A Little Bit of Ketchup

It was great to have a blog "vacation" but so excited to be back and catch up, (ketchup, get it?) on the exciting last few weeks.

Dec 23: I actually convinced hubby to take an unheard of day off, and we had a great family morning playing at the NY Hall of Science. We have a family membership, and C and I use it often, but hubby had never been, so it was great for him to get to see the little guy in his favorite play area. After the Hall of Sci, we went out for a fancy lunch at Parkside, my favorite Italian restaurant.


Dec 24: We drove out to Long Island to see my parents in the late morning. Unfortunately, C fell asleep on the way out and since we really wanted him to get a good nap in, I ended up sitting in the car with him for over an hour in my parent's driveway. When he finally woke up, my dad took C, hubby, my sister and I to lunch at Cheeburger. My aunt and I made it to 4pm mass, along with every other family in at least a 30 mile radius... seriously, the place was packed to the rafters! After mass, we had one course of our traditional Italian Christmas Eve meal before it was time to put C in his jammies and head home to wait for Santa. And to finish wrapping presents and watch some of A Christmas Story.

Dec 25: The little guy let us sleep in until 5:50am which was much appreciated. When he woke up, as per his usual, he was saying "tree, tree" and wanting to turn the tree lights on. He hardly noticed the plentiful pile of presents (most of them had his name on the tag). It took C about an hour to open 3 gifts. In fact, the first gift he opened, a play food set, he would have been content to just play with that! But with a stop for a chocolate chip pancake breakfast, we finished opening the presents, continued to watch A Christmas Story, and then headed out to my parent's house for more presnet opening. My mom bought C a ride on fire truck, which was a big hit with him, and he loved playing "golf" with grandpa with his new golf club set. Overall the little guy made out very well with toys, awesome Pottery Barn towels, and some clothes. I recieved a spa day, a pair of Coach boots, and a 10 piece Rachael Ray cookware set.

Dec 26: I headed out around 8am to the Great Jones Spa for a massage and mani/pedi. This was one of my Christmas gifts from the hubby. I love Great Jones Spa because they have a water lounge, complete with hot tub, sauna and steam room. Its really a great mini retreat! When I left around 1pm, it was snowing. And as you probably know, continued to snow and snow. I think my neighborhood had about 12 inches or so. The White Christmas missed us by a day, but the snowy/slushy/snow-turned-black mess was with us for a long while!