The day of the Ball's!
We had arranged to meet up with Isabel and Mike Ball for a lovely Sunday brunch and walk in the park. Isabel was my co-worker for nearly a year in Japan and I have missed seeing her everyday. The last time we met up was in 2002 for her wedding....FIVE YEARS AGO!!! Way too long! The two have since created a lovely child by the name of Isis and she was a treat. By the end of our time together she was genuinely sad to see us go.
The whole family came from New Jersey to see us and the journey ended up taking longer than we had anticipated. The visit was way too short so I've told myself it was just a trial run for the next time we meet up. Having said that, the next time we see the Balls, 3 will have become 4. Izzy is 5 months (I think) pregnant with boy. :)

Our time together ended when we had to rush off to the airport to catch our flight. Caught the wrong train back to the hotel which put us about 30min behind schedule. Arrived at the airport in decent time, only to learn that our flight was 3 hours delayed. This meant that we would miss our connecting flight in Chicago and they wanted to re-schedule our return home. Any thoughts of heading back to Manhattan to catch Izzy, Mike and Isis were quickly dashed as we waited for an hour as a very patient man tried to get us on a flight back to Winnipeg. I knew there would only be a handful of flights coming in to Winnipeg Sunday night and that it would be next to impossible to get us on one. We were then given a hotel voucher for a hotel across the street from the airport and told we would fly out at 6am going through Denver. It wasn't even 4pm at this point so chances of a fun evening seemed possible. Unfortunately our troubles had just begun. The hotel did not want to accept the voucher from United Airlines and thus began the THREE HOUR SAGA!!! which involved going to the hotel, back to the airport and back to the hotel. At 7pm we were in our room and completely worn down.

Took a little walk through the Queens neighborhood that borders La Guardia. Lot's of kids were out on the street and some girls were having a dance-off. Back at the hotel it was room service in bed while watching The Bone Collector, a pretty good movie set in New York City.