Let it Snow

Today was a windy, rainy, snowy, miserable day in New York City.  Despite the conditions, we still managed to make it a wonderful day.  Eric and I woke up and headed over to my parent's hotel.  We walked through Times Square and up to 6th Avenue where we saw some of my favorite Christmas decorations in the City.



I still remember these ornaments from the last time I was in New York at Christmas Time (2001).  

Our plan for today was to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and then go to the 9/11 memorial and museum.  Unfortunately, the inclement weather changed our plans.  We headed up 5th avenue to FAO Schwartz.  This was seriously one of the most fun things I have ever done in New York.  Going to a toy store with Skylee was awesome.  She loved all the toys.  At one point, Eric and I had Skylee with Jake and Meg and we found some puppets.  She liked several of them, but her favorite was a stuffed toy dog.  She loved that little puppy and WOULD NOT let go of it.  It was the cutest thing because she kept snuggling it.  I didn't think that we would be leaving the store without buying her the dog.  We walked through the rest of the store and she played on the giant piano.  At that point, we were able to hide the dog, and then she didn't remember it after that.  We had so much fun with Skylee in the store!



Skylee's little dog.  She kept snuggling it and rubbing her head against it.

Our next stop was the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  We figured today would be a good museum day because of the weather.  On the way, Skylee took the Subway for the first time.  She handled it VERY well.  Once we got to the museum we headed around with Jake, Meg, and Bret.  We went to tons of the exhibits - a lot that we had never been to before.  Our favorite areas of the Met are the Egyptian areas and European Impressionism.  Jake, Meg, and Bret had never been to the Egypt section before, so we had fun showing them that.



Cleopatra's Obelisk in Central Park.  We saw it through the Window of the Met.



Eric loves the Rodin Statues!

Meg's favorite painting, but it might be my new favorite too!

The craziest thing that had EVER happened to us at the Met occurred in the Southeast Asia section of the Museum.  We were in a room with several sculptures and from the next room we heard shattering glass and then footsteps running away.  It was crazy.  I think that all of us were frozen for a good 5 seconds with our mouths open before heading into the next room to figure out what happened.  Unfortunately, we couldn't see what broke, but the security was trying to catch the people.  It was seriously insane.  Crashing glass is never a good sound in a museum!

After a few hours in the museum, we met back up with the crew and walked across Central Park to the Balloon Inflation.

The night before the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Macy's blows up the balloons in Central Park West.  There are a lot of really cool balloons that I can't wait to see in the sky tomorrow during the parade. Our favorite was the Snoopy Balloon. They were playing Christmas songs mixed with Michael Jackson - it made for a very festive, and kind of weird atmosphere.

After seeing all the balloons, we headed to Dan and Kristin's hotel to regroup and get out of the rain for a few minutes.  We got warm and dry and then headed to dinner at a classic New York deli. After dinner, Eric and I got to watch Skylee for the evening while Kristin and Dan went to Les Miserables.  She was an absolute delight.  We took her to Toys R Us in Times Square.  The Toys R Us is definitely not as cool as FAO Schwartz, but she still had fun.  We took her on the Ferris Wheel and she liked it for a while, but she definitely got bored at the end.  When we first started going she just kept looking around.  She even looked over the edge a few times - she is clearly not afraid of heights! In the end, I entertained her by singing the Itsy Bitsy Spider.  We had the best time with her at the store - she would laugh and play with us.  That baby girl is pure joy.

We bundled Skylee back up again and brought her to our hotel room to wait for her parents.



Eric and Skylee with Ernst & Young in the back

We had so much fun with Skylee.  We listened to some of her favorite songs and danced.  She kept standing on the bed and then throwing herself back into the pillows and laughing like it was the funniest thing in the world.

At one point, she just laid right by Eric and wanted to snuggle.  It was precious.  Skylee loves her Uncle Eric and Eric loves her back.  She snuggled with me for a bit and kept making this funny noise from her throat and then laughing - I just loved it.  We were trying to get her to sleep, but I was having no luck.  Fortunately, my husband is the baby whisperer - and now they are both sleeping soundly.  How did I ever get so lucky?