Mumphy's NYC Birthday!!!!

Mom turned the big 5-9 on December 12th. We celebrated that night with a family trip to Fiore's restauraunt in Middletown. Delicious! I (Sarah) also made a Devil's Food Birthday Cake (which turned out more like a brownie....because...by accident....a whole extra stick of butter somehow ended up in the batter. But good nonetheless!)

We weren't able to celebrate her milestone with Suzanne until the following weekend, when we traveled to NYC. The drive down wasn't so great, because it snowed like crazy the night before, and the roads just weren't cleared, to say the least. But we made it safe and sound. We started the trip at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum where we toured an actual tenement from the turn of the century. It was fascinating to see the cramped conditions that our nation's immigrants endured and the lengths they went to make it in the big city. What was most amusing was the fact that all 14 people in our tour group were coincidentally Jewish-folk...but our tour guide was not. So he had a difficult time in showing us anything new (we already knew about mezzuzah's, sitting shivah, kosher kitchens, and even the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire), but he was a great sport.

After that, I (Sarah) played chauffeur and drove Mumphy and Sonji to the various holiday windows around midtown. Every year, we are particularly impressed with the Bergdorf Goodman displays. This year was no exception!

Mumphy admires a spectacular Bergdorf window!

After this, we met my friend Pamela (who works at the Tenement Museum and got us the tickets...thanks Pamela!) for dinner. Instead of a boring fancy dinner, we decided to check out "Curry Row," which is famous for it's authentic Indian restaurants which are bedazzled with obscene amounts of lighted decor. And they did not disappoint!

The dinner crew (Mumphy, Sarah, Suzanne, and Pamela) enjoy the ambiance!

We told our waiter "Balu" that it was Mumphy's birthday. So they flipped a switch, and the lights began to flash to the most festive Bollywood music of all time! They even sang to her and gave her mango ice cream with a candle!

At the end of the evening, we dropped Sonji off at her apartment, where she gave Mumphy a beautiful umbrella. Happy Birthday to the best mom of all time!