More magical than I had dreamed- our Christmas in New York! Part One

*After working on this post for several days now (started last Sunday afternoon), I've determined this will be a multi-part post.  It's just too long to include everything in one post and it's taking forever to get it all edited like I want it.  So, I give you Part One...

I have struggled with choosing the right words to describe how much fun Mark and I had in New York City for a few days before Christmas this year!  It's a trip that I will never get over I am afraid, and Mark said to me just yesterday, "I already want to go back"!

We started planning this trip back in the summer after the flights to NYC jumped significantly one evening as we were pondering a trip to NYC in July.  We were also pondering some other destinations but when we made the final decision that we would forgo a "big" trip this summer and wait until Christmas I just knew we had to go to NYC.  I had been three times before Mark and I married, and he took me in 2005 for our 1000 day anniversary.  I know, he's awesome.  That was his first trip to the city and he absolutely fell in love with it.  We went again in 2009, but all of my/our previous trips have been in the summer months.  I couldn't wait to be there to actually see all the sights that Christmas movies make feel so familiar - Rockefeller Center, Macy's, Radio City Music Hall and the famous Rockettes.

Let me also mention here that this trip is sort of a late celebration of a pretty big birthday Mark had last December, as well as Christmas this year, and our 8th anniversary (which was this past Tuesday).  We've also allowed it to carry over for Valentine's Day for this year, and then Mark surprised me with another visit to see Eva (I'll describe in Part Two) which is my birthday present for this year!  :)  Thankfully Mark and I both agree that the memories we make when we take "us only" trips are so much more of a treasure to us than any presents we could buy. 

I like to try to detail everything in a chronological format, just to help us remember as we look back at this post in years to come (we referenced my last post several times to remind us of restaurants, etc.). I also always have people ask us about our "itinerary" or what we did while we were there.  Rest assured I could attach our very organized and color coded spreadsheet, but I'll leave that to your imagination if you know Mark and me very well.  We won't travel any other way - it maximizes our time and leaves us absolutely exhausted from the fun every time we travel. 

We left on Saturday, December 18th and I won't say much about our travel experiences other than that the security processes in the Atlanta airport were as bad as I expected.  Mark and I were both tagged to be scanned and frisked - while other people walked calmly through the metal detectors and on to their flights.

We arrived to our destination, the Hotel Chandler, via the calmest cab ride I have ever experienced, and found the staff and environment to be welcoming, charming, and quite nicely appointed.  The hotel is about three blocks from Macy's and the Empire State building and the nearest train station. Definitely somewhere we'd recommend to anyone planning to visit the city.

Do you know how excited it made me to see these little Aveda bottles?  I heart Aveda hotels.  :)

We realized quickly that we had left our major toiletries bag at home (when we left at 4:30am) so we had to make a trip to the CVS around the corner for several necessary items.  We also took this opportunity to grab our favorites - milk and coke zero - which we could stash in the mini-fridge they brought to our room upon request.

After we got settled, we headed out for our most "unplanned" night of our trip.  The only priority was to go to Macy's to see the Christmas window-scenes, SantaLand, etc.  We didn't really think about the fact that we were heading out on this adventure at 7pm on the last Saturday before Christmas - there were people EVERYWHERE.  Macy's was just unbelievably decorated for the holidays - when we walked in a couple of days later Mark asked me if I knew they had red carpet.  It had been so crowded on that night we didn't even see the floor!

The Macy's window-scenes this year were famous scenes from the movies "Miracle on 34th Street" and "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus."  I am not sure what I was expecting, but I wasn't expecting the grandeur of 8-10 windows in chronological format, all intricately designed and many with moving parts to animate the movie scene. 

As I mentioned earlier, this night was fairly unplanned, so we decided to walk up to Times Square which was glowing it's famous neon glow through the skyscrapers surrounding us in front of Macy's.  There's still nothing like the adrenaline charge that I still get when I step into Times Square - I will NEVER forget the experience of being a high school freshman from small-town Alabama and experiencing that for the first time.  I have loved this city ever since.

And because the experience of being in NYC in the winter as opposed to the summer is quite different regarding temperature, we found ourselves drawn into stores just to get warmed up a little as we walked.  We are both still in complete awe of the massive Toys-R-Us in Times Square and all it's grand toys.  We both can't wait to take Turner with us one day and let her ride this gigantic Ferris wheel!

