Christmas 2022

Dear Family:

Happy New Year 2023!  I hope the old saying that you should do on New Year's Day what you wish to do the rest of the year is not true: I was coughing and snorting and sneezing and generally sick as a dog!  Although, why dogs should be sicker than anyone else I do not know.

Anyway, we celebrated Christmas with our small Wilsak family, now grown to eight.  Roslyn and Dan made all the arrangements for the five of us to fly to New York to be with Sally, Alex and Sofia; since Sofia is still too young to fly.  IMO.

It was beginning to snow when we drove to the Milwaukee airport, but not badly and we were hoping to take off before the forecasted storm hit our area.  Alas, it was not to be!  At 5:45 p.m., when we were scheduled to board the plane (which we could see nestled up to its jetway) they announced that there were problems in Newark and we would now leave at 8:15 p.m.  Fortunately, the Milwaukee airport is a great place for children; they even have a play room.  Daphne had a great time running around exploring - she even got to meet a tiny dog - and wore out two parents and two grandparents.  We did indeed pull away from the gate around 8:15, but it was cold and wet enough that our plane had to be de-iced.  That took about half an hour.  At which time, the pilot announced that a small plane had landed on the only open runway and popped a tire!  By the time they pulled that plane off the runway, we had to be de-iced again.  Astonishingly, no one complained or got rowdy, and with four children under the age of 2 on the plane, it was amazingly quiet.  Dan and Roslyn had the foresight to buy a seat for Daphne, so she was comfortably ensconced in her own car seat and watching Disney princesses on her tablet.  How times have changed!  Once in the air, we had a smooth flight for about half the time; then the pilot asked us all to strap in - even the flight attendants - as they would be turbulence ahead.  Dan explained that they were going down to a lower elevation to avoid the worst of the storm, but it was still choppy.  Not too bad, though.  Since our ETA was closing in on 1:30 a.m., Roslyn decided to find us a hotel.  We had missed the last bus to Manhattan, and another hour in an Uber or whatever would be too much for Daphne.  Since it would also be too much for the grandparents, we were grateful for her efforts.  

Unfortunately, the Newark airport is not very good with signage, and it took us a long time to figure out how to get to the hotel.  When we got there, they were doing a computer update and couldn't check people in.  Again, fortunately for us we had Roslyn, who had called ahead and the receptionist had checked us in from her phone call and we could go right up to our room.  We all fell into bed and were sound asleep in minutes.  We overslept the breakfast room, but a very nice lady gave us her uneaten extra muffins and the kitchen obligingly found some milk for Daphne.  In spite of the rude people who shoved ahead of us in the airport, we encountered mostly very nice and helpful people. 

At last, Manhattan and the Lavlinskii home.  Our airbandb was literally three blocks from their apartment, so we were able to spend a lot of time all eight of us together.  Here are some photos.

 

There are more photos - notably the obligatory baby in a box with a bow on her head - but I can't figure out how to move photos from one device to another.  At any rate, we had such a good time I forgot to get a photo of all eight of us together.  Daphne was quite taken with Sofia and wanted to hold her hand.  Sofia had a few bouts of screaming mimis, and was quieted on two occasions by taking her clothes off!  I wish we had tried that with baby Sally.

The younger generation went on a few excursions, but the old folks stayed home a lot.  We babysat both babies while the others saw a Rockette extravaganza.  So, it was a great Christmas, all in all. Coming home was a great deal easier than going, and I didn't come down with my terrible cold until after we had done our grocery shopping and settled in back at home.

Happy New Year to you all!  Hope to see you in the summer.

Love,

Gilly