Monsters & Homecoming

I went on a quick jaunt to New York City last weekend to attend an amazing concert honoring a dear friend. It was a whirlwind 40 hours and I was fortunate to see my uncle & aunt, cousin and a handful of very dear friends in the short amount of time I was there. As you can see above, I had my picture taken with a couple of furry monsters in Times Square. After said picture, Cookie Monster started talking to me- "You make donation now?". I was all "For REAL, Cookie?", but gave him a dollar anyway. Then Elmo chimed in, "You make donation?" and I realized that you can't tip Cookie Monster and then leave Elmo hanging, so I gave him a buck as well. It turns out one of my friends had been trying to warn me that they were going to make me pay for the picture, but I was too excited about the prospect of getting a pic of me with two Sesame Street characters for Max. The look on his face when I showed him the picture was worth a MILLION dollars. :)

This weekend was Penn State's Homecoming. Normally I'd hide indoors and stay away from the craziness downtown, but something about having a super interactive 2 year old changed things this year. The weather has been GOR-GEOUS this weekend, so we spent the bulk of yesterday afternoon walking around campus. My ultimate goal was to take him to hear the Alumni Blue Band play whilst eating Creamery ice cream. I ended up heading in the complete opposite direction at first, thus our long walk. We arrived at the Alumni House just in time to hear the last 10 minutes of their concert AND meet the Nittany Lion! We were fortunate to get a really great spot in front of Old Main for the parade, too. We waited about 45 minutes and just as Max was starting to get testy, lo and behold- a firetruck! He was in it to win it from then on. Tractors, light up floats, bands- he had a blast. We definitely have a little percussionist on our hands, too. He loved the bands all around, but whenever the rhythm section marched past he went totally bonkers- screaming, clapping, screeching, you name it! Michael has decided he'll need to take up the bass so we have a whole rhythm section. We'll be on the road like the Partridge Family before you know it!