Snow Days: Part 1

So this snow thing that is going on right now, I am not a fan. At all. I have been trying to have a positive attitude about winter but every time I go outside and the wind is whipping and it's freezing cold I just can't help but get a little grumpy. And now they are telling us we are experiencing an "Polar Vortex", what does that even mean!?

I feel like people here are more aware of what the weather is doing- when it will start snowing, when it should stop and when the plows will be done moving it. So we knew that we'd pretty much be stuck inside the whole first weekend it really snowed. That's fine with me because I feel like we are rarely ever home and when we are all we have time to do is fix dinner, prep a Seminary lesson and go to sleep.

On the Saturday morning before the first "Snowpocalypse" hit the Dr. ran to the grocery store, I filled the cars with gas and we went to the craft store for some more yarn for my next crochet project. You know, the essentials. It turned out to be a nice day despite the falling snow. I crocheted, the Dr. watched sports, we did laundry and ate a ton of food. These are the things I don't mind so much about winter. They ended up canceling the church Christmas party Saturday evening and we spend Sunday morning digging our cars out of the snow so that we could get to church. The Sunday meetings were delayed by two hours which gave us some extra time. It was a small meeting but the ward choir still managed to belt out a beautiful Christmas arrangement. Oh and we pass this house on the way to church every week:

I would love winter even more if I could live in this house. 

Our handy dandy little shovels

Melting the show with his sheer hotness!

I think we got 7 or 8 inches this night

Crochet project for my cousin's new little one

I love our Christmas tree- especially all the weird ornaments from all of our travels

Our fireplace AKA our TV and YouTube

I don't think I will ever forget those winters in Santa Barbara where we could go to the beach on Christmas but I will do my best to find good things about winter here in Boston too.

Christmas in NYC

We like to travel. It's really difficult for us to have a day off and not go somewhere. We always have an airline ticket booked for our next trip. (We are working on some great travel plans for 2014!) So when both the Dr. and I had about two weeks off from work and Seminary we decided that even though we wanted to be home on Christmas day we would go on a small trip with the remainder of our time. We thought about going to Miami, the Caribbean or even to Minnesota to see the Dr.'s cousin but we thought and thought too long and then all the airline tickets got too expensive. So we decided on New York. It's a quick 3 1/2 hours away, there is so much to explore and there is no denying that it's pretty magical when they have it all decorated up for the holidays.

On the 26th we headed for the city! In a snow storm. We passed so many car accidents and were slowed down a bit but in the end we made it safe and sound. We even found a parking spot right away! We stayed in the Dr.'s brothers old apartment. They are subleasing it while they are in AZ for a couple years and the people they are leasing it to were going to be out of town for the holidays so we rented it from them. Whew, if you followed that then good for you!

We arrived in the early evening and decided to hit the town for some dinner and sightseeing. Well instead of dinner we got a waffle at the Waffles and Dinges truck. We did eat some pizza later (Pizza Suprema on 8th Ave and 31st- soooooo good!) but you have to get your priorities straight when you're in New York.

This picture really captures our night- freezing cold, Waffles and Dinges, and the city decked out for Christmas!

The lights and window displays at Macy's

Time Square. We were bundled up so tight and still cold!

The first whole day we were in the City we once again showed our priorities by heading straight for the Rockefeller Center Anthropologie. Oh my lands, that place is amazing! I had a gift card (thanks brother!) so I HAD to spend it right? Ok, I may be an Anthro addict. I will admit it. But just look at this place:

This is my happy place

Other stops of the day included:

The tree at Rockefeller Center

Ice skaters are Rockefeller Center

Us at Rockefeller Center

More Rockefeller Center- Can you tell I love this place!

Sacs 5th Avenue- the original

Park Plaza Hotel

Sandwiches at Num Pang Deli. Despite his face we really did enjoy these sandwiches- you must go there when you are in the City!

The home of Project Runway- Parsons

Mood! Just look at all that fabric!

And some giant nutcrackers near Rockefeller Center

We went back to the apartment for a couple hours to take a nap before heading out again. We are normally in bed by about 9 PM (the life of Seminary teachers) but we had tickets for a 9:30 showing of the Rockette's Christmas Spectacular. I was so in awe of this show! Every single kick and step was perfectly in sync. I was a dancer for many years, I know how hard it is to get a kick line right. These ladies were perfect- seriously!

This is a chandelier at Radio City Music Hall and it's about 2 stories high!

They have a great manger scene to conclude the show and there's a live camel or two in there! So amazing!

Is there anything more magical than this?? Yes, it's Rockefeller Center again.

With staying out so late we had a lazy morning on Saturday. Our plan was to just wander the West Village/Greenwich Village area all day. But first, breakfast was in order. We had some of the most amazing bagels and cream cheese at this little shop a few blocks away from our apartment. Check this out:

Those are all different cream cheeses. I was in heaven!

