When Thanksgiving morning rolled around my Mom, and my sons and I were so excited that we were awake and ready to go at 4:30 in the morning! After breakfast, and dressing the boys up in very warm clothes we headed up to meet up with my Dad and husband on the parade route. Watching that parade in person after all of my years as a child wanting to was simply stunning, but what made it truly the best was being there and sharing that moment with my own kids. It is surely a day and a memory that none of us will ever forget. After the parade we went back to the hotel, and when we arrived we had a whole Thanksgiving day feast waiting for us in our room. My Dad went all out to truly make this a family day, and a day we are all so very thankful to be a part of. I personally have been to New York and the City of New York many times since we have friends that moved there, but this Thanksgiving was the Best trip I have ever had to that beautiful city and state!
Posts Tagged ‘kids’
A White Christmas Thanksgiving
In 2008 I spent Thanksgiving just with my mother and father. Early morning, we woke up and got seats on the bleachers to watch the Thanksgiving Day Parade. It was fairly cold, but it’s always worth it. This is a tradition with my immediate family, and it is always such a joy to watch the parade. We love watching the parade, buying souvenir-like things from the vendors and observing all the families there with little children. The kids are always the most excited and in awe. That afternoon was spent napping, no one was particularly in a cooking mood (from the early morning wake-up, you see) and we knew that we were going to go out to eat anyway, so we felt it was earned and appropriate. We then took the subway to Times Square and got tickets to see WHITE CHRISTMAS on Broadway, which none of us had ever seen. It was a fantastic show! There were lots of families seeing the show, and it really was a treat. My family watches the movie every year for Christmas so the show was just a necessity. Afterward, perhaps around 10:30pm, we had a late dinner at Juniors. Following the wonderful dinner was, of course, Juniors’ cheesecake. A wonderful ending to a wonderful day.
Brooklyn Children’s Museum
I’m a Brooklyn mom always looking for new ways to entertain my kids, but some spots have turned into favorite hang-outs. One of those places we like to revisit is the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, located on 145 Brooklyn Avenue. This museum was founded in 1899, making it the first museum directed specifically towards kids. It is designed for children and teens (making it appropriate for my entire family), with a lot of different exhibits that continually change. The Brooklyn Children’s Museum takes you on a trip through your own imagination, complete with full-sized stores and subway cars. This weekend I’m definitely taking my kids there, and if you have nothing planned you should consider it too. (If, unlike me, you’re not in NYC, this great list of top U.S. children’s museums has information on museums around the country, including the one in Brooklyn).
A Little Brat in NYC
The summer of 2007 was the best summer ever! My family and I went to NYC to do a little shopping. My brother went towards the first jewelery store he saw, which was little pagoda, and he bought a necklace worth $250. I wanted to go to the Toys ‘R Us to see and ride the Ferris wheel. I had so much fun. My mother went early Christmas shopping for us. She bought my brother this t-Rex toy and she bought me all these different kinds of dolls. My eyes lit up at the sight of the countless types of dolls. I wanted them all! And to be perfectly honest, I got mostly everything I wanted. I knew how to work my mother, start off with the sad act and then move into the obnoxious routine. My mother never really liked to draw attention to herself, so she’d usually give in! After shopping, we went to the WWF restaurant. The food was delicious. Good thing it was Thursday, too, because on Thursdays some of the stars come to visit. We got to meet this one guy, I forgot his name because I was mad I didn’t get to meet The Rock. Oh well, I guess I really was a brat. I was being so childish, my mother probably should have left me off at some NYC Nursery. But the NYC experience was unforgettable.
Race to the Top of Lady Liberty – Part II
…We weren’t even half way up the Statue of Liberty yet and I was ready to give in! At this point, I remember thinking “maybe I should have listened to how many flights of steps were actually in this thing!” Slowing climbing up the stairs one by one with my family now, I noticed the stairs were getting smaller, I was getting hotter, and we were catching up to a long line of people. After a while it opened up and we could see above us, going up was a tour of what appeared to be school age children about our age! They were all carrying sack lunches with them, and the funniest thing in the whole world (at that time anyway) happened, just as we looked up! One of the kids above us dropped an apple out of their sack lunch and it came barreling down straight at my dad’s head! My Dad did duck and it missed it, but we cracked up all the way to the top of the Statue of Liberty no less! Still to this day we chuckle about going all the way to the Statue of Liberty in New York from Michigan to almost get hit in the head with an apple. My Dad still laughs at us kids as well for actually thinking that we could run all the way to the top! Great memories for all of us in that trip to the Statue of Liberty, and now that I am a Mom myself, its something and someplace I would love to take my kids and create memories to share with them as well!
Race to the Top of Lady Liberty – Part I
When I was a young child, my family would go on summer vacations every single year. One year, my dad decided that he wanted to take our family to New York to see the Statue of Liberty. He had always wanted to go there as a child, but never had the chance. So off we went to New York. We rode the boat up to the island where the Statue of Liberty stands, and I was in awe at how large it really was compared to in pictures or seeing it from a distance. It really was a totally awesome experience as a child to look up and see her standing there. My dad took a few minutes to tell us kids about her history and what not, but honestly I don’t remember much of that! All I remember thinking while I was standing there was “I bet I can get to the top of this thing before the rest of them”, and as I stood there pretending to listen to my dad, I was getting a game plan together in my head. When my Dad was done talking, I remember telling everyone my plan to beat them all to the top. My cousins who went with us said I was nuts, and that they would beat me to the top. So, off all of us kids went running at full speed up the first flight of stairs! I remember I was taking the stairs two at a time and thinking to myself “no sweat, piece of cake, I can do this!” Up another flight of stairs I went, and another, and then another realizing that I was starting to slow down! Oh no! I looked back, everyone else was slowing down too! How could this be?