Thanksgiving!

We had a great Thanksgiving break with equal parts relaxation, chaos, food, and family. We packed so much into our holiday that it sort of feels like after Christmas, as if everything is over. But it's not!!! It's just beginning and that's exciting.

Since Dan and I got engaged, we always flip holidays with our families every year. So this year it was Thanksgiving with my side of the family and we will have Christmas in Kansas with his side of the family. We hosted the holiday this year and it was the first time all of us were together. The last time we hosted only my parents and Mandy came. But this year my older sister Jessy was able to come too!!

My parents arrived last Tuesday night and we had pizza waiting for them. Wednesday morning my twin sister arrived and we spent the day getting ready for Thanksgiving. We got tacos in the neighborhood, picked-up some things for sleeping arrangements (pillows and a mattress pad), and then went grocery shopping for the meal. We played games that night.

My older sister took a red-eye flight from LA and arrived in the early morning hours of Thanksgiving Day.  We watched the parade, played games, prepared the meal, did some coloring and napping, and arranged the living room/dining area to host eight of us. My mom's cousin and her husband joined us for the meal.

Our kitchen is tiny and hosting thanksgiving was a crash course in maneuvering a 15 lb turkey, multiple side dishes, and lots of moving bodies. But we managed and only one batch of crescent rolls were burned!

Everything was delicious and we had Turtle and Pumpkin pies for dessert made by our friend who is starting a new business. Check out her website and try her pies!!

On Friday we went to 86th street for a little shopping and we took everyone to our favorite Indian food restaurant for lunch. Yum! This isn't the best photo but you must document Indian food.

Friday night we headed into the city to check-out the holiday cheer and Winter Village in Bryant Park.

We tried to all cram into a selfie and ended-up with some pretty good shots! My phone is blurry.

But my Dad's phone got a great one!

Then we crammed our way into Times Square to see Something Rotten on Broadway. Dan and I got these tickets back in September as a treat for everyone traveling out to see us. I was somewhat worried it would be a bust show since it isn't super popular. We were all pleasantly surprised. IT WAS GREAT! It is one of the less expensive shows but hilarious and very well done. Them music was awesome and overall performance fantastic. It was unanimously everyone's favorite part of the trip. We all loved it! See it before it leaves the great white way in January.

We had back mezzanine seats but still had a great view!

We got back late to Bay Ridge and then Mandy, Dan, and I woke up early the next morning to get into the city to snag rush tickets for the matinee show of Matilda. My mom really wanted to see it and it is also leaving Broadway in January so we made it work. It was pretty chilly standing outside for 2.5 hours but we brought UNO and had fun. Read more about Broadway rush here.

My parents and Jessy met us in the city later for lunch at Carmine's which is a well known family-style Italian restaurant in Times Square. We managed to get a table before the lunch rush and thoroughly enjoyed our meal.

Then we walked around the Winter Village again to kill time before the show.

Our rush tickets were partial view and not next to each other but we still enjoyed the show.  Matilda is super cute and you all know how much I appreciate child actors. This was my second time seeing the show and it did not disappoint.

After the show we had snacks and drinks with my mom's cousin at their apartment in Little Italy and then we headed home to eat leftovers and relax. I convinced everyone to join me in my current obsession with the housing crisis and we watched Too Big to Fail, again. 

Jessy and Mandy left Sunday morning and so my parents, Dan, and me went out for German food for lunch, did 10 loads of laundry, started decorating for Christmas, watched a documentary about the housing crisis, and had more leftovers for dinner. My parents and Dan enjoyed the Denver Broncos vs. Kansas City Chiefs football game. It was a bit of a rivalry since the Broncos are my parent's team and the Chiefs are Dan's.

And now it's Monday, my parents are headed home, and I'm sad it's all over and back to routine. Boo. But we had a great visit and kicked off the holiday season right. It had its stressful moments but the good outweighed the bad, I think. Now, onward to Christmas!

Apartment Tour: Spare Room

Last room of the apartment tour today!

This spare room is the crown jewel of this new apartment. It's big! Overall, the new apartment is smaller in every other way compared to our old place, but the spare room is actually bigger. At our old apartment, the spare room was tiny. We could fit a queen futon and a bookshelf and literally that was it. It worked fine at the time but it would have been very difficult to accommodate more than one child in that room.

Obviously, the point of us living in a two-bedroom apartment is because we anticipate making the spare room into a child's bedroom, eventually.

The spare room in the new apartment is easily two times bigger than the spare at the old apartment. Right now, we have a queen-size futon in there, the bookshelf, a desk, AND the old kitchen table currently being used as a craft table. All that, and as you can see, plenty of extra space.

This room has a long way to go as far as design. I didn't want to invest too much into it now because I'm hoping to make it child friendly soon. If we can ever get pregnant! Flinging flanging frustrating!!!!! We still need window valances, some paint, and better organization since it' a bit of a catch-all room at the moment. But the closet is huge!

I'm glad we were able to keep the table and the desk in here for now. The table used to be in our old kitchen and it seats four and expands. This table will eventually be replaced by a dresser.

