It's Christmastime in the City

We had another great day with family in NYC!  We started the morning with a classic New York breakfast with omelets, potatoes, toast, and orange juice.  I seriously dream about New York omelets.  They are my favorite!  After breakfast, we met the family at Radio City Music Hall for the Christmas Spectacular.

When my Dad took this picture he told the lady behind him that we were the best damn kids.  Turns out I have the best damn parents.

I had seen the Christmas Spectacular once before when I was 11, but I was blown away.  It was so truly spectacular!  The entire performance was so high energy with amazing songs and dances.  The Radio City Rockettes were flawless - their toy soldier routine was remarkable.  It was a great way to kick off the holiday season.  In the end, they did a live nativity that reminded me of the true meaning of Christmas.  Their costumes were elaborate.  At the end they were singing "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing," and Eric and I both commented later that we were both tearing up.  I loved everything about the spectacular.  



Skylee snuggled with me for a little bit of the Christmas Spectacular - she was so good!

After the Christmas Spectacular, we went to the Museum of Natural History.  We hung out with Jake and Meg and wandered through the museum.  We went to the North American mammals and the Ocean Life exhibits - those are my two favorites. After that, we went and saw the Dinosaurs.  Jake is in a dinosaurs class as part of his generals, so he was explaining all the dinosaurs to us - it was pretty fun.  

After the Museum of Natural History, we headed back downtown and got lunch from street vendors.  I ate Halal Food and it was delicious.  We sat near Rockefeller Center by the big ornaments - so much fun.  

One of my Dad's coworkers son, David, works for MSNBC in New York, so he had arranged to give us an NBC Studio Tour.  Eric and I had done the official studio tour before, and this tour blew it out of the water.  It was awesome.  Our first stop was the Saturday Night Live studio.  Dan is a huge SNL fan so that pretty much made his trip.  

The SNL Studio

Our next stop was the studio Brian Williams films the Nightly News in - this was actually a different studio than we saw last time when we came on the tour.  They had moved him across the hall.  That studio can be up and running in 90 seconds in the case of breaking news that needs to interrupt scheduled programming.  David told us that when Brian Williams gets to the NBC Studio in the morning one of his first stops is for makeup, so he is ready to go on air at a moment's notice - pretty crazy. We also saw the control room they use to produce several shows.  I found it fascinating. 

Our last stop was the MSNBC newsroom - it was so cool.  All in all, the tour was a highlight of this trip.  It was really fun. 

After the studio tour, Eric and I went to Times Square to get theater tickets.  I had seen the church had made a new video called "He is the Gift" and was advertising in Times Square.  We located the advertisement when we first got there.  I love that the church has a presence in Times Square!  

We were able to get tickets to "Once" for tonight and then we headed back uptown to go to the Museum of Modern Art.  The first art museum Eric and I went to when we first got married was the Chicago Art Institute.  I've always liked Modern Art, but Eric HATED it at that museum.  In the 3 years since then, Eric actually likes modern art.  It's still not his favorite, but he thoroughly enjoys the MoMA.  The MoMA is free on Friday nights so it's packed of course.  We wandered through the museum and located some of our favorite pieces of art.  We saw Van Gogh's "Starry Night," Salvador Dali's "The Persistence of Memory," and Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans and a Marilyn Monroe. I really enjoyed it.  We also found a few Monet paintings that we didn't even know were there - they were HUGE water lily paintings.  And I of course showed Eric Picasso's cubist paintings.  I don't like all Picasso paintings, but I really like some of his cubism stuff.  I also introduced Eric to Jackson Pollock, who I really like, but Eric was not as impressed.  The museum was a lot of fun!

After the MOMA, we went and got dinner, hung out with my Mom for a bit at her hotel, and then headed to Once.  We've talked about seeing Once for several years, but I knew it was pretty untraditional and I didn't know if I would like it.  It's going off-Broadway in January, so we figured now was the time to see it!  Eric absolutely loved the show. He said it had heart and soul. I really liked the music, but I thought the story was really slow.  The show was very interesting, however.  The actors all play instruments and they are all on stage for the entire performance.  There is no orchestra, and all the instruments are acoustics and mostly strings with a piano and some drums.  When we got to the theater all the actors were already on stage singing Irish folk songs and dancing around. The audience could also go up on the stage during this section as well.  It was really interesting.  The actors/actresses were amazingly talented.  They could play their instruments while dancing - and a cellist even played his cello while standing up and dancing around.  It was unbelievable.  The songs were all very folksy, and I liked them a lot.  All in all - it was definitely not my favorite show I've ever seen on Broadway, but I'm glad that I saw it.  It was very cool. 

"Because to live you have to love" - Once 

Tomorrow is our last day in the city!  I can't wait to see what adventures are in store!