So many things to be thankful for...

As our time here in CT draws to a close, we were so excited that Mama could come visit us this past week. Mama arrived on Monday evening as I was heading to my last day of work before I had 3 days off. So Tuesday morning when I got off work we looked up a good breakfast spot since we were all ready to eat. Funny thing was I had found a magazine at work with "the best of CT" and there were several breakfast spots. So we picked out the closest one to us and headed down the road. It was about 30 minutes away but well worth the drive. On our way back to Hartford we stopped in little towns to see if we could find anything to get into. Not much found, but once we got back to our area we took Mama to Stew Leonard's which is a grocery store. But it is the craziest grocery store you will ever go to. It's kinda like a carnival with singing and dancing figurines and foods to sample that is made in the store! After all that excitement we headed over to the mall to eat dinner at Rainforest Cafe. That was an experience too b/c our waiter was crazy. I guess he was an actor and he sure played the part well. After dinner we headed back to the room to get ready for the next two days. We got up Wednesday morning at 4am to catch the bus to NYC. We ended up getting into the city around 8am and headed over to Good Morning America. On this particular morning the final 3 sets of contests for Dancing with the Stars were there which was cool. We got to see Kelly Osborne, Mia, and Donnie Osborne. Emeril was also there cooking a Thanksgiving feast! After hanging out there for a bit we headed over to Roxy's for breakfast. After breakfast we went to Radiocity to see the Rockettes Christmas Spectacular! This was an AWESOME show!!! I suggest if you are in the city around the holidays to go see this. Before the show we did have a couple of minutes to kill so we took a peek at the Christmas tree and ice skating rink behind Radiocity. I just wish we could have seen the tree all put together. Oh well, maybe next year. After the show, we went over to Central Park and did a carriage ride through the park. Before the carriage ride we showed Mama FAO toystore and while we were in there Joan Rivers was in there buying her grandson something. It was funny b/c you knew she was a star just looking at all the plastic surgery she has had. After you get across that then you can look and see WHO it is. Finally we checked into the hotel after carrying our bookbags (belongings) on our back all over the city. Lucky for me Pinkberry was right down the street from our hotel so we stopped in to have some after 6 looong months of living without it. It was a sweet reunion! After realaxing a bit we headed over to the inflating of the parade balloons. We did dinner afterwards at Toloache our FAVORITE mexican food spot to have dinner. And of course it was GREAT! We told the waiter that we were repeat customers and he ended up giving us 2 free desserts!!! So after dinner we walked a little around Times Square and then headed back to the room to get some rest considering we were getting up at 4:30 the next morning to get a good spot for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade!!! Thursday morning we woke up at 4:30am and we were out and in our parade watching spot buy 6am. We stood in place til 9am when the paraded started. The wait was well worth it. The parade was AWESOME!!! I would definalty do it again!!! I hope that I do get the opportunity to do it again. We had a front row view and it was really cool! I was so sad when the parade was over, but we had more fun stuff to do afterwards! We were needing a little snack before lunch so we had spotted this cupcake place "Crumbs" the day b4 so we stopped in to check it out. BEST cupcakes EVER!!! I got the pumpkin, Mama got the carrot cake and Patrick go the chocolate. Sooooo good!!! We went to Madame Toussaud's the walked to the Empire State Building. We then proceded over to Ted's Montana Grill to have lunch. After lunch we headed over to Ground Zero and got a "far-away" look at the Statue of Liberty. We were about out of time so after grabbing a couple of souvniors we headed to the bus station to head back"home". All in all it was a GREAT trip and a GREAT Thanksgiving!!!Now I'm back to work :( but I only have 6 more shifts/days left here in "wonderful" Hartford, CT. It's not going to be fun working 6 in a row but it will be fun being home in 6 days....I guess I can officially say 5 more days now!!! So until next time....(We'll be in NC!!!!)



~m