 Greenwich village was so much fun, it's has a more small town feel if that is even possible in New York. There were so many quaint little shops, restaurants and there is a whole section of town with Marc Jacobs stores on every corner! We ate Magnolia Bakery cupcakes and had lunch at the Meatball Shop. Can you tell I like food? I think it's one of the best ways to explore a new place.

Meatball Shop- eat the polenta if you ever go there!

My cousin Valerie ended up being in town for the holidays so we met up with her for some dinner at a pan-Latin restaurant her roommate recommended. It was a little bit of heaven to say the least! It was so good to catch up with my cousin too, she's on my dad's side and there are so many of us all over the country that I rarely get to see them one on one. We walked through Washington Park, caught the subway to Grand Central for Junior's Cheesecake, rode to Columbus Circle and walked up to Lincoln Center and the Temple. We ran into some missionaries who had just whitewashed into Manhattan and looked a little dazed. I feel like we ate all day long but when we got back to the apartment I had no trouble scarfing down my chocolate swirl cheesecake!

Notice how my eyes are closed in all these pictures? I am just classy like that.

We had such a great time on this little trip. New York really is so magical during the holidays, I love it there! It was nice to take our time and just wander a bit, that's something we haven't had the luxury of doing so much in other trips we've made to New York. We didn't stay for the new year

Christmas at Home

We decided to stay home for Christmas this year. We spent last Christmas with my family and the year before with the Dr.'s so this year was our year! It was so nice to start a few traditions together and include a few from our childhoods as well. We planned to go to NYC after Christmas (more on that later) but we wanted to really be home for Christmas Eve and Christmas day. We were lucky to have so much time off work too- it's ended up being over two weeks with the recent snow storms that have kept us snowed in. I think the easiest way to talk about what we did is with pictures so here it goes!

Christmas Eve dinner- it was just us but it was very fancy!

Our fancy table

The Dr. making our holiday dinner

It snows a lot here! Aren't we supposed to go to the beach on Christmas??

We went to dinner in Gloucester over the break and saw this amazing tree made of lobster traps and decorated with painted floats.

I also crocheted the heck out of two baby blankets and started another

Imagine Christmas Wishes Shooting Out of Your Eyes

Since the Christmas stations on the radio aren't playing any good Christmas music I had to turn on my Mairah Carey holiday Pandora station today. I normally hate it when Christmas starts before Halloween and can be found in a Grinch mood until the Thanksgiving left-overs are just a memory.

This year, I am not ashamed to be in the Christmas spirit a little early. 

We have been so behind on all the other holidays this year and Halloween a bit of a let down for me. We didn't carve pumpkins, make costumes or do anything very festive. We did get to watch a Halloween parade in a neighboring town which was pretty cool but I felt like Halloween crept up so quickly and then was gone way too fast!

We are going to Flagstaff for Thanksgiving and don't really have much else to do to prepare for that except find some bow hunting gear (more on that later). We will probably help with some of the food prep once we get to AZ but mostly we get to love on our adorable nieces and nephew for the whole week.

I can't wait to see these sweet things at Thanksgiving!

The AZ Reeds added one more niece to the bunch and moved from NYC
to Flagstaff since we saw them in May

With Thanksgiving plans all taken care of I will gladly take a few extra weeks to get excited for Christmas. 

Last year's Christmas made us realize that we wanted to start some of our own family traditions and change the way we do Christmas. Don't get me wrong, we loved seeing family and enjoyed the opportunity to think about others as we picked out gifts. We loved being on the receiving end of some great presents as well. But in the end there was just something missing. There wasn't quite as much magic. Maybe we're getting older, maybe the traveling was stressful and tiring or maybe we just lost sight of what it's really all about. 

So, this year I dreamed up a theme to hopefully inject some of the Christmas magic back into our holiday season.

Meaningful Memories Christmas will be focused on our Savior first and foremost. It will also include some of our favorite traditions, serving others and decorating the heck out of our house!

It will mean no money budgeted towards presents for each other. Gifts for family and close friends will be a little more meaningful, something that took some time and creativity on our part and less clicking on Amazon wish lists. I want to make pineapple filled cookies and feel the adrenaline pump as I run to someone's doorstep and leave a Secret Santa bundle. I want to have a fancy, candle-lit Christmas Eve dinner and read the story of our Savior's birth. I want to pull out all of the ornaments we've collected over the past few years and reminisce about the adventures we've had traveling around the country as we put them on a real pine tree. I want to watch Elf, It's A Wonderful Life, Home Alone, A Christmas Story and Christmas in Connecticut too.

If it were completely up to me our house would look like this:

I don't know if I can get the Dr. to put up this many lights.
We may have to work up to this over the next few years.

Regardless of how many lights we put on our house or how fancy our food is, I am going to try my best to make this a meaningful Christmas filled will magic and a lot of great memories.