On Saturday afternoon Matt got home, his mom and sister arrived shortly after and his aunt and cousin arrived in the city late that night. Sunday around noon we all met in the city @ Union Square where we shopped and walked before heading to Little Italy for what quickly became a series of events that would make for the best day we've had in NYC so far!

It all started with a fun subway ride down to Little Italy where we almost lost Matt's cousin Tabitha because she suddenly jumped back on the subway car thinking she left her phone, luckily we had a small overnight bag for Matt's mom and sister that they were able to shove in the door and Tab leaped for freedom over the bag as laughter ensued. We walked into Little Italy towards a restaurant called La Mela. The afternoon was perfect a crisp breeze made the sun seem less intrusive than it had been in previous days. We sat on the sidewalk, enjoyed a huge bottle of the best house wine I've ever had, talked and enjoyed the amazing food. We chose to do family style where you don't pick the meal, they just start bringing you course after course. First caprizi salad, gorgeous tomatoes, thick slices of the freshest mozzarella and fragrant fresh basil all drizzled with yummy EVOO! The second course, grilled mozzarella wrapped in something buttery and delish, mushroom caps filled with sun dried tomatoes and cheese and roasted asparagus and red peppers, God could it get better? Why yes it can, as the waiter softly placed a massive tray of pastas on our table Gnocchi in marinara and cheese bubbling on top. Fresh tri-color cheese tortellini in a crazy yummy cream & marinara sauce. The third pasta was rigatoni in fresh tomato sauce with fresh basil ever so perfectly scattered on top.

Tabitha with a very sleepy D in Little Italy...

Now that's a milk drunk baby!

We couldn't resist his face was just to perfect for this shot!

So as you can imagine by this point we were all getting a little tipsy and very full, but there were still two courses to go ?! We went ahead and "forced" ourselves to eat the meat course with buttery lemon chicken, shrimp in marinara sauce and roasted garlic chicken. We decided to stop before the desert course because we wanted to go someplace else after our show. We finished our wine (seriously yummy) and started walking back towards the subway, when the next memorable moment happened...we saw a limo, he noticed the size of our group and Jeri (Matt's Aunt) and Matt went over to negotiate, not sure what they decided on but the next thing we all knew we were in the back of a white stretch limo traveling the streets of Manhattan. Singing horribly loud and laughing. It was D's first limo ride!

We got to Jeri's hotel unloaded and headed upstairs to get freshened up for our next adventure...BROADWAY! We went to see "Mama Mia" which I highly recommend it was fabulous and hilarious! I don't know many ABBA songs but it didn't matter the "older" couple sitting next to me knew every word! We left the show and headed to a favorite desert place of mine and Matt's called Juniors off 45th & Broadway they have amazing 7 layer cakes & awesome cheesecake (that's what they're known for) so we sat and talked and ate and laughed before heading back to the hotel where I picked up Matt and Deals and the three of us headed towards home. We got to the ferry just in time for 12:30 am departure and thank goodness we did, because after that the next one wasn't until 1:30....aahhh! It was an amazing day in the city for sure the first of many memorable moments.

Not sure why we were so surprised about our love of Little Italy after all Matt has professed for years that his love of Italian food means he must be Italian...well while I'm pretty sure there isn't an ounce of Italian in my fair skinned freckled faced husband, I am sure that our love of all things Italian runs deep and we can't wait for many more lovely dinners on the streets of Little Italy followed with more amazing Broadway musicals! We are definitely learning about great places to take all our friends when they come visit so book your trips now, we can't wait to share our NY with all of you!

And here's a few pics of our sweet boy!