Happiest of Holidays

We have had the happiest* of Holidays.

We hope you have too!

*a barrage of pictures and stories are soon to come*

Winter Time

Recipe:

evaporated milk

sugar

vanilla

cocoa

Just eye ball it, everything is to taste. But with the cocoa, less is more!
Kaci enjoyed setting up the Christmas Tree this year, she also has enjoyed destroying it. I made stars out of twigs for ornaments this year. Lots of fun. We had one strand of colored lights that Kaci adores. We put them on the very bottom and she is sure to ooooh and aahhh over them when I turn the lights on. My little family, dressed warm, sipping hot chocolate and eating cookies by the Christmas Tree. I love the holidays!

photos doctored up at the cool website I recently learned about picnik.com. Everything is done in the browser, no downloading and such. Nothing fancy, just a couple of things to spice up my photos for ya!

Macy's Day Parade!

1. The Rockettes aren't actually in the parade (bunch a sissy's!)
2. The Parade is only an hour and a half, not three.
3. We never saw any performances. Except the amazing jump ropers!

With that said, here's my better-than-NBC footage of the parade!


Pictures for posterity purposes:

We got to our spot by 6:30am. By 7 am there were 3 rows behind us, by 9am there were 7 or more rows behind us. This a picture of a super nice and fun family from Michigan we sat by.

Antonio Banderas. Yup, that's him. There were paparazzi's taking pictures like crazy. The locals we were surrounded by kept yelling Hi to him. It was pretty funny.The beginning of the parade. Kaci loved all the balloons. The first giant balloon was Spiderman. She was really excited to point it out to us. She still talks about driving to see the big balloons.
The confetti was so fun. All the clowns (there was a constant flow of clowns) threw confetti at us. I'm still finding it in our coats. Kaci loved it. I loved seeing it everyone's hair that was in front of us. So fun!

Just believe! I saw it all in person. Something I always watched on TV and never thought I'd ever actually see in person. Thanks to everyone who made it all possible. Especially Brad (he kept encouraging me, Liam who made me believe I was going to get enough no matter what, both sets of parents for contributing to my fund, Kaci for going along with it despite being sick, and Macy's for putting it all on for my personal enjoyment!!)

Camo Time of the Year

It's hunting season... head to toe camo is everywhere, grocery store, post office, DMV, you name it!
A local general store advertised pictures with a Santa in Camo. I just happened to drive by the store the day Camo Santa was there... I just had to see it for myself. The first thing I saw when I stepped in the door was an infant girl with a camo hat on. I then saw a couple of moms with arms full of camo for all their kids. I couldn'
t help but think of my dad.
Then we wandered around and to my great surprise it wasn't just Santa, but the wifey too in head to toe camo!

I didn't have my camera...bummer. But I wonder after finding this picture on the internet... why doesn't Santa always wear camo? It would make a lot more sense.

What did Kaci think? In her words upon seeing Santa in camo, "Man. Costume. Ice cream face!" She thought his beard was ice cream... wouldn't that make him even more magical? She's already figured out he's a hoax, and she was a lil disappointed when we explained his beard wasn't ice cream.

Deciding to move to Alaska

If anyone was wondering how the conversation went when Brad first proposed going to Alaska, it was something like this.

I'm going to go take a hot bath! I'm getting too cold just thinkin about all that ice!

Times Square

We stayed in Queens. We loved walking through the neighborhood to get to the subway.

Our Ergo backpack saved the day again. She got her sleep and we didn't miss a beat...

Okay, that was a lame intro to our first street performers.

I was so excited! Brad kept telling me that street performers were one of his favorite things about New York... I agree, so cool.

It's like daylight out there, crazy.

Once we were there and done being in shock... we didn't really know what to look at or what to really do. Well, I had one idea. Those big red glowing steps were calling to me.

I just had to do a jig, it's not every day you get the opportunity to do a jig on big red glowing stairs! After my big debut we just walked and walked looking at everyone and everything!

Then we found M&M World!

Kaci loves M&M's! It's how we potty trained her. We went a lil crazy (13 bucks a pound) and let her fill up a bag or two. She loved picking out the colors she wanted. Not even out of the store before she starts eating them.

That's when Brad and I realized we were starving... We decided to be a little crazy (again) and went to Hard Rock to eat.

I'm never disappointed with Hard Rock's food. Yum! Our visit to Times Square was a lot of fun. It was so crazy to be there after living in such small towns for the past few years. So much advertising, so many people, so many name brand stores... crazy.

Our new playground!

And the winners of the guessing game contest are... Papa Call and Nancy Kirk!

Brad has accepted an internship position with the Anchorage School District, which starts mid-August 2010. He has also verbally agreed to work for them the year following his internship as well, so we are planning on being in Alaska for at least two years. Which means.... Ya'll are welcome to come visit!

Yes, we are aware that it gets cold in Anchorage (but actually not as cold as many other states like Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota... the ocean helps mediate the weather... so we're looking at winter time high's of 20 rather than -20). And yes we are aware that in the winter time there is not a lot of sunlight (about 5-6 hours, rather than the 8 to 9 that most states will be getting).

On the other hand there are many positive things that we are looking forward to as we prepare for our next great adventure!

Getting there is half the journey

The drive was just as much apart of the trip as Times Square (that post is coming soon). It deserves some lime light. It left a lasting impression on Kaci. At the local grocery store this week, we got one of those fancy carts with a car attached to it. When Kaci climbed inside and asked me to start pushing, I had the following conversation with her:

Me: Kaci, are you driving?

Kaci: Beep! Beep! Silly car!

Me: Where are you driving, Kaci?

Kaci: Drivin' New York!

Me: You're drivin' to New York?!?

Kaci: New YoooOOOOrrRRkk!!

I made the video this time (I know you always wonder who creates these things, usually Brad, this time, me). Enjoy. The pictures below are mostly for the blog book we'll make this summer of our Virginia adventures. Sorry for the redundancy!

Kaci with a taxi, I got one of everyone with a taxi... except me, I tried, but would always just barely miss it...shucks. One reason to go back I guess!!
Brad with a taxi. Brad hates driving in big cities, makes him have to pee. I usually do all the city driving. But, Kaci was sick so I was tending to her. He was hilarious. He said some pretty funny stuff. Like "when the cars honk at you, it just means they like you!" I love the way he thinks when he's in a stressful situation. He did an awesome job navigating the city, Kaci helped by holding a map and repeating all the numbers we said. Brad would say, "look for exit 36" and Kaci would respond, "dirty-six!"
Ok, here's my Statue of Liberty picture. I've always wondered what it was like for all those immigrants whose first glimpse of New York (America) was the Statue of Liberty. Now I know! Seeing her through the mists like that seemed so magical to me. It was a perfect moment for me. Call me silly, but that's all I wanted. To catch a glimpse of such a symbolic statue, as I made my way to New York to fulfill silly childhood dream... my excitement (as great as it was) was little compared to those who saw her with much greater hopes and dreams. Picture perfect! (in my mind, obviously since ya can't actually see her in the pix above)
Nothing says New York quite like big buildings, huh? Do you see that mist of darkness, that awful fog that plagued us the entire drive? This pix was taken at about 2pm, that's mid day folks, not a sliver of sunshine... not a sliver. This my friends is why the East Coast is the East Coast, I have never experienced anything close to this on the West Coast (but I've also never lived in Washington, yikes!)

My angle baby. She was such a good sport the whole way, just singing songs and wanting hugs to snuggle away feeling sick. She's such a little gem in our lives. I can't tell you how blessed we feel to have her "along for the ride".