Christmas in New York City

There's nothing quite like Christmas in New York City. It really is just as festive, sparkling and dynamic as it looks in all those holiday movies that feature Christmas time in New York City-- if not more so.

Last Monday, my eldest daughter and I skipped out of town for a few hours and drove into New York for the evening. With my new car that I had only had for less than 48 hours. I'm so brave.

A few years ago, my eldest daughter befriended another teenage girl in Austria while doing some creative writing with a Twilight role playing group on myspace, essentially becoming modern day 'pen pals' of sorts. They would instant message each other--under parental supervision, of course, and then eventually maintained their friendship via facebook and occasionally video chatting when they could align their respective free time with each other, all around the time difference between them. So her friend was recently visiting New York City for a few days and Monday was the only day she was free. So of course, being the awesome mom that I am, I took her into the city to meet her 'pen pal' in person for the first time. This couldn't have worked out with my husband being the awesome dad he is, having come home early from work that day to mind the others in the castle (his dad and our youngest daughter).

Seeing the girls meet for the first time was like something right out of a movie. Her friend was waiting by the fountain outside the famous toy store, FAO Schwarz searching the faces of the passersby for my daughter. My daughter spotted her right away and could barely wait for the light to turn in our favor so she could cross the street to her friend. Just as she gets to her, she calls out her name. Her friend turns around, their faces light up with smiles, eyes glassy with tears of joy and they hug each other as if they were long lost friends who haven't seen each other in ages. It was very, very sweet. Here is a photo I took of them within minutes of having met in person for the first time:

Vicky and Maria

Aren't they adorable? After a few moments of "Wow, you're here!" and more hugs and laughter, the girls proceeded to go shop and I was to meet them outside The Plaza hotel in two and a half hours. I don't think I would have had the strength to let them go off on their own like that if it weren't for cell phones and GPS tracking. And the fact that they promised to stay on 5th Avenue between FAO Schwarz and Rockefeller Center... which is pretty much where I was going to be, one or two blocks behind them. LOL. Well, not exactly, but pretty much.

So how did I spend those two and a half hours on my own? First I spent an hour or so with Dru Ann who blogs at notes from me. I knew Dru Ann worked in the city, so I sent her an email earlier in the day hoping she had the time to meet me for a little bit and sure enough, it worked out perfectly. Dru Ann and I strolled along 5th Avenue, chatting about all kinds of things like New York things, our mutual friend Brandy and how much we would have loved to have her there with us, too, a little about family, and whatever else came to mind. All the while, we savored the amazing lights and creative sights of the windows of Saks and other stores. She even brought me into Tiffany & Co. where we stood in awe of the Tiffany Diamond. That's 128.54 carats. Whoa baby.

The Tiffany Diamond

I wasn't such the photographer this evening as I didn't even bring my camera! I don't know what I was thinking... or not thinking. So these first few are taken with my iPhone.

Dru Ann and I 

I had such a nice time meeting Dru Ann and walking around with her. She is truly a lovely person. Thanks for making time in your day for me, Dru Ann! :)

Soon it was time for Dru Ann to head home and I was on my own for a while. After walking around the city for two and a half hours in the freezing cold (literally), I decided I needed to go sit someplace warm until it was time to meet my daughter again. I headed to the Time Warner building at Columbus Circle where I knew there was a Borders. I figured I'd sit and flip through some Christmas cookie magazines. Well, I forgot there was a Williams-Sonoma store on the first level, so I hit there first. What a smart idea, let me tell you. I wasn't even inside Williams-Sonoma for two seconds and I was being offered a sample of hot mulled cider. I'm sure I looked like I needed it, too! I started to thaw while admiring really expensive French skillets. I wandered some more and came across some candy samples and tried a champagne gum drop. Yum. I wandered further into the store where a salesperson was serving brownies with peppermint bark baked on top. Right next to the test kitchen was the section of Williams-Sonoma signature dish soaps and hand moisturizers where I sampled the "Winter Forest" lotion and my dry, chapped hands were very happy and it smelled just lovely, too. Now that I had some drink, food and spa treatment-- boy, do they know how to treat their costumers, or what? Thanks Williams-Sonoma!-- I headed upstairs to Borders where I flipped through some magazines before finally meeting daughter.

At this time, I met up with my daughter, her friend and her family and friends with whom she was traveling outside The Plaza Hotel. We then found a local pub and had some dinner. All too soon, I had to give my daughter the sad news that we needed to head home. I felt badly about having to make the girls say good bye after only four hours together, but it was already after 8 pm on a Monday night and we needed to call it a night.