On Sunday morning, we slept in a little (considering we were actively shopping at midnight after having gotten up that morning at 4:00am), and then made our way via train to Brooklyn.  We found the most delicious Mom&Pop bagel shop and deli - La Bagel Delite - and devoured perhaps the most delicious bagels we've ever eaten.  I don't normally photograph my food, but I couldn't help snapping these bagels to show how much cream cheese was slathered between the bagels.  They go ahead and sandwich the bagel halves around the cream cheese for you so all you have to do is take a bite - the portions below are the halves we couldn't eat because these were so yummy, rich, and huge!  We'll be visiting La Bagel Delite again for sure!

This was my bagel - cinnamon rasin bagel with cinnamon/rasin/walnut cream cheese (the light brown fluffy stuff in the middle).  Oh. My. Goodness.

And then we made our way to the Brooklyn Tabernacle for their noon church service.  You may remember that we visited this church for the first time in 2009, but we determined then that we'd never visit NYC again without scheduling our trip over a weekend so we could go back again.  We were super excited to worship there on the Sunday before Christmas, but were even more excited to discover several weeks prior to our trip that their Christmas musical production would be occurring that afternoon as well.  We were grateful that we decided to attend the noon church service since we didn't have to leave the building and stand in the line (that wrapped around the block) waiting to enter for the 3pm musical performance.

Church at BT was as amazing as we remembered - this place is so full of the presence of Almighty God and to markedly empty of the distractions that cloud most church experiences in my lifetime.  These people really worship in "spirit and truth". I watched a sweet young man in a wheelchair in front of me, hands lifted high, worshiping and praising God with such passion and excitement.  If most of us are honest with ourselves, we only get that excited at football games. Pride is much more apparent in a church pew than a stadium seat I fear. I sometimes wonder if these people's lives have been different from mine, maybe they've been delivered from serious addictions, or self-destruction.  Could it be that they have a greater appreciation of their redemption so they worship with a more passion, with a bigger view of God?  Am I so "churched" that my pride is bigger than God's redeeming work, therefore leaving me worshiping with a smaller view of God and a bigger view of me?  Pondering...I always leave the Brooklyn Tabernacle pondering.

I am including this picture mainly for myself (and for those who may be curious about what their sanctuary looks like - this is only a small part of their beautiful facilities) --- you can't see the sweet young man I referenced earlier, but I can.  In my mind I know where he was sitting - just behind the sweet little boy in the bottom right corner - and I don't ever want to forget the image of him worshiping as we all should.  In spite of his apparent physical weaknesses, his obvious joy and spiritual strength was inspirational to me.

And for you music junkies...I sing with a mixed ensemble at church and we perform a lot of music from the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir. They have a recognizable style and it's fairly centered in the gospel/soul genre.  So you can imagine my surprise when the worship set at the service included Hillsong's "Mighty to Save" and Chris Tomlin's "Our God" from the Passion 2010 CD (which Mark now refers to as "the God fight song" by the way). I cannot even put in in words...the unbelievable privilege to be part of a 1500 member congregation chanting, "...and if our God is for us, then who could ever stop us, and if our God is with us, then what could stand against..."   Nothing.  Like.  It.

After the church service and awesome Christmas musical production, we ventured to what has become one of our very favorite destinations in New York City - Little Italy.  Last visit, we ate at two fabulous restaurants on quaint little Mulberry Street, but this time we tried a new one called La Nonna.  As usual, the Italian food was yummy and was priced reasonably.  The charming man who enticed us to come in stopped us on our way out to ask where we were from.  When we answered, "Auburn, Alabama" he about jumped out of his skin with excitement and gave us a hearty "War Eagle", then he shared that Cam Newton and his family (sans his infamous father) ate there while they were in town for the Heisman Trophy ceremonies.  Who knows if that is actually true, but he was certainly quick with this response to hearing of our beloved hometown.  We got a kick out of it for sure!  The picture below is of nothing in particular, other than the lights strung across Mulberry Street that signal to me and Mark that we are close to our beloved Little Italy.

The decorations were much more festive at this time of year, but there was a definite absence of outdoor seating options due to the cold air!  The landscape was different, but the delectable foods never change!

