yet another of her favorite restaurants, then hail a taxi to Times Square. We had the wrong address for dinner and ended up missing our reservation and didn't have enough time to eat anyway, so we just got in the car to drive closer to Times Square. Nicki was very frustrated at this point, as she wanted to show me a really great time in the city (again). The whole parking thing was just crazy. We were in Times Square before we knew it and we were aghast to think the meters were charging us .50/12 minutes. We were too frazzled at that point to figure out it was much cheaper than the $50.00 parking lot we found a few minutes later. It is much better reading it from Nicki's point of view. Click here - it is funny and entertaining. From my point of view, I didn't care that we missed dinner, it would have been nice, but I was just happy to be with Nicki going to Mary Poppins. This is a must-see. I loved it much better than Wicked and even Mama-Mia. (Hard to believe, I know).

Day 4 - Sunday

Sunday was my day to meet everyone in Nicki's ward and all her friends.  So here we go from left to right: McKay, Nicki, Josh (I think, and apologize if I have his name wrong), Stacey, Ethan, Barrett and Alli. This is a fun group of young adults and I love that Nicki has an association with these kids. They were great. 

After meetings we stayed at the church for "munch and mingle" (only in  a singles ward), then went to the Murphy's house for games later. McKay works for Brother Murphy and they were out of town so had asked McKay to house-sit. Having the gang over was an approved activity (I think). We played a couple of games that required fast thinking and it was apparent that my mind was the oldest one there, as I had a hard time keeping up with these young fresh minds. This was a going away party for Ethan (blue tee shirt). Ethan is from Providence and Nicki just happened to run into him in the city one day when she first moved to New York. She knew him from high school. That day he invited her to a party with his friends and also to attend church in this ward. Funny thing is, Nicki was fasting and praying that weekend to find a place to go to church where she felt she could find friends and a good social network (prayer answered!). Ethan has been working as a "manny" out there and now he is on his way to Scotland for a week of fun and frolic, then back to Providence to visit his family, then off to Alaska to work on the docks. He is one cool, adventurous guy.

Ethan is the one who introduced Nicki and McKay (more on that later), hence the sandwich hug. 

This is McKay impressing us with his "man skills" (tearing a paper towel). It is not a man-bra!!!