NYC!

We had a great time in New York City! Hannah really enjoys traveling, and is a good sport about going with the flow. It helps that we have a special needs stroller for her to use when we have distances to cover. She can walk just fine, but she has low stamina. So when we go on big trips, like Disney or NYC, we bring it along. It is a pain to use with the subway, since we have to collapse it to go down the stairs, but you can't beat it for hiking city blocks!

It was a busy time for my sister's family. With three kids in three different schools, and two more who are homeschooled, the schedule is a bit chaotic! Add in several hours of ballet rehearsal and/or performances for one child, plus various activities for the others, and, just for fun, add three houseguests as well and it gets exponentially more difficult to manage!

On our first day in the city my sister took the girls (Mary, 10, Maggie 7, Hannah 10) to a production of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. After the show we met up and went to see the windows at Lord and Taylor and Macy's, then hurried home to meet Stevie after kindergarten.

Some of the windows had Nutcracker themes, which was fun to see!

Thursday was very cold and rainy, so we stayed home and played all day long! We had a silly face contest:

(Mary's hair is in curlers preparing for the evening's performance)

I won one round.

Maggie was the Grand Prize Champion!

Thursday night was cold with a harsh rain. It was miserable, especially considering we were navigating independently. After the A-train and the 1-train, we were supposed to find the M-66 bus. Fortunately, my mom found a cab before we found the bus! Unfortunately, it was the cabbie's second day, and he didn't exactly know the best way to get to our destination. And worse, he crashed into another cab while driving the way NYC cabbies drive. No injuries, and surprisingly, no major damages. At least we assume so since the cabbies got out and looked over their cars and then just got back in the cab and drove off. It was dark, cold and rainy, so I'm not sure they could see much anyhow!

We got the the theater one minute before the start of the ballet!

It was wonderful! Mary looked splendid! This production of The Nutcracker had some complicated choreography in the opening party scene. Mary was dancing on stage for at least a half hour. She obviously was having fun on stage--her smile never left her face! I wish we had been allowed to take a picture of her, but there are tight restrictions on photography, even backstage, so all we have is Mary after the fact, when Hannah was giving her a bouquet.


We left on Friday, and were missing cousins as soon as we left! We have to wait until the summer to see them again. I know that, for those of you playing along at home, you cannot believe that we did not have one major mishap on this trip! Maybe we're starting something new here!