And finally, on our way home Mark wanted some hot chocolate so we stopped in the Dunkin' Donuts around the corner from our hotel....which also happened to house a Baskin Robbins.  I decided that despite the low temps, I really wanted to try the red velvet cake ice cream.  If you haven't tried this flavor, find a Baskin Robbins immediately and try it.  It was perfectly flavored to mimic red velvet cake - complete with a ribbon of cream cheese icing. YUM. 

 

All those words and pictures, and I am only through the second day of our trip.  :)  

Stay tuned for Part Two....

Christmas 2010

Christmas break started differently than ever before since Mark and I left almost as soon as school got out for a pre-Christmas getaway to New York City for five days.  It was magical, and awesome, and there's a post forthcoming...we've just been having too much fun around here for me to slow down and get it all in post-able form. 

But, when we arrived back we were greeted by a precious little girl who had been SO sweet while with Tootsie and Pop, but who had missed her Mommy and Daddy very much.  She wasn't sad to see us leave, but she was so excited to have us back around!  We kept getting hug after hug after hug!  So, naturally when we needed to spend the 23rd-24th running a few last minute errands (thankfully I had done all the Christmas shopping and wrapping prior to the trip - a first for me to have it done early!) and making food preparations for Christmas Day, we had a LOT of help.  :)

My ballerina helper - helping "spray" the red velvet cupcakes, and the purple velvet we made just for her!

Granny and Grandpa Armstrong arrived on the 23rd and on Christmas Eve Turner helped Granny make chicken and dumplings - which has become our dinner of choice on Christmas Eve after the candlelight service.  Granny and Grandpa gave Turner that cute apron and hat for her birthday this year!

Of course being a church musician makes things a little different on Christmas Eve...lots of musical preparations ahead of time, three separate cars driven to/from the church, not being able to sit with family during the service.  But, it's God's gift entrusted to me to use for His glory, so I count it a privilege to participate in that special way.   But, due to my schedule leaving earlier/arriving home later than others, we didn't really get any great family pictures together this year.  Mark had already changed, but was gracious to put back on his dress shirt....but then of course our normal camera queen was being shy.

She did pose for one picture with Mommy (not wanting to be picked up) in front of our beautiful tree that Pop picked out for us this year.

But, ultimately, this is the reality of the picture taking that night...

After a yummy dinner of chicken and dumplings, we finally got Turner settled in for bed on the air mattress in the floor of our bedroom (her room was being used by Tootsie and Pop).  And when I say finally, I mean at 11:45pm, and by "settled" I mean eventually moved into our bed to get her to sleep.  Santa's primary elf had been busy earlier in the day so everything was assembled, we just had to get everything set up like Santa would want it!

We did leave some cookies and milk for Santa, but when we asked Turner what she wanted to leave for him she said, "Some dumplings!  Because they are DEE-LI-CIOUS!"

This short video below will give you a sneak peek into what that morning was like, and the last 10 seconds include a peek at how we ended our day watching the Christmas SNOW!  If you can't watch but 10 seconds, watch the first fifteen seconds and check out sweet Turner's reaction to what Santa left....for *parents there's no better reaction on Christmas morning!  

*Parents, who when their precious daughter awakened around 7:30am and asked them if Santa had been there yet said, "Well, we don't know, crawl up here in bed with us for a few minutes."  We all slept till 9:00 - while all four grandparents had been up waiting for hours.  What can we say?  She's wired like her Mommy and Daddy to love sleeping late!

I was also tickled by her response when I asked her if she had a good Christmas.  She said, Yes Mommy, Santa makes the best toys ever!"

A few pictures and highlights of the morning...

A sweet hug for Daddy to thank him for a gift.  With a birthday about a month before Christmas, we realized the need to teach Turner the importance of being grateful for each and every gift received - that gifts are meaningful and special, not commonplace.

And thanks to Granny's awesome idea, Mommy and Daddy wrapped up the infamous purple unicorn Pillow Pet that Turner "found" a couple of weeks before Christmas in Santa's hiding place.  She was totally shocked to unwrap it, and had the same reaction she did the first time.

Learning how to operate her V-Reader which has been the most used Christmas present she received this year thus far.  Thanks Granny and Grandpa! 

 

Uncle Richard has a way of choosing gift that Turner absolutely loves!  This awesome Melissa and Doug art easel (paint and dry erase on one side, chalk board on the other) is also one of Turner's favorite Christmas surprises (and a new addition to my kitchen decor)!

About 7pm on Christmas night, we were shocked to see snow falling outside!  A White Christmas?  In Alabama?  Definitely something unexpected and special!

