bye, Graeme.

So sad around here on Saturday afternoon. Graeme left us and flew back home to England. We had such a great time while he was here with us. So great. Some of the highlights from the trip: I took Graeme into NYC on Wednesday and brought him to his first Broadway show- he chose Phantom of the Opera. Thankfully, he (said at least) really liked it. Well, he didn’t fall asleep, so that’s something. Went out to dinner after the show, did some walking around Times Square and headed home. Luckily for Graeme, his friends were in town with NOGA while he was here so he had some people to pal around with (read: go out drinking with) at night.

My favorite…we went to the mall during the week and of course stopped in at Abercrombie and Fitch, and not surprisingly, they asked Graeme if he wanted a job there…again. Even though he has a great job he is starting really soon at Microsoft in England, I still think he should just blow it off, move here, and work at the mall. Don’t think that’s happening though.

On the way to the beach on Saturday, we stopped in front of Trainland to get a picture of Graeme in front of the store and also in front of the Bobby Bacala sign they have in the window. For those of you unfamiliar, Trainland is the store in which Bobby Bacala from the Sopranos was whacked in the last few episodes. Graeme is a big Sopranos fan and was so excited about seeing the store. He also made me play the Journey song "Don’t Stop Believing" from the season finale a bunch of times in the car.

I also asked Graeme if he would record our outgoing answering machine message with his awesome accent, which he did. So if you call my house and get a voice you don’t recognize, now you know who it is! I also MADE Graeme let me take a few pictures of him. They came out super- but what can you expect from a subject like that. I couldn’t really do a bad job.

We will really miss him a lot. The big boys were hysterically crying at the beach when they had to say goodbye. Thankfully, John had tickets to the Brooklyn Cyclones (Mets minor league baseball team) on Saturday night, so they went straight from the beach to the game which helped them keep their minds off Graeme leaving (I know Graeme…sell outs!) and they didn’t have to do the traumatic airport run with me. Even I got a little teary at the airport. And then Timmy started in with "see coach graeme again?" and I had to drive away fast before I really lost it. I hate goodbyes. But the good news is that for work Graeme might be travelling to the USA for work a few times a year so there is a little hope that we might see him again.

Yeah, you’d be sad too. Admit it.