Last weekend, music teachers were gathered in New York City for a national conference. Naturally we had to be there! (Ric and I don’t have an ounce of musical talent between us, but we have talented friends – and they were in the City.) The boys’ piano teacher from Pullman was part of a group of college students invited to give a presentation and our dear former next door neighbors were performing for the conference. We met them all for a meal after their performance.

The route involved a stop in Times Square.

The boys don’t look so tall in this shot!

You know times are tough when Elmo’s panhandling!

Then, after a high-priority trip to the Leonida’s chocolate store we decided to cut through Central Park where I got fascinated with the trees!

They were turning green!!! None of the trees around our house, 50 miles to the north, were showing any color. I wanted to dance.

It struck me that I was catching a rare window of opportunity to see the interesting shapes of the trunks and branches with just enough color on the branches to make them pretty.

Beneath the taller trees shorter ones were blooming. Delightful.

I love it when trees make skyscrapers look insignificant.

Central Park really is beautiful. Walk with me…

…straggling along behind the guys…

…forcing them to halt when we get overwhelmed by blossoms…

….and turning around for one last look before heading back into the buildings.

It was so much fun to see familiar faces from far away and see how much the next-door baby had grown. He is SO cute!!

We got to catch up over an amazing Chinese meal.

Then it was time to head home via the subway…

….to Grand Central Station…

…and on to points north, where a time warp took us back to bare trees, but in a couple of weeks, the green will arrive!