As has become our custom in recent years we once again headed up to New York City for Thanksgiving to visit with my husband’s sister, her husband, and our niece and nephew. We took the train up and got in around noon. The weather this year was fantastic. I wish it was that warm every year. It made it so much nicer to be able to go outside and do stuff while we were there.

While the dinner was being finished we tried to take to the kids to the park to keep them occupied. Lily refused to leave mommy, so it wound up just being Paul, Ryan, and me. I taught Ryan how to play Red Light, Green Light though our plan to tire him out backfired a little when he wanted to be the stop light.

Dinner was small this year as it was just the six of us and the kids weren’t really sitting down to eat with us for the most part. The rest of the evening was spent playing with the kids in the apartment. They had great fun wrestling with their Uncle Paul while he tried to get them inside of a giant box that was in the apartment.

Friday I naturally started my day with a bagel. There are no bagels in Baltimore that compare to a New York City bagel. Then we took the kids to the Big Apple Circus. I’ve only ever been to the Ringling Brothers Circus before (and I guess a few Cirque shows). This was actually a little more akin to Cirque than Ringling Brothers. There was a lot more acrobatics and a lot fewer animals (only one act with dogs and one with horses) than Ringling Brothers. There was also an intermission that resulted in meltdowns by pretty much every kid sitting around me including my niece and nephew. We made it through the second half though.

After lunch across the street from Lincoln Center where the circus was, we wound up walking the 30 blocks back to their apartment. It was a beautiful day, so I was all for it. I really didn’t expect the kids to make it the entire way. If I was betting on it I definitely would have lost. There was a lot of whining the last 10 blocks or so, but they made it. I did get them involved with my Fitbit telling them Aunt Danielle had to get her steps, so they kept asking me how many steps I had the rest of the weekend.

As is our custom, Paul and I headed out Friday night to see a Broadway show. This year we saw Allegiance. I’ll write more about that in separate blog post to come probably tomorrow.

Saturday I went out to get another bagel for breakfast. Unfortunately this one wasn’t as good as they mixed up the strawberry cream cheese I ordered with lox cream cheese. Let’s just say that first bite was quite a surprise. I ate it anyway, but it’s definitely not what I wanted.

After breakfast we took the kids to the Museum of Natural History and the Planetarium. They’ve been learning about space in pre-K, so it was actually something they were interested in seeing at the museum. And of course we had to take a trip to see the dinosaurs. It was significantly more busy in that part of the museum, so we didn’t spend too much time there.

Paul and I took the train back on Saturday afternoon. It was about 20 minutes late, but still much better than taking the bus back in Thanksgiving weekend traffic as we have in past years.

It was a fun weekend, and I vote that we have warm weather for all future Thanksgivings there as well.