Tis the Season

It is no secret that Christmas is my favorite time of year.  As chaotic as it can be, I love all the activities- looking at Christmas lights, caroling, making gingerbread houses, giving gifts, celebrating the birth of our Savior, decorating cookies.  All of it.  December did not disappoint.  We packed as much in as we could.  The days leading up to Christmas didn't go quite as planned, since my mom had foot surgery, and then Jeremy's grandmother got very, very ill.  Jeremy ended up having to drive to Bastrop on the 23rd and stayed with her in the hospital and got home Christmas Eve.  He left her in ICU, not knowing if she was going to make it or not.  It was a very tough position to be in- he didn't know if he should leave her or disappoint the girls and not be home for Christmas.  The plan was to go back immediately, but she ended up making a miraculous recovery (a Christmas miracle!).  Jeremy did drive back a couple days later, but he was able to spend Christmas with us.  It was a bit crazy and stressful at the time, but looking back, we are a bit grateful for the experience- not that she was sick, but at least Jeremy was able to drive there safely and back and be there with her so that she wasn't alone.  We've visited a couple of times since then and have learned about experiences she had being so near death.  Just confirmation really of the Plan of Salvation.

Anyway, we ended up having a great Christmas.  The girls were very surprised and happy with all of their presents, and Jeremy surprised me with a new camera.  All in all, it was great!

Christmas in New York

Early in the year Jeremy and I had talked about how as the girls get older, it would be fun to do trips for Christmas, instead of spending tons of money on presents they won't use.  I had commented that at some point, I would love to take a family trip to NYC at Christmas.  So when Southwest had a fare sale, we jumped on it!

The first day we were there we started out bright and early to go see Santa at Macy's.  This was so fun, and we didn't even mind the hour long wait, since walking through all the decorations and scenery was half the fun.  After that we walked and walked.  The girls did so much better than we thought they would.  We thought it was very funny that tons of people stopped to ask us if all three girls were ours and seemed slightly in awe.  Apparently in NYC having 3 kids is the equivalent of 9 kids anywhere else.  I don't know.  Anyway, we made a stop at Max Brenner's for some yummy hot chocolate, then walked to Rockefeller Center to see the tree, then took the girls to the Top of the Rock for a great view of the city.  We walked around a bit more and finally crashed back at the hotel.  All-in-all, we walked somewhere around 18,000 steps that day.  

On day 2, we started off at the Museum of Natural History.  The highlight of the day was when they finally spotted the Easter Island statue shown in "Night At The Museum."  After the museum walked though Central Park.  After that we took them down to Little Italy.  We hadn't really planned out the day, since we weren't sure how much the girls would be able to handle each day, so we hadn't made a reservation.  Not really a problem- it was still early, and actually, the first restaurant we tried for a table for 5 said they could take us.  That is, until they saw we had kids.  The host immediately got very curt with us and said, "Oh.  You have kids?  I guess we can put you here."  (Keep in mind, we weren't even the only people in the restaurant with kids.  This wasn't some super fancy restaurant.  It was nice...but certainly one I felt comfortable bringing kids to.)  He then proceeded to stick us at a table for 4, forcing me to sit Lucy in my lap.  We then waited over 20 minutes and no one ever came to help us.  We eventually got up and walked out, which I thought was super embarrassing.  I just felt like people were looking at us like we must have seen the prices on the menu and left.  Obviously not the case, but I was embarrassed.  This was really the only negative experience of the whole trip.  We decided to catch the subway back up to the hotel.  The girls did not like this experience that much.  The subway was of course super crowded, and New Yorkers are not shy about shoving people and packing into the cars like sardines.  At one point the girls and I had to let go hands because a group of women (thought they) needed to get off, but ended up hopping right back on because they were at the wrong stop.  They pushed themselves right between me and the girls and they got upset because they couldn't see me.  Once the ladies got off at the next stop, we were all together again, and standing by this group of older couples that were all together.  They were soooo nice.  They noticed the girls were a bit uneasy, and talked to them and asked them questions about the trip.  The guys were all police and firemen and told us stories about 9/11.  Anyway, it ended up being a really cool experience, and almost made me thankful for the Little Italy experience that had put us on the subway at that time in the first place.

Our 3rd day in NYC was the best ever.  We took the girls on the Staten Island Ferry past the Statue of Liberty.  Once we made the trip over and back, we took the girls through Grand Central Station, then over to the library, then to Bryant Park and went ice skating.  Lucy slept through all of the ice skating.  By the time we finished that and walked around a little bit more, it was time for dinner.  We went to Guy Fieri's restaurant (way overpriced Applebee's), then headed over to Radio City Music Hall for the Christmas Spectacular with the Rockettes.  I am so glad we got tickets to this.  It was so fun and such a good show.  The girls absolutely loved it (as did I).  Of course we spent too much money at the gift shop afterwards, then walked around a bit more to soak up as much of the lights as we could before heading back in the morning.

This was such a fun trip.  NYC is exhausting, but we made so many good memories.  It was the best way to kick off the Christmas season.