NYC Trip at 31 weeks

Since Keven and I were not able to go home for Christmas this year, we decided we really needed to make the most of staying here in Philly. We planned out a trip to New York City, so we could experience all the Christmas craziness on the streets of New York, and of course visit the huge tree at Rockefeller Center that is in a ton of favortite Christmas shows. We planned everything out and decided to go the day after Keven's last final (which was last saturday. We were all bundled up and headed out to the car, started the car and.... the car wouldn't turn on. We had a dead battery. We spent all morning trying to jump it, when we finally did, we had to go get gas... then after pumping the gas our car wouldn't start again. The battery was really dead. So this time after getting a jump we went out and bought a battery and drove home, where Keven installed the new battery. By this time it was too late to visit New York. I was so mad! But we decided to plan on doing our trip on monday, which mad me feel better. It is funny, well not really funny, our car last year had problems and we had to buy a set of all new tires right before Christmas. And the two years before it was either my car or keven's that had something go bad during christmas time. It is our joke that our cars get jealous and want something new for christmas. :)

Monday came, we said a prayer before we left the house this time, and we headed out. We drove to Hoboken, NJ were we had to search for a parking garage. We found a pretty nice one and parked the car. We then blindly walked the streets of Hoboken looking for Carlos's Bakery... which is the actual bakery where they have the show Cake Boss, which we used to watch all the time. We got there finally (after back tracking a bunch, who knew we parked so close to it..) We wanted to buy a pastery, but when we realized we would be the 100th people or so in the massive line, we settled with just taking a picture!

Here is a picture of New York City from Hoboken

We took the train from Hoboken to 33rd St, right by the Empire State building. From there we walked over to Macy's (the worlds largest store)

Ok now I think I just have to give you picture tour of everything we did, with very few words... sorry all this is a big post with tons of pictures. But we have to show our families all our excitment :)

Next stop Times Square...

The massive Toys R' Us that made us feel like kids again!

The Grand Central Station

A few things we saw walking up 5th Ave

We had to stop and visit this big famous toy store and buy Luke a souvenir, which is an adorable soft monkey, which is now under our tree!

Even with all the commercial things in NYC, we found in central park one symbol of what christmas is really about... even though it looks like an ad for a church... funny thing was, no one even stood to look at it.

Central Park. I made sure we bought Keven a hot dog to eat while we walked through a part of it!

Rockefeller's Center... yes I know i look massive with my coat all bundled up... it was my one and only coat that would barely close over my big belly.

The ice skating rink... we only get a picture this year, I think it would be too dangerous for us to carry out our Christmas Eve tradition of ice skating :)

By this time, we were both so tired and sore we could barely move. We had been walking the entire day... well we did stop for me to rest often, but we never took a subway. We got lost a bunch of times, which added to our mileage. We loved every moment of it. I was happy to find that the public restroom in NY are super clean. There was one where I had waited in line for over 10 minutes and there was an actual worker in the bathroom, a sweet black lady that when she say my belly said "Why did you wait in that line for? You just needed to walk in here and let me see your belly and I let you in. You don't need to stand in no line!" It made my day. Anyway, our last stop for the day was to sit down and enjoy two slices of real NY pizza! it was delicious!!! We caught this one last picture before we headed back to the train for Hoboken and then made our 2 hour drive home.

It is now Thursday and I think my body finally recovered after the extreme exercise I gave it. We had a wonderful time, and we can't wait to go back and see more... I bet we can visit that city dozens of times before we even see half of it!

We are sad to not be home for christmas, we miss our families a bunch! We hope you all have a fabulous Christmas!!!
One last picture... so you can really see the belly... the ones from new york don't show it off very well. So here is me today!

As you can see, we are going to have a nice Christmas thanks to our families who have been sending us packages in the mail! Thanks you guys! We love and miss you! We are glad we have the technology of Skype in order to be with! Love you all! Again, Merry Christmas!