I will jump ahead in the story. Most people now know that we are in the process of adopting a baby boy whom we call Michael (well Mikey mostly). It has been eventful; I will return to this later but I don't yet feel the time is right for that.
He has been with us now for almost four months. Due to the lengthy legal process associated with adoption we will not receive a birth certificate and hence a passport until next year. So in the meantime we rely on Skype and Facetime for family back home.
Fortunately, my parents were able to come over. In the summer months there are several operators who fly non-stop from Edinburgh to New York. This time they were coming on Delta and I really, really hoped that they would have an easy experience.
Everything looked fine - my flight tracker confirmed they took off on time and looked like they would arrive slightly early. Later in the day it kept beeping and I saw the message that they had been diverted. It turns out that a VIP (the President of the United States) had closed the airspace over Kennedy so they had to land at Newark I was amazed to see the Delta app say that they would make a second flight from Newark back to JFK (19 miles as the crow flies). Indeed, that is what happened.
I admit I am quite impressed with Delta for turning that around so quickly. The American Airlines flight was scheduled to leave three hours before but made it to JFK later than my parents'.
For their first night I used some Marriott reward points accumulated on business trips to book them into the Marriott near Central Park South. The very nice receptionist told me she was upgrading me to a better view and did I want the 55th floor, which had more windows or the 65th? I chose the 55th floor and Hatty and I went up to take a look while we waited on them to arrive from JFK.
The views were indeed spectacular.
He has been with us now for almost four months. Due to the lengthy legal process associated with adoption we will not receive a birth certificate and hence a passport until next year. So in the meantime we rely on Skype and Facetime for family back home.
Fortunately, my parents were able to come over. In the summer months there are several operators who fly non-stop from Edinburgh to New York. This time they were coming on Delta and I really, really hoped that they would have an easy experience.
Everything looked fine - my flight tracker confirmed they took off on time and looked like they would arrive slightly early. Later in the day it kept beeping and I saw the message that they had been diverted. It turns out that a VIP (the President of the United States) had closed the airspace over Kennedy so they had to land at Newark I was amazed to see the Delta app say that they would make a second flight from Newark back to JFK (19 miles as the crow flies). Indeed, that is what happened.
I admit I am quite impressed with Delta for turning that around so quickly. The American Airlines flight was scheduled to leave three hours before but made it to JFK later than my parents'.
For their first night I used some Marriott reward points accumulated on business trips to book them into the Marriott near Central Park South. The very nice receptionist told me she was upgrading me to a better view and did I want the 55th floor, which had more windows or the 65th? I chose the 55th floor and Hatty and I went up to take a look while we waited on them to arrive from JFK.
The views were indeed spectacular.
The good news is that it did not take too long for them to arrive from Kennedy.
We dropped off the bags and took a cab up to our apartment so they could meet Mikey for the first time.
The next day we hired a car and drove upstate to a house near Great Barrington, MA. All things considered Mikey traveled very well in the car. The car seat you see him in belonged to Hatty once upon a time.
The house was plenty big enough for all of us.
I think people generally had a good time.
Luckily Hatty had another day off school when we returned so she, Gran and Grandad went to Coney Island for a relaxing day by the beach before sadly it was time to return to Scotland.
