Baby Iauco: Father’s Day In The ‘Cuse

We packed up the car last weekend to make the trek up to Syracuse so that we could meet the newest addition to the extended family, the one-and-only Mr. Jack Daniel Cerrone. We were expecting a nasty drive, but ended up being pleasantly surprised to make it door-to-door in fewer than six hours. The drive is actually quite nice, shooting straight through Pennsylvania and up through the Endless Mountain chain of the Appalachians. It is odd to think that we can drive to Upstate New York in the same amount of time that it takes us to get back home to Winston-Salem.

We had a lot of extended family come into town to see Jack, Mary Grace, James and Owen for the first time. People on the Iauco side are spread out across the country, so we don’t typically get to see each other as often as we would like. This was the first time that Mary Grace was able to meet her Great-Grandpa and Great-Grandma Iauco, so needless to say she was very excited.

We rolled into town just after midnight on Thursday, and we were lucky enough to be staying with my cousins John and Kelly Cerrone (Jack’s parents) at their super-nice home. Because they are awesome, they were still awake, waiting for us to arrive. We were all exhausted from long days of working, driving, childrearing and so forth, so we ogled each other’s babies for a few minutes and then hit the sack. We had to get some rest if we were going to spend the next three days passing babies around and eating copious amounts of my grandmother’s Italian cooking, which is legendary.

The following morning we introduced Jack and Mary Grace, and they immediately hit it off. Just like with Henry the weekend before, Mary Grace was smiling at Jack and having a grand time playing with all of his toys. John even made the effort to construct the rain forest bouncer that was being stored in the basement until Jack was of age. It was so nice to be around other parents who are of similar age, so we spent a lot of time just talking about the everyday trials and tribulations of having kids. We cannot thank John and Kelly enough for making us feel so at home.

The entire weekend was a blast, and Mary Grace and Jack were spoiled rotten, of course. Our younger cousins could not wait to hold the babies, even though Mary Grace is almost as big as half of them. We visited, caught up on people’s lives and enjoyed wonderful food and pleasant company. We made sure to venture out to Onondaga Lake to run the trails around the shore, and had lunch at the Dinosaur barbecue restaurant that doubles as a biker bar. Great barbeque for a northern town, so if you are ever in Syracuse or Harlem, check them out.

The weekend went by pretty quickly, and before we knew it, it was time to head back to Washington. I got to celebrate the morning of my first Father’s Day with both my Father and my Grandfather, so that was nice. The rest of the day was spent in the car driving back home, but Mary Grace kept us entertained with her baby-talk from the back seat. Before we drove home, my Grandmother cooked us an unbelievable lunch of baked ziti, rigatoni, meatballs, Italian sausage and fresh bread from Columbus Baking Company, which has been making Italian bread in a century old brick oven for over 118 years.

It was so good to see everyone, and we want to give a special "Thank You" to John, Kelly and Jack for being such good hosts.