My daughter and I started heading back to the car, but took a few minutes to admire the window displays at Bergdorf Goodman. Wow. I thought the displays at Saks were impressive--these were even more amazing! Interestingly, I found both the displays at Saks and at Bergdorf Goodman to have some "steampunk" elements to them.

One of the window displays at Bergdorf Goodman. 

I recommend you click on it and zoom in to see some of the detail of this display. The photo really doesn't do it justice.

This is a sample of one little detail at the floor of the display. Or rather, not so little. Get a load of the size of the stone on that ring!

Of course, we paused at Rockefeller Center for a few quick photos.

I and my daughter

We noticed a band playing there, and much to my teen's excitement, it was My Chemical Romance. We were actually along the street that went behind the stage, but we were so close, nonetheless. To their backs, anyway. LOL. She was patient, though, and eventually got a few pictures of the band with the lead singer dude actually facing us. Ah, the things that rock a 15 year old's world...

I hope you enjoyed my little glimpse of 5th Avenue decked out for Christmas! :)

At Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

Happy Thanksgiving! :)

We woke up this morning at the crack of dawn... not to put the turkey in the oven, but to drive into New York City for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade!!! Yay!

Wearing hats, scarves and gloves, we packed our cameras, a thermos of hot chocolate and a step ladder, then headed into the city. This is the second time we've gone to watch the Thanksgiving Day parade in person. Several years ago we went with friends of ours who go every year and at that time, we arrived to our viewing spot along Central Park West over an hour before the parade started. We had stood about in the cold for awhile that time, but we were practically right at the curb with a fantastic view of everything. This year, we got into the city closer to 9 am, which is when the parade starts, so we had a difficult time getting close to curb of the parade route due to the crowds. We ended up on 59th St. near the parade route along 7th Ave. and it was packed with people. This is where the step ladder came in. We propped the step ladder on the sidewalk and had the girls take turns standing on it so they could see over the crowd for a better view of the parade. We could still see the balloons when standing on the sidewalk, but from the step ladder, the girls could see the marching bands and floats, too.

My husband with our girls standing on the step ladder..

A head above the rest!
Oldest on step ladder--see how high she is?
 I and youngest in front of her.

Hello Kitty! ^_^

Mickey Mouse 

Kung Fu Panda

Horton from "Horton Hears a Who" by Dr. Seuss

Me and my youngest 

My husband and me

What a fun time! If you ever have the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving in the New York area, I highly recommend that you make the effort to see the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in person. There's something so special about it from the sounds of the marching bands and the occasional siren in the background, the smells of roasting nuts and pretzels from food carts and of course the amazing sights of the parade itself. Watching those over sized balloons float down the city streets between skyscrapers is truly a sight to behold. The traffic afterwards not so much. But hey... more family time, right? ;)

When we got home we had som pie. Before our Thanksgiving dinner! That was fun.

Wishing you and your loved ones a wonderful Thanksgiving!

What I did over my summer vacation . . .

Today is the last day of summer in our little world as my girls go back to school tomorrow. My youngest is entering 5th grade--her last year in elementary school. My adorable baby. A fifth grader. And don't even get me started on the other one. My oldest is off to high school! High School?! I can't believe it. I grew her in my womb! Nourished her at my breast. And then in the blink of an eye, she's this beautiful young woman going off to high school! Poof! Just like that.

Whereas most of our summer was just how I like it--quiet, low key, relaxing, and lazy--parts were also exciting and adventurous.

Like going on an African Safari!

National Geographic is sure to be knocking on my door once they get wind of these . . .

Check out the eye contact I got with this cat! Scary!

Nothing like a nice mud bath to help you cool off in the heat of the day.

I think they spotted dinner? Left overs again.

Those wart hogs aren't interested in left overs. They're looking for something fresh!

Okay, okay, the truth is we went on safari at the American Museum of Natural History in NYC. Ha, ha. Did I fool you?

I just love the American Museum of Natural History and the newer Rose Center for Earth and Space that's attached to the museum. My first time visiting the Natural Museum of History was on a class trip when I was in the 4th grade, and quite frankly, I'm still in awe of the place to this day. The museum is so old and beautiful and the Rose Center for Earth and Space is fantastic. I love all the exhibits at both places and the IMAX films at Rose Center. I always learn something new.

This photo was taken from inside the Rose Center for Earth and Space:



We also journeyed to the center of the Earth World New York City!

