The day before Thanksgiving, our departure. Our first time traveling around a major holiday.
It went pretty smooth, even at JFK - though, getting into Manhattan took at least an hour- hour and a half. We rented an apartment which also went very well! We didn't have much time that evening before we wanted to go out and see the Macys Day Parade balloons nearby. We got dinner and began I think at least an hour's wait weaving in and out of different lines. The balloons had already been blown up, they were just tied to the ground (so in other words, get there during the day if you want to actually witness them being blown up!) Once we were done doing that it was just time to get back to the apartment and collapse since we were going to be up early the next day for the parade!
Thanksgiving Day - all I can really remember is that we were up early and got to our standing spot two hours before the parade began, 9AM Eastern time. I purposely had booked an apartment near Central Park and the parade route and I was ever so happy I did that - all we had to do was walk down our street and down a few blocks and bam our standing spot. We brought books, etc for the kids to read and do while we waited. Having been in NYC for New Years Eve, this was a MUCH MUCH better experience. I think since the parade is stretched out over a few miles, it gives more space for people to spread a bit, where as NYE is only in one prime spot. Once the parade got under way, the few people in front of us were kind enough to let our boys to the front of the viewing area. I was really stoked for them! Not only did they have prime viewing but they also got to interact with people in the parade. We were also around a lot of other pleasant people, which makes it nice :p I think the parade lasted somewhere around an hour and a half. It was great to see all the floats up close and just pretty surreal that I wasn't watching it on TV. After it was over we went back to our apartment for the most part of the day, to relax, and watched the parade again on TV :) We had reservations at a restaurant in Central Park for dinner, so we got to Central Park a bit early and explored in there. We walked around, rented a boat on the lake...it was a nice way to spend Thanksgiving afternoon.
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| A typical Thanksgiving dinner with all the fixin's! |
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Ever so glad we brought some things for the boys to do, as our meal was just about three hours long. Josh and I would have enjoyed that had it just been the two of us, but antsy kids make for anxious parents!
Friday - After sleeping in and having breakfast out, we decided to take the boys to what they were most excited about doing and seeing - the Statue of Liberty. We also visited Ellis Island but didn't get any pictures there.
     
Statue Island at sunset
Waiting in lines and doing both activities took all afternoon into evening. We stopped on the way back to a bakery, called Magnolia Bakery, to pick up an early birthday cake (while in NYC, why not pick up an early cake near your birthday, especially from a delicious place?)
Saturday - We saw the Empire State Building! We had tickets to get to the observation deck outside.
  
It was neat to see the city from high up.
That afternoon we had Broadway tickets to see Aladdin in Times Square. By far, was that the busiest area of the city!
We did some shopping in some of the stores in the area afterwards. I was so relieved to get out of that part of town and back in our quiet, more secluded street near Central Park! We were tired from our day out so it was dinner back in the apartment.
Sunday - More of a chill out kind of day. We went back to Central Park for a while, just to let the boys get some energy out running around.
  
I have to just say, Thanksgiving time is a wonderful time to be in Central Park - leaves are red, orange and yellow. It was nice to see some Fall color! For being New York our weather was mild and I think we lucked out on temperatures, too. Daytime was in the 50's or so.
We had a late lunch reservation at Serendipity 3 - mostly for their frozen hot chocolate, but I wasn't able to make a reservation if we didn't promise to buy food, so we got a little bite!
 
Aaron opted for the hot version, too
We decided to go to Brooklyn to see the bridge and had dinner at the original Patsy Grimaldi's (we were not impressed and missed ours at home!)
  
Monday - Our last day! First we visited the Museum of Natural History. We were there for about two hours when the boys got tired so we retreated back to the apartment for a bit. We went to Macy's and got to meet Santa that evening. I also had a ticket to see a taping of Seth Meyers, but didn't feel up to going.
 
The following morning we woke pretty early and headed home! We were thankful for a reliable, early ride back to JFK and a smooth flight. The only bad thing about our apartment was the lack of ventilation - if anything we were taking clothes off! Here I was worried about us being cold.
The boys would say their favorite part was seeing the Statue of Liberty. Mine was getting to watch the parade and having a really nice Thanksgiving meal out, something we never do.
The boys were also overjoyed with all the different modes of transportation they got to use that they hadn't before -- taxi's (which, thank you to all of them for not driving like crazy you know what's and for not cussing, yelling, or even honking their horns when we were in them!) subways, a ferry.... that seemed pretty neat to them. One time Aaron was so excited to go down the platform of stairs to get to the subway that he slipped and fell down the whole flight! :( He was okay though.
Going to NYC to watch the Thanksgiving parade is something we think we could do again (versus like going for NYE!) I think sometime we'd like to go back and bring Preston. We're really happy with everything we saw and did, the boys got the true NY experience I think!
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