Monster Thanksgiving Fun Post

This was our first Thanksgiving away from family since we've been married. I feel like I'm too young to worry about turkeys, stuffing, and the like - so we decided to have our party in New York!

It was truly a crazy idea to begin with, but we knew that going into it. We sure had fun though!

On Wednesday we drove to a train station in New Jersey. We parked our car, hopped aboard, and ended up in Penn Station in New York City. This was probably the easiest travel we have had since we've been out here. It took a mere 2 hours 15 minutes to go from our place in PA to downtown NYC. Not too shabby.

So, I made two important observations on this family vacation. First, New York is a lot of WALKING and WAITING. Second, two-year-olds have SHORT LEGS and SHORT ATTENTION SPANS. This made for a very interesting trip. :) I can't say that the trip was melt-down free, but I can say we had a really good time.

We enjoyed looking at the store windows decorated for Christmas:



Unfortunately, we opted not to do the ice skating. I've got a pretty big belly at five months pregnant, and we figured Mia was just a little too small to really enjoy it. (Plus, she was really cold).



We did like watching this guy carve an ice sculpture:



We had fun walking around the Macy's at Herald Square the night before their big Thanksgiving Day Parade. They had all the grandstands set up, they were doing sound checks, they were starting to block off the roads etc. The Macy's itself was beautifully decorated and SO CROWDED.

Thanksgiving morning the plan was to get up early and watch the big parade. So, we, well I, woke up at 6am so we could leave our hotel by 6:30. Ryan got up and got dressed too - and then there was Mia. She is just not a morning person. Her idea of getting up involves drinking a couple of bottles, rolling around in bed, lounging in pajamas, and watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse for 3 hours, and then waking up. So, we weren't able to get out until closer to 7. (Some people had been waiting since 4:30am) It was a little rough...but we survived. None of us loved walking around for an hour trying to find a spot among the other 2.5 MILLION PEOPLE (I looked that number up), none of us enjoyed standing around in the cold for another hour waiting for the parade to start, but all of us enjoyed watching the first half of the parade. Mia got a kick out of the balloons :) I think her favorites were the fish and Dora.





As you can tell from our pics, we didn't have a fabulous view. :) In fact, we probably saw the second half of the parade better - because it was only about 4 feet from the TV in our hotel room (and it was warm).

This picture sums up Mia's feelings about being outside early in the cold.



But, this one gives me some hope that she enjoyed the parade at least a little bit:



This picture of the three of us turned out pretty well.



We ate our Thanksgiving Dinner later that afternoon at Virgil's BBQ in Times Square. Unfortunately, we forgot our camera!!! :( I was severely bummed about that). We enjoyed some ribs, chicken,and brisket. We're not bbq fanatics or anything, but this was good. There were lots and lots of restaurants serving Thanksgiving dinner, and most of them were crowded! From the two times that I've been in New York, I'd say that half the people there are tourists. I love that there are always lots of kids & families. We were by no means the only crazy people carrying a two year old around the Big Apple.

We enjoyed seeing lots of Christmas decorations while we were there. Our hotel was pretty:





The poor lighting and my photography skills don't do it justice. We stayed at the Hyatt (thank you priceline.com) right next to Grand Central Station in New York.

(Yes, when we were getting in the car we listened to the traffic report and heard the reporter say "There is news of a potential terrorist attack on the New York subway system this weekend" - and yes, I almost thought we should stay home instead.)

Grand Central Station is BEAUTIFUL. The architecture of the building is just amazing, but it has really poor lighting - so it's really hard to get a good picture. I took a couple of pictures - but they are too blurry to post. While we were there though, this really nice guy saw me taking pictures of Ryan & Mia and offered to take one of our whole family:



I want everyone to know that people in New York are really very courteous! Even the cab drivers usually said hello to us before they asked where we wanted to go. Nice people.

The day after Thanksgiving, we decided to see the Statue of Liberty. I told Mia that we were going to go see a princess so that she would be more interested. So she kept running around all day talking about "The princess statue of Liberty Bell". (Ever since we saw the liberty bell in Philly she has talked about the liberty bell.)

We started out at Battery Park on the very southern end of Manhattan. You can see the Statue from there. We had to wait in line for an hour and a half. Mia was not loving this, neither was I, neither was Ryan. It was windy and cold.



Mia did like the boat ride though.



The view of Manhattan from the island is really awesome - you can see it behind us here:



The Stature Herself is phenomenal. I loved seeing Her in person - it was worth all of the waiting, cold, and several family-meltdowns.





This pictures is taken inside of the "processing room" on Ellis Island. This room is where all of our ancestors who passed through Ellis Island stood and waited to be admitted to the country. Mia is rubbing her eyes - that sums up everyone's feelings at this point of the trip. ;)



When we got back to Manhattan after seeing the Statue of Liberty, we walked up through the financial district. Wall Street and the New York Stock Exchange are all down on the southern end of the island.





This is my blurry attempt to take a picture of the Broad street/Wall street signs.



And I included this one just for my Mother dear. Inside the car there are some of New York's finest equipped with Machine Guns. :) There were TONS of police officers all around town.



Phew! The last exciting thing we did while in New York was to pay the ridiculous amount to go to the Top of the Rock - that is the top of Rockefeller Center (where my favorite friends Meredith Viera and Matt Lauer do the Today Show). The view was extraordinary. I couldn't believe it. It was dusk when we got there - so we saw the view during the day time, and then after it got completely dark (at 4:50, it gets dark so early). It was awesome to see how the East River and the Hudson River cut out the island of Manhattan, I couldn't believe how many tall buildings there were for miles and miles around, and then you could see the big square that makes Central Park. It really was awesome.









Well, that was our crazy trip to New York. It was a lot of fun! I'm glad we did it! But, it was also a LOT of work, walking, and waiting in the cold. :)

The other nice thing we were able to do while there was Ryan & I took turns attending a session in the Manhattan Temple. The Manhattan Temple is a small temple, but it is GORGEOUS. I couldn't believe how beautiful it was. It was probably the prettiest one I've ever been in.

So all in all - it was a good trip! Happy Thanksgiving!