A Family Gathering

During Christmas break, we drove down to Pennsylvania for a rare gathering of Dan's family...Dan's parents (from Florida), Dan's sister, husband and 3 children (from Pennsylvania) and Dan's brother, wife and 2 kids (from Idaho).

One would think that spending a week in a house with 16 people (8 of which are under the age of 9) would eventually lead to insanity, but it was suprisingly mellow and very enjoyable. The "cousins" had a great time playing and acted as if no time had ever passed since they'd last seen each other. Even the adults were able to relax a bit, although admittedly a lot of time was spent in the kitchen working on the never ending chore of feeding 16 people. It was a running joke for us to watch a platter of cookies or snacks be put down on the table and disappear within minutes!

Thank you to Diane and Brian for hosting and thank you to everyone for the very special memories.

Christmas 2007

As is our tradition, my parents come over on Christmas Eve night. We prepar and enjoy tons of different appetizers and snacks, we watch a Christmas Movie (this year was Santa Clause 3) and allow the kids to give out the gifts that they bought for everyone.

If there was ever a Christmas that had a theme, this was it...horses, horses, horses!! If they made a toy in the shape of a horse, we now own it, along with assorted versions of horse pj's, shirts, socks, hats, sweatshirts, blankets, pillows, sheets and art!! Katie on the other hand was quite happy to sit in her new little red chair from the Pottery Barn and watch everyone else open their presents.

The best gift of all turned out to be the one we swapped with Dan's sister and her family..the Nintendo WII! It's amazing how much fun this little machine can be, not only for our family, but for whomever we have over. On any given night in our house you might find us in the living room practicing to become professional bowlers, tennis players, Barbie Island Pricesses, High School Musical singers or famous Rattatouille Chefs!!

Christmas in NY City

Dan and Katelyn in the hotel hot tub

The Ferris Wheel Inside of Toys R Us in Times Square

Full Size, Roaring T-Rex at Toys R Us

Rockefeller Center

American Girl Doll Store

Window display at Saks 5th Avenue

(Click on the pictures to enlarge)

This year, in lieu of birthday parties for the girls, we decided to take them on a trip to see NY city. Because both Megan and Lauren were born in December, we thought that seeing the city at Christmas would be magical, and it was...for them.

From their persepctive the city is full of trains that go really fast, shops full of stuff to be bought, loud, crazy and oh so fun!! We took them to 5th Avenue to visit the American Girl Doll Store. This place is 4 floors of everything a girl could want! Hair salons and makeup for you and your doll and unlimited amounts of clothes and toys. When we had finished our shopping we stepped outside to find it lightly snowing. We walked a block or two and found Rockefeller Center and the magnificent tree. We passed by Saks and their gorgeous window displays and even stopped into St. Patrick's Cathedral to gaze at the beautiful ceiling and to light a candle or ten!

We were staying on Long Island at the Hyatt Regency, which was near my Aunt Frances and Uncle Dan. The girls thought it was very cool staying at a hotel with our name on it!!

The next day brought us (and about a million others) to Times Square. As you can see from some of the pictures I posted, Toys R Us is huge enough to house a full size ferris wheel, T-Rex and a 2 story Babrie house!!

Overall, the girls had a blast. They were blissfully ignorant of the difficulty of dragging a sleeping baby in a stroller up and down narrow stairs in the street to go from one filthy subway station to another. It didn't phaze them in the slightest when a mediocre dinner at TGI Fridays on 5th avenue cost about $140.00, which is about 3X as much as it would have cost at home. They weren't burdened with the fear of one of them getting lost in the throngs of people that surrounded us everywhere we went. And they were quite certain that everyone who lined the street with a cup and a sign asking for money REALLY needed it and it was our duty to help each of them!

If anything, by the end of the weekend we all realized that the grass in the city is not greener and that were pretty happy to be headed home.

Thank you to Fran and Dan for hosting us and a special thanks to Jonathan who made us laugh and laugh!! We love you!!

Dan's summary: "NYC makes Disney seem empty and cheap!"