Merry Christmas!... Better late than never

Yes, I know it's February. But January was a little crazy with work/job hunting/life in general... But, Christmas break was fantastic because I got to go HOME!!! I was pretty excited- I even had a countdown of the days until my flight. And then I had a blast at home- I love my family so much. I have an amazing family and I'm so grateful for them and that I have a great place to go home to :)

The completed countdown... Goin' home!

Got to spend a week with these two wrestling monkeys.

Christmas Eve involved decorating sugar cookies (yum!), bowling (fun), and watching our neighbors in the city Christmas pageant (adorable). Christmas Eve night we had a delicious dinner, followed by singing Christmas carols and reading the Christmas story. Once upon a time the family tradition was ice skating on Christmas Eve, but since there's no rink in St. George we've had to improvise. This year was bowling...



Christmas day we got up early (of course) and opened presents... Unfortunately Derek and Mandy were in northern Utah with Mandy's family so they weren't able to be with us. But we made sure to send them pictures and text them throughout the day.

Ryan and his nice smelling "cologne." Oh Ry...



We might have had a little fun wrapping Dad's present in lots of little pieces...

 Then we took a trip to Cedar City to visit the cousins...

The rest of the week we spent just relaxing and hanging out with the family- my favorite kind of time at home :)



Tina playing in the "snow"

Grandma and Dee. Aren't they cute?

Another family tradition... puzzles!

Last holiday adventures in NYC

The last few weeks before the holidays were busy- and so much fun. Between Karin's visit and all the other activities I've posted about, there were a couple more highlights...

My #1 favorite winter activity is ice skating. My friend Veronica and I decided the week before Christmas was a great time :) First we went to a restaurant and had tasty chowder, then we went to Bryant Park for ice skating! It was a good choice- not only is it cheaper, but it is way less crowded than the rinks at Rockefeller and Central Park.

Yay for ice skates!

On a later day I also went to the Christmas Market at Bryant Park with Alina, another of my friends. It was cold and I have no pictures of the actual market but it was fun to just wander through the shops and chat :) After the market we headed to a place called Junior's for cheesecake. It was delicious- and I actually have a picture of it. Strawberry Shortcake cheesecake. Yum.

Thanks to my roommate Suzanne, I also had the opportunity to attend the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center. We saw The Barber of Seville, and it was great. It was in English (since it was their holiday show it was a little shorter and in English so it was family friendly) so it wasn't quite the same as when I saw it in the original Italian at the Opera House in Vienna but it was still fun! It felt very New York to get dressed up for a night at the opera ;)

My first visitor :)

Karin Stewart gets the official title of being My First Visitor :) I was pretty excited that she came to spend the day with me after being in D.C. for a wedding! Since she was only here for the day we packed in as much as we could...

First stop: The Statue of Liberty. Followed by a quick walk by the 9/11 Memorial, Freedom Tower, and Trinity Church.

The tiny line in the distance is the Statue of Liberty. The sun was so bright we could hardly stand to look in that direction.

After spending some time in Lower Manhattan we headed uptown to drop off bags and get ready to head to the Rockette's Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall.

Love this building- just look at it! And Karin of course ;)

Next stop: Rockefeller Center, 5th Avenue, F.A.O. Schwartz, and Times Square.

Uptown again to meet up with people at Magnolia Bakery (it's famous apparently). Then Last stop: Temple, Grand Central Station, and finally dinner- at 11pm!

My favorite picture :)

Thanks for coming to visit!

Oh the weather outside is frightful...

...so I'm hiding inside where its at least a little warmer, although not as warm as I would like it! Since we have no control over the heat in the apartment we manage with extra blankets, sweatshirts, and socks haha. But outside- it is SO COLD!!! Seriously, everyone kept saying "its so cold in NY, are you sure you want to move there?" and I thought to myself "I lived in Rexburg all those years- I'm prepared for anything ;)" Which is partly true and partly an underestimation of NY.

I've determined that both NY and Rexburg are extremely cold places- but in very different ways. I can't say that one is worse than the other- pretty sure they're both just bad! The other day I wondered why I continue to move to places where there is winter... so I'm thinking my next big adventure will be to Hawaii or somewhere like it ;)

At first I thought I was a wimp- my phone says the temperature outside is 30 degrees so why am I so cold? I was remembering the good ol' days in Rexburg when it was in the negatives and your nose hairs froze (and your hair if you went outside with wet hair- Lori ;) and your lungs felt like they were being seared with every breath you took. I remember one morning I had to step inside every building on my way to school because it felt as if a weight were crushing your head and stabbing needles in your face all at the same time and hurt so bad.

Turns out here it isn't the searing dryness of the cold, but the humidity. It chills you to the bone so even when you come inside you feel as if you can't ever get warm. I knew the humidity affected the felt temperature in the heat- we always hear about that- but didn't consider it affecting the cold too until my dad finally pointed it out (thanks dad). So I'm not a wimp after all. Well, maybe.

To remind us all of the nice days when it was way up in the 40s- here are some pics from my last stroll in the park way back in the middle of December. I've almost made it to the top of the park- 15 more blocks to go (and plenty more places to discover throughout the park :).

I made it to the east side of the park where I found... the Guggenheim!

One of the things I love about NY is that you find great old buildings in the middle of everything else.

The Reservoir

P.S. On a side note, this reminded me of another classic Rexburg moment- (305 girls) remember the time the front door froze shut- so Lori had to use the blow dryer to thaw it so she could get to class? Haha, how many people can say that ;)

Silver Bells

In case you haven't figured it out by now, it is definitely Christmastime in the city! In addition to the various tree lighting ceremonies, I've also been to these fun holiday activities:

Stake Christmas concert. Turns out we have a REALLY talented stake. I was a little surprised when I saw the length of the program, I was expecting an hour of calm Christmas carols. But they went all out, it was 2 hours of both calm and fun Christmas carols- even the Grinch was included.


The looooong program. Good thing it was all good!

Elf Extravaganza. These girls are impressive- in addition to watching Elf (one of my holiday favorites!), we ate the four basic food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corn, and syrup. They crafted the 7 levels of the Candy Cane Forest out of candy canes and truffle cake pops, the Sea of Swirly Twirly Gumdrops out of gumdrops (of course!), and the Lincoln Tunnel out of Rice Crispie Treats. So Fun. In addition we also had spaghetti with syrup (they made up these spaghetti and egg quiche thing so it was edible- wasn't too bad actually!),  Funfetti buddies (like muddy buddies but with funfetti- yum!), and lots of candy.

Countdown. Guess what? I am excited to come home for Christmas!!! (No, I am not ready to move back yet!) So when you have no paper or anything crafty, this is what you get for your countdown:

 

Holiday Window Strolling. You have to go look at the department store windows if you're in NYC for the holidays. Of course. We started our little stroll at Macy's (which were some of my favorites- just because they were about Christmas in NYC :).

 



Stewart/Davis kids- remember re-enacting the escalator scene from Elf while we were at Macy's?

 

After Macy's we made our way to 5th Ave, which we followed until we reached Central Park. Here are some of the highlights:

Lord & Taylor. My other favorites.



New York Public Library. One of my favorite buildings. . . it just happened to be on the way :)



Saks.

Bergdorf Goodman. Crazy cool windows, but not very Christmassy.

 

 

As promised, I made it back to Rockefeller Center for pictures of the tree from the front view. . .