An Early Christmas

Yesterday, my Dad and Colleen came out for a visit.

They got here around 12:30 and brought lunch for us. Avery saw them for a few mintues before she went down for her nap. When she woke up, we decided to exchange our Christmas presents. We'll see my Dad on Christmas Eve, but we have several stops to make that day, so I'm not sure how much time we'll have with them. Instead of rushing through gifts, we decided to do them yesterday.

Papa opening a gift from us:

And Avery opening her present:

I was anxious to see what Avery thought of the presents...and honestly, she didn't care. She helped open 2 of hers, then she didn't want anything to do with them. I guess next year will be her year to get into the holiday. Which explains why our gifts under the tree haven't been touched-she couldn't care less!

Gabe's parents also came by for dinner (which Gabe and I made) which was nice. They haven't seen my Dad since Avery's birthday back in June.

We had a very nice visit and early Christmas celebration!

It's Crunch Time!

Christmas day is officially 9 days away!

Crazy, isn't it?!

I'm totally feeling the crunch this week. Our Xmas cards arrived way later than I thought, so last night Gabe and I addressed them all and got them ready to put in the mail today.

I started wrapping things, but still have a bit to go with that-and it's so time consuming! And that's just to get paper on them, not even to make them look pretty with ribbons, etc.

I'm happy to say my shopping is done though and has been for about a week or so, so at least I don't have that hanging over my head. And I baked cookies for my ornament party in the beginning of the month, so those are done too.

So honestly, I don't know why I feel the stress of the holidays, but I do! I think I'll feel better when everything is wrapped and under the tree, ready to go.

Time is a tickin'!

Start Spreading the News....

I'm leaving today!

Well, yesterday actually!

There was a little snafu with us getting home from NYC. Our flight was supposed to be at 1pm yesterday and we found out around 9pm Saturday night that our flight was cancelled! Luckily Gabe has an Iphone so he gets his emails right away (otherwise we would have been screwed) so he called as soon as we got the email. We found out there were 2 other flights they could put us on...one at 9am and one at 8pm. We opted for the later one so that we didn't have to wake up and get Avery up at the crack of dawn to make it to the airport on time. So, we had another day to spend in the city, which was a nice surprise....

except....

we woke up to it pouring rain outside!

We ended up lounging around in the room until about noon trying to figure out what to do-it's hard getting anywhere without being outside.

While deciding, I realized I never took any pics of our room.

Here's the living area (AKA Avery's room):

And our room: (we luckily were able to get a suite so we didn't have to be in one room, which would have made it hard for her to go to bed)


Around noon we decided to head somewhere to eat. A coworker of mine suggested a place called Jackson Hole, so we thought we'd try it out. Avery and Gabe ready to eat!

Let's just say we were not disappointed! My coworker said they have "burgers the size of your head"....well, whaddya think??

That was Gabe's burger-mine was just as big-I swear it was one of the best I've ever had! So yummy!

After lunch we stopped back at the hotel to get the stroller then did some walking up Broadway. Avery fell asleep along our walk again and we actually had to wake her up to get on the subway to go to the airport!

Our flight was at 8pm, but we got delayed so we didn't take off until around 8:45 or so. By the time we got our luggage and got home, it was close to 10:30...and Avery didn't fall asleep the entire way home! So it was a late night for all of us and we were up bright and early today for work.

But it was worth it! My first trip there was a lot of fun and I'd love to go back. I feel like we didn't see everything...we never saw Central Park or the statue of liberty...so even for those I'd like to go back someday.

I will say I never expected the city to be so big...it's HUGE! To think you can take a 45min subway ride and still be within the city is just crazy to me! The subway system is incredible-whomever designed the city and railways is a genius! The one subway stop we were at was like 3 or 4 levels/floors of tracks-just insane! And I couldn't get over the amount of people there. Every street corner had hundreds of people waiting to cross with you. And the stores were a mob scene. I have no idea how people accomplish any shopping with that many people in your way.

The one thing that disappointed me was that it is very handicap/stroller unfriendly. The subway was very difficult with the stroller-going up/down 4 flights of stairs is a real hassle. Some stores had no elevators but were multiple levels...so Avery was stuck on the main floor. Some restaurants/cafes didn't allow strollers so we couldn't go in them. I wish that were a little different....it made parts of the trip a pain in the rear.

Overall I think we all had a great time!

Day 2 in The Big Apple

Today we were up and out of the hotel by 9:30 to get sightseeing!



But first, a few more shots out of our hotel window....the hotel across from us:
And a little city view:

We decided to start at 5th Avenue to check out the shops!

