Much To Be Thankful For

Happy Thanksgiving to All of our Friends and Loved Ones!  We hope that your day was filled with family, food and fun and that the sun is shining wherever you are today.  

It was a beautiful day yesterday in New York City which made it perfect for viewing the 85th Annual Macy's Thanksgiving Parade.  The parade route passed 1/2 block from our apartment - how lucky is that?  We didn't have to get up early and fight the crowds we just walked out the door at about 9:00 a.m and walked down to the corner.  The sidewalks were super crowded but we were able to see the parade pretty clearly, especially the giant balloons and the floats.  Jack was able to take some great pictures of the parade, especially when you consider that these shots were taken while holding the camera over his head!

Each balloon has scores of handlers to keep it under control as it travels down the street.  I'm not sure how they manage it on cold, blustery days because it looked like they were having a tough time yesterday which was relatively mild. The Buzz Lightyear balloon got hung up briefly while we were watching but the balloon handlers managed to disengage him from the tree branches and keep the parade moving.

Jack and I particularly liked watching all of the marching bands pass by.  The kids seemed so excited to be a part of the Macy's Day Parade.  You just know how much hard work and how much fundraising went into making such a trip possible.

 

After the parade, Jack and I grabbed our contribution to this year's Thanksgiving feast which was wine and a quinoa and butternut squash stuffing.  Jack and I feel so blessed to have celebrated Thanksgiving with some of our children.  We headed off to our daughter Emily and Grant's house to spend the day with them and our daughter Kate and her husband Ben. Jack and I, along with Kate and Ben had a completely vegetarian Thanksgiving and we didn't miss the turkey at all. Emily and Grant had pork chops and they seemed pretty pleased with the feast as well.  My highlight of the meal was the roasted brussels sprouts made by Emily and the homemade apple pie made by Kate. We finished off the evening by watching a family favorite movie, A Hard Day's Night.  

This morning I'm feeling a little twitchy to get out and take advantage of all of the Black Friday deals but I'm holding off.  I can only imagine how crazy the stores are here.  Instead, we took Coco for a walk in Central Park (it's another beautiful day here) and we're heading back to Brooklyn to eat leftovers, set up the Christmas tree and hopefully catch The Muppet Movie.  Sounds like a perfect day - hope that your day is wonderful, too!