We had a wonderful Christmas this year with all four grandparents sharing the special day with us here in Auburn.  We did miss BB and Matt and Uncle Richard and Great Aunt Arlene who were unable to join us!  We hope you had a blessed Christmas celebration with those you love!

Enjoying the Christmas Parade

One of the many aspects I love about living in a "small town" is the annual Christmas Parade.  Now, Auburn is not a "small town" by many standards, much larger than the towns in which Mark and I both grew up.  But, we have a unique way of making this special village on the plains feel like a small town on special occasions!

Now, you'll obviously figure out that this even happened quite a few days ago...December 11th to be exact.  But the days and time between that fun Saturday morning, and this chilly, lazy Sunday afternoon on which I write this post...well, it's all been quite a blur.  An amazingly fun, memorable, and blessed blur.  I'll recap over the next few posts, but I first had to mention what fun we had with Turner at this year's Christmas Parade.

Thankfully, Turner's Daddy is pretty clever and he thought to bring along her miniature tailgate chair.  Brilliant, I say!  Especially since the concrete was quite chilly to the hind parts of Turner's parents, who alas did not bring their tailgate chairs. Turner looked like a 90 year old woman sitting there watching the floats pass.

And then the music moved her, and she just had to stand up and dance!

It was finally time for Santa to make his way around our corner (in the back of the firetruck -- which is the only proper way for Santa to ride in a small town Christmas parade in my opinion).  Turner had been nervous about this, almost crying like she didn't want to see him and didn't want him to throw candy at her?  No clue why, but it didn't take long for her to realize that he was throwing CANDY and she could have whatever she picked up!  Once she saw other kids running for it....she took off!  Like, down the street after the firetruck.  I am not including the pictures taken of me chasing her down the street to bring her back to our little corner!

Oh the joy of being a child at Christmastime!

Parent night at dance class!

I have been looking forward to tonight since the first week of August, when Turner started her very first ballet/tap combination dance class.  I could hardly wait to see her this unique element - her first major activity that doesn't include us there to assist and guide her.  Turner was beaming when I picked her up from Rhonda's today and squealed with delight when she saw me and exclaimed that we were going with her to dance class!  She's talked and talked about this for a several days.

To be perfectly honest, the dancer in me wanted to see her remember the prepared routine - I wanted to see her love dancing as much as I do.  The teacher in me wanted to see her obey the teacher and show as much discipline as can reasonably expected from a three-year-old.  She is the youngest in her class by a few months as most of the girls turned three prior to August, so as in any situation we weren't sure how the age difference would manifest itself.  And she missed class last week due to the CWE party so with Thanksgiving it's been three weeks she's done these routines.

Mark and I were astonished at how beautifully she did - she was obedient, respectful, and performed with enthusiasm!  She loves the stage, which admittedly she inherited from me, and she just smiled and smiled and clapped her hands with excitement when she'd catch our eye.  Being the little diva she is, it was quickly obvious that she thought all the cameras in the room were there for HER!  She kept smiling at other people as they snapped away at their kids - she had no clue the other cameras weren't pointed her direction!

We were probably most proud (especially considering some of the minor struggles we've had with separation in this context) that although several other little girls ran to their parents when we all entered the room, Turner stood at the bar proudly as she had been asked.  She looked so BIG and so grown standing there at the bar, not shy, not intimidated by 20 strange adults with various cameras pointed her way.  I. Was. Am. So. Proud.

It's funny how your emotions change when you become a parent -and by funny, I mean torturous.  Seriously,  I totally get that this is 3 year old dance class.  But, deep down, if I'm honest...I wanted her to do a good job. I wanted her to be proud of herself.  I wanted her to be confident and not insecure.  I wanted her to enjoy dancing.  I wanted her to be able to learn and retain the movements like the other girls who are older than she is. I can see how I might be a nutcase before she survives middle school?  I have no idea how my precious mother is still mentally sane (which Mark would argue is debatable anyway) after watching me perform in as many piano recitals, dance recitals, and pageants as I've put her through in my lifetime.

I was also thankful that I could finally get a better understanding of the songs they use to teach some of the ballet technique each week.  Turner will randomly break into song in the shower, singing songs about "squishing marshmallows on the floor" and "scoop up bubblegum off the floor - if you bend your knees it will turn into English peas".  These make so much more sense in context! :)