The desk we bought in the spring for Dan to use at the church office. When we decided to leave we took the desk since it was new and we spent a pretty penny on it. This desk will eventually be replaced by a crib. BUT, the top comes off of the desk and you can keep the bookshelf and filing cabinet separately.

The big window above the radiator unfortunately has an ugly fire escape security gate over it (typical New York). So that curtain always remains covered but the other window gets great light. 

And that wraps-up the apartment tour. Sorry, it wasn't really worth the wait but thanks for your patience.

See the rest of the tour here:
Entryway
Kitchen
Living Room
Nooks and Crannies
Bedroom 

Weekending it

Good grief the weekends are so fast.

This weekend was pretty relaxing. We hung out on Saturday, finished taking pictures for an upcoming blog series (!) and I finally off loaded photos from my phone. On Saturday night we got to babysit for the sweetest angel who is also the easiest baby ever.

I got to feed her and rock her and put her to sleep. It was really sweet for me. And Dan kept me company.

We didn't get home until after midnight so we slept late the next day. The weather turned completely fall-like on Sunday with overcast skies and blustery wind.

We went to Prospect Park to catch a glimpse of our friend Julia running the marathon. We had no idea where she was so we picked a spot and hoped to catch sight of her. We made a couple of signs but it was so windy we didn't hold them up much.

Julia is the one who got us hooked on The Walking Dead so I knew she would appreciate a zombie sign (Dan's sign says "Zombies are chasing you. Keep running").

We ended up seeing Julia three times as she ran around since we cut through the park to catch her coming around.

It was super cold and very windy so we felt bad for everyone running. We left early since Dan forgot gloves and I was wearing inappropriate footwear.

The rest of the day we tag-teamed and cleaned the apartment (in anticipation of guests this week). Then we watched three movies...oops.. I've been wanting to see a documentary about the "housing crisis" after we saw The Big Short several months ago. We couldn't find anything on Netflix so we switched over to Amazon Prime and found a few. We watched Too Big to Fail which was a movie about the government's role in attempting to stop the financial crisis in 2008. This movie portrayed the government as the big savior but then we rented the documentary, Inside Job which was about the causes of the crisis and lasting impact. That documentary pinned a lot of the blame on the government which is kind of undeniable. Both movies were very good and informational but each had a different bias. It's shocking to see how the level of greed and lack of a moral compass on Wall Street and in the government trickles down. Can't say we were surprised necessarily but definitely saddened.

Then we watched a documentary called Chasing Madoff which was about the whistle-blowers of the Madoff ponzi scheme. That movie was unbelievably upsetting.

We recommend all three but definitely Inside Job.

Today is flying and then there is only one more day before my mom and dad arrive, followed by my sissies. It's going to be a fun week!

Peeks from the Week

I am so glad it's Friday. Although there is still a full day of work ahead I am just grateful I don't have to come to work tomorrow. Next week I have Wednesday-Friday off for Thanksgiving so that is my saving grace.

This week marked our three-year engagement anniversary!! To celebrate, Dan and I met-up after work to go ice skating at Bryant Park and walk around the Winter Village. Ice skating on this anniversary has become a tradition since Dan's original proposal plan was to take me skating and then come back to my apartment to propose. I foiled his plan and we never went skating. Read that story here. Looking back, I feel bad I accidentally ruined his plan but it was still such a sweet experience and a good memory regardless.

NYC during this time of year is SO festive. Nearly all the buildings have lights or outside decorations and there are little pop-up shops all over the place selling unique gifts and yummy treats.

The Winter Village in Bryant Park is the best. They have the tree up but not lit yet.

We love to go ice skating at Bryant Park and if you have your own ice skates, it's free! Can't beat that. Free date night!!

This year the rink was set-up a little differently and there was NO LINE. This has never, ever happened. We have always waited in line, sometimes for more than an hour. But last night we got right in. We only paid $10 to purchase an additional combination lock for the lockers (which we can reuse). Added bonus, the rink was only moderately crowded and it was warm outside!

We skated around once and I thought I heard someone shouting my name, when we came back around we saw our little friends K and E on the side watching the skaters! It was really fun to see them randomly. I'm always so surprised when we have "it's a small world" moments in the big city.

We skated for about 30 minutes and then they had to do the Zamboni thing. So mesmerizing to watch and it's worth the wait because skating on smooth ice is bliss.

We skated more until the ice got choppy again (only like 15 minutes since the rink was getting crowded and there were a bunch of hooligans intentionally digging into the ice with their skates). As I was taking off my skates, the blade on my left skate came off! Like, broke. So sad, but I bought the skates like 5 years ago for $30 on Amazon. They paid for themselves in two trips to the rink so they lived a good life. A new pair of skates are in order - maybe from Santa? 

We walked around the Winter Village and got a bag of candy to share from a really festive little candy cafe.

It was a fun night and a good mood reset for the grouchy party (me).

Another anniversary this week is our blog-iversary. Three years ago we started this little blog and I'm so grateful it has so many memories trapped inside.

Happy weekend!!