Family Came to Town!!!

Something more rare than sitings of UFOs are visits by our family to New Jersey (yep, a little bit of bitterness here).  So the excitement of having Steve, Amy and their kids come spend Thanksgiving with us was almost uncontainable. 

They flew in on Tuesday November 26th and left on Saturday November 30th so we tried to make sure they could see as much of New York as possible

On Tuesday evening we took them to the Short Hills Mall for dinner, because Kay feels that everyone needs to see how awesome the Short Hills Mall is.   And the Madison High School music department was having a fundraiser at California Pizza Kitchen.

On Wednesday I went with Steve and his family to see Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.  We then met up with Mindy and the girls at the Brookfield Place Mall in New York before then walking over to the 9/11 memorial.  We then went to the Lower East Side to Economy Candy to stock up on candy from around the world.

On Thursday we just stayed at home and prepped for Thanksgiving dinner.  Well, Mindy already had been prepping for Thanksgiving for the previous 5 days, so we just did the final touches.

On Friday we sent them into the city to fend for themselves so you'll have to check with them about what they did.

I stayed home to play in the Turkey Bowl and then we went we did our traditional trip to IHOP followed by getting our Christmas tree.

Steve's family returned in time for us to go to Madison's Christmas Parade.  I was the only one in my family who did not march in the Parade.  Kay marched with the Madison Marching Dodgers, Aubrey marched with the Madison YMCA gymnastics, Sadie rode in the Girl Scouts float and Mindy and Claire marched with their Girl Scouts troop.

Claire's troop

Sadie is on the float facing the other side

Kay is to the right of the person in green

Kay and Kate

On Saturday morning we woke up early to go to Macy's on 34th Street to see Santa and check out the windows (we also went with the Francks and the Gonzalez's for our 6th consecutive year).   We then walked up to Bryant Park.  That is where we separated from the Franks and the Gonzalezs.  We then went to the New York Public Library to see the actual Winnie the Pooh stuffed animal, passed by the windows at Saks 5th Avenue (Frozen themed), up to St. Patrick's Cathedral, finally finished at the the Plaza Hotel.  After a quick lunch at Shake Shack we headed back home for them to pack up and took them to the airport.

  

Max Brenner Chocolate Syringes at Bryant Park

Tree at the NY Public Library

 

Inside St. Patrick's

We tired out Ava and Claire

These two were so great together the whole weekend.  They even came up with their own handshake

At the Macy's bathroom

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At the NY Public Library

We had such a wonderful time with Steve, Amy, Mason, Ellie, Ben, Sam and Ava.  Definitely on of the best Thanksgiving we have ever had.

Frozen 2

Sadie's home-made outfit to go see Frozen 2.  She looks great.

We went and saw it opening weekend and really enjoyed it.  Even Kay and Aubrey are old enough to not pretend that they don't like the original Frozen.

She is 15!

I cannot believe I have been a father for 15 years.

Kay is a very impressive young woman.  Not only is she taller than her mom, but she consumes novels like they are short stories, she has amazing reading comprehension, she has an unbelieveable memory (especially about the show The Office), she is a tireless fighter when it comes to honors physics and geometry which are two subjects that don't come naturally, she is a talented musician at both piano and clarinet (including marching in formation), she is somehow very aware of current events, and she is witty.   She does have things she needs to work on (e.g., cleaning her room, being more patient with those younger than her), but on the whole, we are so glad to have her as our oldest.

For her party on the 15th I took her and her friend Kate to the local bowling alley, Stryxe.  For some reason they don't allow any one under 16 year olds to bowl without an adult because of the bar at the bowling alley so I got to bowl with them

Ragnar Tennessee

This year we decided to mix things up and we went to Tennessee for this year's Ragnar road relay and we waited until November instead of the September.   The race went from Chattanooga to Nashville.

Unfortunately for us, a polar vortex was covering the midwest and we got to run in cold (sometimes subfreezing) temperatures.

Mindy killing her first leg

Wait for the glove flip!! 

Van 2

Make sure you are visible

This is the temp when Mindy ran her night leg (note it was taken at 3:03am)

 

Team calf stretching looks like something else.

For some reason at the last exchange there was this pony taking photos.

Van 1 got the same picture

Van 2 before I ran the last leg (waiting for Nick at the exchange)

Finish line with the whole team

Team dinner at Hard Rock Cafe in Nashville, because who doesn't want bad food after a lot of running?

Todd shuttling us back to our car with the whole team in the Sprinter Van

We had a great time in Tennessee with all these wonderful people.  This was our 5th Ragnar with these most of these people and they are the only team we'd run with.

One last performance (and Aubrey gets involved)

For the Madison Dodgers last home game they invited the junior school kids to play in the stands with the marching band.

Clearly this is a recruiting tactic by the band, but Aubrey had a great time.

And the band got to do their show one last time