St. Patrick's Cathedral:

View of the side:

The Cartier store (this was my favorite outdoor decor):

Fendi and Tommy Hilfiger:

Armani:

Trump Tower:

Burberry:

We took a little detour from 5th and went up to 3rd to see Dylan's Candy Bar. Wow, this place was a candy heaven! Although it wasn't stroller friendly so Gabe stayed with Avery while I checked out the 3 story building! They had everything you can imagine! They had one area where celebrities picked their favorite candy and put it in an autographed box. I had to take a pic of the Yankees:

Our other detour was FAO Schwarz. We went in through some random side entrance we saw and thank God we did....when we left the store, the line to enter the store wrapped around the building and went almost all the way down the block! And the entrance we went in was blocked off so you had to wait in line. We got lucky because there was no way we would have waited. Anyways, the place was a mob scene-I have no idea how people shop in NYC because most stores we went into was wall to wall people. I don't know how you accomplish anything like that!

Here's a jellybean soldier in FAO:

A pic of the first floor craziness in FAO...again, it was a 3 story store.

When we left FAO, we passed Rockefeller Center again so I got another pic:

And I had to get one of my trooper in her pigtails!
When we left FAO, we stopped at Cafe Metro for lunch, which was pretty good. Then it was off to do more walking! We decided to go back to 5th Ave and work our way down to Macy's. Very close to Macy's was the Empire State Building...this is us right at it:

Family shot in front of the Empire State Building:

A view of it as we got closer to Macy's:

Macy's:

Macy's was pretty impressive inside. On 5th Ave, we really didn't go into too many stores, just looked at them from the outside. Macy's was decorated like you wouldn't believe. And the store is HUGE. It's 9 floors full of shopping and each floor is probably bigger than any Macy's you've been to. It's insane. This is the entrance (see all of the people?!):

The ceiling decorations (just one small section...the entire ceiling is like this):

We decided to take Avery to see Santa while at Macy's....little did we know it would take us an hour and a half to see him!! And the line to see him and the way they had it configured throughout the store was pretty impressive...it went through office areas and wound around so many times-it was amazing! And in the end we found out there is more than one Santa working (ssssh!). Here is Gabe and Avery waiting in line:

Avery and I in line:

Finally within a few minutes of seeing Santa! At his train!

Inside the train:

Once you passed through the train, you entered The North Pole-more winding lines to wait in! Gabe, Avery and the tree:

A tree they had set up with a train around it:

Needless to say, when we made it to Santa, she didn't want to sit with him. So, we got a family photo of all of us with Santa with her just about ready to have a meltdown! Of course we didn't get one with our camera!

On our walk back, we hit up a bakery I spotted for some dessert later:

Can I have one of these for my next birthday?!

Then we went to dinner at Daniela Restaurant which was very good. After that, it was back to our hotel...

Like I said, we left around 9:30am and got back probably after 7pm. We did so much walking...I tried to map it out and it was at least 5miles! To give you an idea, we started at our hotel (Broadway and 48th) then made it to 5th and E60th (with some detours as well) then walked to Macy's with is at 34th, then back to the hotel. Avery was great being in her stroller most of the time and we were pretty beat by the time we got back!

New York State of Mind

Today we left for a weekend in New York City!

Gabe has been numerous times, but never for the holidays. I have NEVER been...can you believe it?! Gabe had enough hotel points saved up that our room would be free, so we decided to experience the Big Apple for Christmastime!

Our flight left around 11:45am so we were in NYC by 1pm. Of course it took us about an hour and a half to get to our hotel (crazy, right?!) which was right in Times Square. We got up to our room and I had to snap a few shots of our view:
Looking slightly to the right:
Straight ahead down below:

We didn't even unpack...we just put Avery in her stroller and decided to walk around! We had to stop by the tree in our hotel lobby:

It was FREEZING out! We did a good amount of walking, but had to duck into places here and there to warm up a bit. Avery was very excited to see these guys:

And even more excited: (have I mentioned her Elmo obsession lately?!)

Cool huge Xmas lights:

A shot of Radio City Music Hall:

Where The Today Show is taped:

One of our destinations...Rockefeller Center and the tree!! And no, we did not get to see it at night.

The skating rink:

Avery was quite the trooper and napped in her stroller. I can say she has NEVER done that (well, except when she was a newborn)...I think it was out of pure exhaustion because it was way past her naptime and we didn't stay at the hotel for her to sleep.

This is right outside of our hotel (hotel would be directly to your left):

Another huge billboard right by our hotel:

Right outside of our hotel...our hotel is at the far right of the picture:

The opposite end:

Gabe and Avery in Times Square:

Phantom:

One of our warm up places was Toys R Us (Avery missed it-she was napping!)...and this huge ferris wheel is set up inside of the store! It's crazy!

After walking awhile, we went to John's Pizzeria for dinner. It was very good! By the time we finished dinner, we headed back to the hotel and got Avery to sleep then we followed shortly after. I'm guessing we walked around for about 4 hours or so and like I said, it was really cold out so we did the best we could with the circumstances!