Jay's Bday and First Class Red-Eyes!

Here is the start, there is more to come this afternoon. I wrote all of this in my journal on the train, so I am slowly typing it up! DC stories to come this weekend as well!! And PICTURES!
Hugs to all! Jess

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Wednesday began at midnight with a Mega-phone. My mom, dad, and I went running down stairs at 12 am with my Dutch megaphone screaming Happy Birthday to Justin - the big 18 year old - only to discover it was really 11:58. Damn. No worries, we did a take 2!

Later that morning, I woke him up to ask what kind of beans he wanted in his 7-layer dip I was making. We were off to a baseball game for his bday and Mom and I were busy making tailgate food. Needless to say, he was not stoked on being woken up at 7 am to be asked about beans. We also made him a special bday breakfast – egg sandwiches – and gave him the special plate to eat on.

Then it was off to the Giants game! 20 recently graduated seniors, my parents, the Renshaws, Uncle Mark and I...it was super fun! We tailgated before the game and then sat in the bleachers. Mandy, Chris Renshaw’s girlfriend, works for the Giants throwing out T-shirts, hosting games, etc. She threw T-shirts into our section (on purpose) and then found out she got to pick a fan for one of the games between innings that are on the jumbo screen. Of course she picked the birthday boy! Justin was on TV, won the game, and got about $100 worth of lottery tickets! AWESOME! After the game, we headed back to the house for Giants ice cream cake. Yummmmmmy.

In typical Stein fashion, we didn’t waste any time and headed to the airport later that same night. I always have too much luggage, but there isn’t anything I would / could eliminate. My dad surprised us and got us FIRST CLASS TICKETS! It was AWESOME! First, they brought us OJ, followed by wine, followed by a cheese platter with three different kinds of cheese, fruit, nuts, and warm bread. Then they started a movie. I figured I would watch the first few minutes as I fell asleep so I asked the flight attendant for headphones. She returned with a personal TV Jay and I with 20+ movies on it, games, TV, and noise canceling headphones! I almost shit my pants. No joke. Jay and I didn’t sleep at all - the term "red-eye" sincerely applied to us.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

After landing, we went to hotel to clean up a little. We stayed in the Hampton Inn off Times Square. Greg came and found us (he was staying in a hostel near central park for the last couple days) and we all went to eat and then went to walk around NY, shop a little, etc.

Sometime during Thursday, I decided to become a professional Karate Chopper. Whenever he wasn’t looking, I would karate chop Greg as hard as I could and then run away before he could do it back. It worked great until Saturday.

That night Greg and Russ took our family out for a “thank you for always helping us out” evening. We went to Lombardi’s, the oldest pizza place in the United States according to the National Pizza Museum. Surprisingly, it wasn’t touristy and was absolutely delicious! We had garlic, spinach, and Italian sausage pizza accompanied by NY microbrews. Russ missed his train so he didn’t make it to the restaurant until the very end, but luckily we saved him some pizza. After pizza, went to a play titled “Our Town”. It was a small production and really well done. It was a three-part play and at the second intermission Russ and Justin decided to go next door and get ice cream. In typical Russ – Justin style, they didn’t make it back in time and got locked out of the show. Hahaha – stupid boys. It was a really nice night – thanks Greg and Russ!

After the show we met up with the rest of the Forthubers (Lynne, Herb, and Chelsea) and headed to Little Italy for some real cannolis (I’m not sure how to spell that…). Basically, a Cannoli is a little cream filling in some type of shell. Cylinder shaped…? Anyway, they were delicious.

Russ and Justin headed to the bars. I headed to bed – lack of sleep on the red-eye had caught up with me!