In other words, we spent a day exploring Central Park in Manhattan on hot day in July. I've been to Central Park before, but I've always just been on the fringe of the park at the Central Park Zoo and along the upper west side along Central Park West and 59th St. I always wanted to see more of this huge and amazing park, so we did, but only covered about half of the park in one day, and even then, we didn't see everything there is. It's really an incredible park, and I had fun shooting photos while we were there.


What else? I rode 75 miles on my new road bike! It was over the course of two weeks, but still. Thanks to my husband, I have this awesome new road bike --it's actually a Quintano Roo entry level triathlon bike-- and I've been going on road rides ranging from 7 miles to 17 miles every few days. Between road rides a couple of times a week and continuing with spin classes at the gym, I'm hoping to do some 30-60 mile bike rides on the weekends next summer. It's very exciting.

I also broke some personal records this summer that I'm very excited about. For starters, I broke my own reading record in August when I read THIRTEEN books in one month! My average is 4-5 books per month, so I was so excited to have read thirteen. I wasn't even trying, it just happened.

The other personal record that I broke was my summer attendance at the gym. I work out at a gym regularly throughout the year from September through June, averaging 4-5 days a week (I love Zumba, spin, and kick boxing)! and for the last several years have only gone maybe 2-3 times in the whole month of July and not at all by the time the lazy days of August rolled around. Until this past summer, that is. This summer, I continued working out 3-5 days a week at the gym both July AND August. Except for one week during which I had hurt my back, but that was injury related, so I'm claiming excused absence. I'm so proud of myself for staying dedicated to exercise this summer.


My teen daughter made the High School Volleyball Team! She attended volleyball camp and clinics over the summer with plans of trying out for the high school volleyball team and she did it! She's been having 3-4 hours of practices every day for the last two weeks or so and has her first scrimmage game this evening--and school hasn't even started yet! This is going to be a great experience for her. Dance has pretty much monopolized her recreational activities since she was four years old, and she's been on the dance studio's dance competition team for the last four years, so participating in a team sport is so new and exciting for her. She's not giving up dance entirely. She's going to take a few classes a week after volleyball is over in November, but she won't be spending 14 hours a week there like she's been doing the past few years. Only six.

My tween daughter (10 year old) mastered the FIOS remote and menu!
PLUS, she may have set the record for watching the most Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, and Selena Gomez TV shows, movie specials, and YouTube Videos over and over and over. And a healthy dose of Taylor Swift, as well. (I love her!)

She's also a voracious reader and has been reading the entire Harry Potter series on her own since we saw Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince in the movies earlier this summer. She's reading that book now. She also spent countless hours at the computer typing away on her own stories. She's very creative. I sometimes help her pick out names for her characters, or names of towns, schools, teachers, things like that. She also had a lot of sleepovers with her friends throughout the summer. So cute.

Other highlights of our summer include continuing to settle into the house after the construction. (Still waiting to pass final inspections. Grr!) I finally finished putting curtains up in the whole house, which was quite the feat. All that measuring, buying rods, curtains and blinds, installing them, . . . phew! That was a big job, but everything looks great. I've also enjoyed getting my cooking groove back over the summer. I really love my new kitchen---everything including the kitchen sink! I love our master bedroom, too! Sometimes I don't want to leave it in the morning. Seriously. And the master bathroom. Ahhh . . . so nice. We also caught up with a lot of friends this summer-- some whom we see regularly during the year and others whom we haven't seen in a long time like one of my college roommates who I saw last week for the first time in 14 years! That was really wonderful.

As you can see, we really did have a fairly quiet, low key, relaxing summer with a little bit of excitement and adventure thrown in. So as another summer comes to a close and a new school year begins, it's time for morning alarm clocks, packing lunches, keeping tabs on homework, driving kids all around town, enforcing bedtimes, setting curfews and looking forward to Friday nights. Life is good.

What were some of the highlights of your summer?

Kate & Christine do NY ComicCon :)

As the Romantic Times Convention was drawing near last week, I started lamenting on the good times I'd be missing... meeting favorite authors and blogging friends and attending panel discussions. I was even considering driving 5 1/2 hours each way to go to to the author signing that took place last Saturday, but really couldn't justify the travel time and expense for such a short visit. So when I heard that Sherrilyn Kenyon was going to be at NY Comic Con in Manhattan promoting her Lords of Avalon series in comic form and the much anticipated novel, Acheron, I thought it would be a fun alternative to RT. I mentioned my idea, somewhat in passing, to my fellow romance reading friend, and Jersey girl, Katiebabs, and she was instantly enthusiastic about said NY Comic Con adventure. Kate told me that Melissa Marr, NYT and LA Times best selling author of Wicked Lovely was a last minute add on for a panel discussion at Comic Con, and that pretty much sealed the deal for us. If you haven't yet read Wicked Lovely, I recommend you do... its an awesome urban fantasy romance. I loved it.

