McCann's visit

We have so much fun having friends come for visits!  It sounds completely crazy, and if you knew how tiny our little house is, you would know it's crazy trying to squeeze any extra people in it at all.  We love having a packed place though, and with good friends, even sharing one bathroom seems to workout alright!

 (Linc sporting this huge frog that James caught near the canal, it peed all over me while trying to take it back, Lincoln was thrilled to hold it though, so I guess it was worth it.)

We really were able to do so much while they were here.  We tried to make sure they got to see all of the amazing church history sites, which is always amazing.  I watched Paige one night so they could go to the temple, and visit the sacred grove and such.  It's impossible to visit those places without feeling a little aw inspired , this is where it all began.  

We also had our traditional sushi dinner, which proved to be a bit difficult around here.  New York has many many things to brag about, sushi is definitely not one of them.  We still had a blast.  James and Josh still had their contest of who can stomach the grossest cuisine.  They ordered raw squid, a big old hunk of it.  Josh chewed on it for a few minutes, he started to look a bit green and we all thought he was going to loose all the contents of his stomach any second.  He gave up and spit it into a napkin.  James followed suit.  They teased each other and confessed there to be no bigger "man" present, until they decided to start also torturing the innocent.  I know that your all thinking why didn't we as mothers stop this terrible game, but I have to say I think we both wondered what they would think of this strange food.  Paige spit hers out immediately(smart girl), as did Lincoln on his first try.  The big surprise of the night was Oliver.  He loved it.  He kept asking for more, until he almost single handedly ate the entire chunk of raw squid on his own.  I guess it goes to show that we all come into this world ready to try pretty much anything, and ready to give anything a chance.  It's not until we realize that every other kid around is only eating PB&J, grilled cheese, pizza, pasta(and the list of American kid fair goes on) when we decide that we no longer can stomach anything strange and different.  A little sad really, I couldn't even try it.  Purely psychological for me, can't do it!  So I guess I just sat back with a little pride as I witnessed my sweet little baby chew on this slab of fishy tire.  He really like it! It amazed me.

Unfortunately Amy's stomach didn't recover for the rest of her trip.  Lesson: don't eat sushi in New York

Oliver seemed to have a bit of an audience after this, and as we left the restaurant I put him down to let him splash in some puddles, one of his most favorite things.  The kids all joined in and had so much fun.  I love watching kids have so much fun with the simple things like puddles.  Anyway, as I looked around I noticed we had quite a little audience of looker ons, all watching our adorable kids let loose, and probably wanting to join in themselves, don't we all.  Some perfect strangers mind you, even started snapping pictures.  Little weird perhaps, but I can understand them wanting to capture, as we did just a little piece of this sweet moment, and to take with them.

We biked, jogged, fished, fed ducks and also took some paddle boats out on the Erie canal, which truly is all by itself and endless entertainer.  We love having it so close.  We hit the children's museum, always fun, Paige however didn't like the butterflies so much , it was pretty funny.  

We even made sure they experienced an official garbage plate, which got rave reviews from all, no surprise, so so good!  We also hit one of our other favorite restaurants for some Ethiopian food.  We could tell James and Amy needed some convincing at first, it's not in the greatest part of town, and upon entering doesn't look like much.  The food and traditional eating experience, however, are in my opinion five stars.

(Much better experience at this Ethiopian place!)

James and Josh explored some of the abandoned subway tunnels, Scary, they had fun though.  He tells about their funny adventure on his blog www.joshferrin.com.

We hope in the end that they had as much fun as we did.  I think they said they wouldn't mind just moving here, which we wouldn't mind either, in fact it's a great idea!  I loved having the company in the evenings, and find myself a little lonely now.  We had so much fun and can't wait for their next visit, thanks McCanns for all of your friendships.