Thanksgiving Recap: New York Part 1

We were fortunate enough that the Armed Forces Foundation generously flew us to DC to spend Thanksgiving with Mike. They were the same organization that headspeared the Vegas trip back in September.

Anyway, thinking it'll probably be a while before we'll all be in the east coast again, we decided to fight the holiday traffic and took Ethan to New York to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Armed with winter coats and oversized gloves (can't seem to find un-mitten-like gloves that fit him), we woke up early on Thursday morning to try to fight for a good spot. I read somewhere on the internet (so it must be true) that Times Square is NOT a good place to go unless you're there at 4am (no, thanks), so we decided to park ourselves somewhere mid-route on 72nd and Central Park West.

I suppose we were a few feet from the street, but it still seemed not close enough. Behind us, the crowd only got bigger after we got there at 7:30 (parade started at 9). Everyone around us -- good mix of locals and tourits -- were surprisingly friendly... for the most part. We laughed, took pictures of each other, compared kids... but if you so much scoot an inch, the next person is there to take that space. Mike and I kept close and alert, in case we had to deal with a stampede (paranoia?).

Eventually, the parade started. Since we weren't lucky enough to get frontview spots, Ethan ended up spending the next 2 hours on Mike's shoulders so he could see the marching bands, floats and the clowns.

The excitement for these big balloons were interesting, and rather contagious. You should've heard me yell when I saw Buzz Lightyear peep around the corner.

Every once in a while, the crowd will erupt and news from the front would make its way to the back -- apparently, the Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus were there. I, unfortunately couldn't see, I had to settle looking for the big balloons inbetween looking at the back of the heads of tall people.

Overall, we had fun. It was chilly, but it wasn't cold enough to deter these Californians. I don't know if I'd watch it again in person though, unless I was sitting up front. The best part of the parade was having my family together.....