NYC - Friday & Saturday

It was time for Campbell's annual trip to see Dr. Trifiletti. Although she is doing so much better, we thought we better just go in case something happens during the year we don't want to have to take her on a trip if she gets bad again. Gabe left the day before for work & Campbell and I flew out early morning on Friday. Deb, Paul & Ginia mom came to watch the boys. Campbell woke up at 4 bouncing off the walls so excited. Made it to our hotel in Lower Manhattan, dropped off our stuff and met Olyvia for lunch.

Here we go! Flight went super fast.

Campbell is so excited for the trip. But then going to bed at 10:30 the night before because she waited up for Nana, Papa & Giniamom to get there and waking up at 4am caught up with her in the Uber on the way to the hotel.

 

Nice view of the Satue of Liberty from our room.

View of the new Trade Center from the elevator. 

Look who we ran into on our way to meet Olyvia. He was dropping his stuff off and on his way to more meetings so just said hi quick. 

Lunch with Olyvia. Fun to see her. 

 I thought Campbell would like to go to the Hayden Planetarium (inside the American Museum of Natural History) since she has been into stars lately. I thought it would work out since shows are every 30 minutes. I didn't want to get my expectations up for doing too much since she was so sick with anxiety last time. Thought this would be easy, flexible thing to do.

The Dark Universe show was neat. Made me feel so small. Hard to comprehend things like how everything is moving away from everything. Also interesting that after the Big Bang things were moving slow at first and now speeding up. 

Went to a couple rooms in the Museum....so much to see that you could spend weeks looking at everything. It was so amazing and Campbell loved it all.

  

 

Campbell & Olyvia

Then onto Central Park which was right across the street. I had seen that the Alice of Wonderland statue was on the other side of the park as the Museum, so off we went. It took about 20 minutes following windy paths in the woods to get from the West side to East. The park wasn't anything like I had imagined or seen in movies. We were in the middle of nature with cool views of the city every once in a while and Campbell joyfully skipped, climbed rocks and chased birds all the way through.

  

Campbell recognized this quote from her Alice in Wonderland play with Aunt Anna last summer

We found it!

Beautiful views. It was nice and quiet in the park since it was cold. 

 

Then we headed back to the West side of the park so that Olyvia could catch the train back to campus. So fun to spend the afternoon with her, hard to imagine she was our little flower girl not all that long ago. 

The Uber ride turned interesting when we kept being blocked from getting to our hotel by police who wouldn't let people turn so we were forced into the Brooklyn Tunnel. We still couldn't get turned around as exits were closed without warning. We finally got back to the hotel about an hour later than we should have. Found out later that El Chapo was in Brooklyn for his trial so that is why police were everywhere and everything was blocked off. Had about 5 minutes to change and then Gabe, Tony & Marie picked us up for dinner at Micheal's back in Brooklyn.

The chef came and made sure we were ok and the waiter, Enzo, was so fun. Started out with tons of delicious bread, cheese & olives. Then came the seafood antipasto.

Campbell tried every single thing. Shrimp, mussels, scallops, squid. I couldn't believe how brave she was to try...I didn't even brave the mussels & she ate 3!

They made Sunday dinner special for us even though it was Friday. Pasta with plate full of delicious meatballs, sausage & braciole.

 

 

Enzo said they had never made a dessert plate so big. I was stuffed, but the cannoli was amazing. 

The drive at night over the Brooklyn Bridge is a beautiful view of the city. Campbell fell asleep on the drive back to the hotel. She was such a trooper. Think dinner lasted over 3 hours.

Woke up the next day and we were all still stuffed from the night before. Grabbed coffee and light breakfast at Starbucks and then took an hour long Uber ride to New Jersey.  The 2.5 hour appointment was well worth the trip. I feel like we are in the presence of a celebrity with Dr. Trifiletti. He is brilliant and has an unbelievable amount of of knowledge as he has treated something like 4,000 PANDAS kids. The genetic testing we went over was so interesting and makes sense with what we are seeing for lingering symptoms. Will try a new supplement to help fix her MTRR mutation. Truly, we owe Campbell being well again completely to him and told him several times how grateful we are.

Back to the hotel for a short rest and then off to dinner with Tony & Marie at a sushi place.

Another long, fun filled day.