Uncle Mark's Visit

I have said this many times but just in case you missed it, we LOVE visitors.  Blake and Carly were counting down to Uncle Mark's visit.  He arrived on Saturday evening by train from a conference he attended in DC.  The weather was so nice so we walked to our favorite pizza place for a slice and a beer.  Blake and Carly were immediately glued to him!

Sunday morning while getting ready for church the kids invited Uncle Mark to have his coffee in their room.

 After church we enjoyed a picnic in central park before heading to Chelsea for the afternoon.

 Uncle Mark took us to see an elevated park called the High Line.  http://www.thehighline.org/  It was pretty amazing.  They took an old train depot and turned it into a park that is 30 feet in the air, built over top of the old elevated tracks.  It was beautiful and a great view!
Near the end there was a water feature that kids could play in.  They loved it!

 Avery really enjoyed it and I couldn't let go of her hands because she so badly wanted to just sit down and roll around.

 After the High Line we headed to Chelsea Market for a snack and too cool off.

 Walking through the market...

 On our way home we found several of the Life Underground pieces.  After the kids found one, the were spotting them everywhere in the subway.  http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/artwork_show?21

The kids headed back to school on Monday and although it rained we braved the weather to meet one of Uncle Mark's friends for breakfast and then went to Wall Street to see a few buildings and shop at Century 21.  Avery and I stuck it out in Century 21 for a couple hours....you know to stay out of the rain. :)

We picked up the kids from school on our way back from downtown.  I loved how Uncle Mark jumped right into our routine.  He was definitely preferred over me, even by friends.

Some Birthday Love...they knew he was going home in the morning and neither were too happy about it.  Bonus points for Uncle Mark for teaching Blake how to play monopoly on the Kindle and for letting Carly play Angry Birds on his iPad.

Monday was Uncle Mark's birthday.  Carly, my gift giver, had already prepared a homemade book for him and then made a card for his birthday as well.  We got a sitter so the adults could go out on Monday night to celebrate and my cousin Nate happened to be in town for business so he joined us.  We had the BEST time!  Can't wait to see them all again at Nate's wedding in a couple of weeks.

Nate came to the apartment before dinner to see the kids.  I think Uncle Mark felt a little less special after Carly hopped up in Nate's lap as soon as he sat down.

We headed out to dinner at a nearby Mexican Restaurant which was completed by singing waiters!  If you can't tell from the picture, we were way more amused by this than Uncle Mark was.

It was such a special weekend!  We were so grateful  that Uncle Mark made the time to come and visit us!

















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