The Petersons: December 2014

For Thanksgiving the whole Peterson fam came out to NYC!!!! We had such a fantastic break all together (Clark even got a few days off, which was wonderful!). Everyone arrived Tuesday night and we were all going to go to the 9/11 memorial museum. Unfortunately flights were delayed, and we missed going to the museum (that evening). So we walked around the memorials and then went to Shake Shack for dinner! Following our dinner we went back to the house. For the whole week, all of us stayed in this awesome condo right across the street from our apartment! It was a perfect place - 3 stories, 6 bedrooms, a TV in every room (and a giant projector downstairs), a huge kitchen, backyard, and balcony!

Since we missed our museum reservation because of delayed flights, they were kind enough to let us come back Wednesday morning. Although we had to wait in the literally freezing rain for a while, going to the museum was well worth it. The 9/11 museum incredible. I highly recommend going if you're ever in NYC. You could spend hours and hours in the museum. But it is very emotionally draining.

Following the museum we went back to the apartment for dinner and to rest for a bit. We were all pretty cold since we had been out in the sleet for a few hours prior to the museum and on our way back. After dinner, those of us who were warmed up enough headed back out into the snow to see the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons be filled. We found out that Macy's does a big "inflation" party the night before Thanksgiving where they blow up all the balloons and basically have a big party. It's a great way to "see" the parade with out waiting along the parade route for several hours.

Opal and Clark with the Koolaid man!

The Macy's star!

Thomas the Train!

I was pretty star struck when I saw the Snoopy balloon! It was a childhood dream come true!

Blurry picture with Spiderman!

When we got back from checking out the balloons we found this master pie maker at work! Didn't Mindy make the cutest pie?! And it was just as delicious as it looks :)

Mmmm apple pie...

And these three lovely ladies made great assistants!

On thanksgiving day we all hopped on the train at Grand Central (which was PACKED) and headed out to New Canaan, CT for our Thanksgiving feast with our dear friends, the Rosdahls!

Rose was ADORABLE on the train ride...

Connecticut really is beautiful.

The gorgeous table setting!

With two of my favorite ladies!

THE FEAST! It was SOOOO delicious. And we had like 10 pies to eat too :)

The whole Thanksgiving crew! Thank you for hosting Rosdahls!

On Friday morning all the girls went Black Friday shopping on 5th Avenue! So much fun - and I got my Christmas tree!!

Then in the evening we all wen to see Aladdin! It was a fantastic performance. I had hesitated to see this play because I've seen Disney's production of Aladdin at California Adventures several times. I was a little worried that it would be the same as the CA performance or the same as the movie, but it wasn't! It was great! We all really enjoyed it. We all also enjoyed dinner and cheesecake from Junior's after the show :)

On Saturday a bunch of us went out to explore the Upper East, Central Park, and some of the Upper west. One of my favorite walks is to start at 68th, go to Laduree, walk past the Frick Museum, and then walk across the park (past the Conservatory Waters, the Bethesda fountain, the Lake, and the upper part of the Mall) to exit around 72nd on the Upper West. This time we deviated from our usual route to visit the Belvedere Castle to see some family friends!

After our romp around the park we made our way over to Brooklyn for the BEST pizza, Juliana's. The whole Peterson clan became subway experts! Just look at this bunch :)

And if you needed proof that Juliana's is the best - here you go. We met Patsy Grimaldi (founder of Patsy's, Grimaldi's, and Juliana's pizzas) at his favorite pizza place. It was so fun to watch him throw the dough! And he was so sweet- he visited every table a few times. He even held baby Rose!