For anyone who has never been to the Jacob Javitz Center in Manhattan, it is a huge convention center. Huge. Eleven thousand people roamed the floors on Saturday, attending discussion panels, sneak previews of upcoming movies, visiting vendor booths, publisher booths, artist galleries, demonstrations, gaming tables, costume contests, and so on. Overwhelmed upon our arrival, we decided to first stake out where Melissa's panel was going to be since she was a short notice addition, we had no information at all other than her panel was at 4:00 pm. The staff was friendly and considerate, but still not able to tell us which panel Melissa was on. So we sat in on a panel discussion on NYC through its authors. Then we ventured up two levels to the program floor. So many people, so many booths, so little time. Being the voracious readers we are, we decided to hit a few publisher booths.

Our first stop was the Penguin booth where we bumped into (almost literally) Anton Strout, author of recently released urban fantasy novel, Dead to Me. He is also a member of the League of Reluctant Adults site and the Fangs, Fur & Fey LiveJournal community. He is such a sweet guy. Friendly, witty and laid back, Kate and I had a fun time chatting with him. Anton had had a signing at Comic Con the day before and sold all the books he had there (way to go, Anton!), so we got a postcard signed instead.

We finally found Melissa Marr's panel, which was a discussion on today's voices in graphic novels and got a few minutes to chat with Melissa afterward. We asked a few quick questions about her writing, she got to sign my copy of Wicked Lovely that I brought along, and she gave us some beautiful temporary tattoos that Melissa's own personal tattoo artist designed, inspired by the art for Wicked Lovely and Ink Exchange.

Ink Exchange is Melissa Marr's next novel, scheduled for release on April 29, 2008. Melissa was so warm and humbled that we sought her out--I really wish we had more time to talk with her. She just had this aura about her that made me feel comfortable enough to want to sit and chat with her over coffee, tea, or something stronger! Maybe next time. Melissa even gave us the heads up about Ink Exchange being available at the Harper booth so Kate and I could get a copy. I'll be reading it this week!

Supercool sidenote: While getting the link to Melissa's site and blog .... I noticed Melissa mentions meeting Kate and me at Comic Con in her blog post today! Yay!!! :)

Kate and I make it back to Sherrilyn Kenyon's booth where we got free books and other neat promo stuff, including an exclusive excerpt to Ash's story, and a handful of intriguing quotes from Acheron, scheduled for release on August 8, 2008. Here's one of my favorites: (hmm... I hope I'm allowed to post this... :s )

"He's willing to end the world for you. You should be impressed. I am." ~Nick Gautier

Sherrilyn said she'll be back in Manhattan in August for Ash's book tour.

I'm sure you all can imagine that New York City is a prime location for people watching. Well, go to a comic convention in New York City and it is people watching haven. At first, I tried not to stare, ogle and gawk. Then I woke up and realized these people dressed like they did because they want to express their affection for their favorite characters and they absolutely revel in the attention. So I eventually got over my concerns about not staring, kept my camera out and started snapping pictures. As you can see, fans really get into their roles. They even have poses and actions rehearsed!

Of course, I couldn't help but stage some pics of Kate groping Superman and Batman. I mean... its important for a girl to weigh her options, right? (pun intended)

For the rest of Kate's search for the perfect superhero, you'll have to........

TUNE IN TOMORROW TONIGHT! ...errr... its more like later tonight

SAME BAT-TIME! ...well, actually in an hour or so....

SAME BAT-CHANNEL ...um. no. not here. at kate's blog HERE

""" da na na na na na na na na na na na na BAT MAaaaaan! ""

POW Kazam! POP

Our last panel of the day was a Spotlight on Gail Simone. Gail Simone is a critically acclaimed and award winning comic writer, having written countless works, possibly her most famous work being Birds of Prey. Gail is currently the writer of DC's Wonder Woman comic. She is the first permanent, ongoing female writer of Wonder Woman. How cool is that? Kate and I stood on line for awhile for Gail's panel, exhausted as we were, we were lucky to have gotten seats in the crowded room. But it was well worth it. Gail was gracious, and funny, and clearly loves her job. I'm so glad we stuck it out to hear her speak.

What a fun day. I have a feeling this was the first of many future annual Kate-and-Christine-do NY-Comic-Con adventures!