Recap of My Parents Visit

My parents came for their 1st visit to Guilford a couple of weeks ago. They stayed for 10 days. I absolutely knew that they would LOVE Guilford with it's beautiful Green, historical homes and "quaint" New England small town feel. So when they finally arrived about 1:45am (they took a late flight and then it's an hour drive from the airport), one of my Mom's first comments were how much she loved the Green. I was hoping to get to pick them up from the airport so I could be in the car when they first saw the Green because I just knew what their reaction would be, but they ended up renting a car so they came in on their own. But I was so excited that they loved it.

We had several things planned for their first weekend. Saturday we went to a Yale football game. They played Georgetown and killed them! Matt and I hadn't been to a game yet, and it was a beautiful day for football. Matt got us some great seats, although we've now learned that it's a very tight squeeze for someone Matt size to fit. My knees were basically hitting the bench in front of us, so Matt, being 6'3", was a bit uncomfortable. I'm used to going to USC football games at the Coliseum in LA which holds about 90,000 people, so this was a considerable smaller stadium. But the weird thing was that it was probably only about 1/3 full! I know that Yale isn't really known its football, but I would think it would be a fun event to attend as a student. Football is (or should be) a part of your college experience... but that's speaking as a child brought up by USC fans who are all die-hard fans the moment they become students. Anyways, it was a lot of fun.

Afterwards we ended up going to downtown New Haven and walking around Yale. Originally I had planned on taking my parents on the Yale tour the next day, but Matt basically knows the route of the tour as well as the history and stories about the school. So he took us on a tour through Old Campus and through some libraries. When I visited Matt for the first time in February 2007, we walked around Yale and I was so impressed by it. It's exactly what you would imagine an Ivy League school to be. I didn't end up taking pictures (because my battery had died), but ended up deciding that I didn't want to take pictures of it because they wouldn't do it justice. I wanted my parents to see it for the first time with no impressions from pictures. And they definately were impressed! They couldn't get over how amazing and beautiful the school is. We walked around downtown a bit and then ended up at this pub Matt and I like that is a converted church so it's got a lot of beautiful wood work inside.

That night we went to the Guilford Fair. For those that know me well, I'm a Fair Girl. I love the Fair and go to the OC Fair every year. I was bummed to miss it this year, but was excited to go the Guilford Fair. It was really cute, considering the town of Guilford only has 24,000 people. It's a scaled down version of your typical fair, but I have to admit that I don't think I would need to go again if we were still living here next year.

On Sunday, Matt had to work, so my parents and I hung out in Mytic, CT (yes, the place where Mytic Pizza resides and the movie was filmed). It was an absolutely beautiful day out so my Dad took the scenic route up Highway 1. So it took us over 2 hours to get a place that would normally take about 45 minutes on the Interstate! But it was great and we had a great time in Mystic... including eating at Mystic Pizza.

During the week, Matt and I were working (I've got a temp job... still no permanent job!!!), so my parents drove all over CT. I think they've practically been on every scenic road in the state. But they seemed to really enjoy it and thought everything was beautiful. I'm so glad they liked it .

That weekend, Matt left for CA for 10 days so it was just my parents and me. Since the weather made a turn for the worse, and we were expecting a lot of rain that weekend, we just kept it low key. Went to a movie, checked out the shops on the Green, went out to eat. Then on Sunday we went to the Big E Fair. It a fair that represents all 6 New England states, including replicas of each states capitol building with products and food from that State. The highlight for my Mom were the Busweiser Clydesdale horses and we even got to see them dressed up and hitched up to the wagon... very impressive. Unfortunately, we ended up getting rained on about 3/4 of the way through, so we cut our visit a bit short, but overall I felt it was a great fair. They left that Monday morning, driving to OH to visit my Dad's family for the week.

We had such a great time and now I'm excited that they know of the places I'm talking about. Hopefully they'll have the chance to visit a few more times before we moved back to California.