Turkey Day

On the 4th of July David took Gigi to a local parade and she loved it! Ever since then she has talked about parades and spent a great deal of time pretending to go to parades. When we found out that we would be moving to the East we decided that we needed to take Gigi to the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade.
Before going we asked a ton of questions about how to travel to NYC, where to watch the parade from, etc and had a good plan in place.
Gigi was SOO excited not only for the parade, but for all of the fun ways of travel that we would experience before arriving at our destination.
First we passed through the seven levels of the Candy Cane forest, through the sea of swirly twirly gum drops, and then we walked through the Lincoln Tunnel. (sorry just had to throw that in for David :) )
Okay, so really here's how our trip went:
Thanksgiving morning we woke up at 3am, got all packed up and headed to Staten Island. We were extremely naive in thinking that Gigi would sleep well in the car. She quickly burst that bubble by giggling and saying, "Gigi sleeping in the car? That's silly!" and laughing hysterically. We were all a little loopy I have to admit, but we had a good car trip :)
We were able to park at the Staten Island ferry station and got right on the ferry with no complications.

David and Gigi on the ferry. I love the sleepy, but thrilled look in Gigi's eyes.
The ferry took us to Manhatten and from there we took the subway to Times Square.


I think Gigi was a bit dissapointed with the underground train that we had promised her. It was pretty dirty and smelly, but hey it's authentic.

After getting off the subway we walked a few blocks and set up. The worst part of the trip was waiting for the parade to start.



David was sweet to stand to hold our place the whole time while Gigi and I sat on the curb (I looked a little homeless, but my pregnant body was grateful for the pavement).

Our friends loaned us their backpack carrier and so Gigi was able to see the big floats and balloons from a 6'3" perspective. It was awesome!! She loved the music and the floats. It was pretty chilly, but luckily we dressed pretty warmly. In fact, I think Gigi was a bit too warm (maybe 4 layers plus a snowsuit and coat was a bit much?)

Here's a fairly good reaction to one of Gigi's favorite balloons, Dora. The ironic thing is Gigi has never seen the Dora show, she was just given a dora doll and some books and she is in love with her. This movie illistrates how well she could see. She started yelling about Dora before I could even see her. It made me laugh that she would get so excited to see the balloons turn the corner that by the time they would get close to us she was sick of looking at them.

Of course, Buzz Lightyear. A parade just isn't a parade without him :)

After we all got a glazed over look in our eyes we called it quits and headed home. We made it home by 4pm and had a nice Thanksgiving meal. (I cooked it the night before) and then put Gigi right to bed. David and I relaxed by watching Hancock. A much better film than I anticipated.
A few things I learned to be grateful for:
Not getting mugged.
Being able to stay close to my family.
Making it off the subway in one piece (apparently there were some new terrorist threats that the subway would be attacked).
Going new places with such an awesome family!

Hooray for friends!

A few weeks ago one of my dearest friends, Jess, came to visit us, along with her 2 adorable boys, Bjorn and Matej. We met in college and became fast friends during our horrible ICU nursing rotation. We went through pregnancy together and after finding out that she was having a boy and I was having a girl we decided that our kids must be destined to get married :) Luckily, they seemed to hit it off quite well and Gigi managed to get Bjorn to kiss her and ask her to marry him. I guess we'll see what happens :)
Jess's husband is a pilot and so she was able to visit us without too much expense, although traveling alone with 2 kids is quite a sacrifice by itself.

The first night that they arrived Bjorn and Gigi couldn't get enough of each other. Jess and I were talking in the living room and I happened to peek into Gigi's room while she was taking off Bjorn's shirt and replacing it with one of her favorite pajama tops. (Gigi has a HUGE obsession with pajamas and often goes through 2-3 pairs a day, at least she is learning to be independent right?) Luckily Bjorn thought it was great and they loved running around the house together in her clothes. (sorry Leon!)


In contrast to Gigi's girlie influence, Bjorn taught her a bit about Spiderman.

The next day we just hung around and then went out to dinner. I really wanted Jess to try my favorite sandwich here, which is called a schmitter. The first time David and I had one we talked about it for at least a month afterward. Unfortunately it was quite the ordeal getting there, but after a long drive, a crazy walk in the rain and Candy and Tony taking care of the table situation we were able to enjoy the sandwich. Poor Jess wasn't able to fully appreciate her's though because her 9 month old managed to tip most of her sandwich onto the floor :( Luckily we still do believe in the 5 second rule.
Jess and me with our kids outside the famous McNally's bar where the famous schmitter is served.

The next day we went to church and headed over to a friend's house for an amazing italian dinner. David and her husband both served in Italy and of course Tony being from Italy we decided to have a pot luck dinner. It was quite incredible!! Too bad we didn't get any pictures :(
The last day we attempted to see the sights, but the kids weren't quite up to it so after being kicked out of the Independence Hall tour we called it quits and headed home.

Bjorn and Gigi loved helping Jess get packed up to go home.

All in all it was an awesome adventure. We LOVED having them over and I'm surprised Jess and I didn't go hoarse from all of the talking that we did. Our poor kids had to listen to us jabber on from morning until night, I think the earliest we got to sleep was 1am. Anyway thanks Jess for coming to visit. You guys ROCK!!!!