NYC Quickie

We took a quick trip to NYC the day after Christmas to visit Matt's brother and his family. It was only three days long - Friday thru Sunday. But we had a great time. It's always fun to be in NYC and even better when you have a place to stay. Ellie adores her cousin, Loretta, who is nearly two years older than her. They had a wonderful time playing together. Ellie was very, very sad to leave and say goodbye. She declared, "I want to stay in New York City for a very long time." Of course, she also said "It smells like dog poo." when we initially got out of our car, too. Yes, New York does smell like dog poo.

Here are some pictures of the girls together. They had so much fun!

Even though it was after Christmas, the Christmas decorations were up and going strong. We faced the crowds and saw the tree at Rockefeller Center,

(look at how jazzed Ellie isn't)

the window displays at Saks,

and even went into the Disney Store (where Ellie was in heaven because they had a bunch of Little Einstein's paraphernalia).

But we couldn't get ourselves to wait in the line to get into FAO Schwartz. It was the end of a long day and I just didn't have the stomach for it and Ellie was more interested in the fountains in front of the store than the actual store. We also had a night out by ourselves after the girls were asleep, thanks to Randy and Carol. While we didn't get to a show, we did walk around Times Square and get some dessert at Junior's.

The ride home was miserable, poor little Annie even got car sick. I guess we should have realized that everyone would be on road after the holiday. It ended up taking us around 8 hours, including a rest stop. Ellie was really anxious to be in Virginia and out of New Jersey.

But we are really glad we went. It was great to spend some time with family and have Ellie and Annie enjoy their closest cousin. All in all, a great trip.