…… of the last few days.

And I do mean …… lots.

My apartment is full.
Very, very full.
There are 7 of us here.
Daughters #1, #2 and #3. Son #1. And 2 friends.
Tomorrow 3 more friends are joining us.
We are full to the brim.
And maybe overflowing a bit.
But it’s great.
Really great. 🙂

Daughter #2 and a friend arrive last Friday. I hadn’t seen #2 in a while so I was thrilled to hug her and have her here.
Son #1 and a friend arrive Saturday. It seems they left Dallas just in the nick of time. On Sunday DFW was closed due to an ice storm that hit Big D.

Sunday night we went to church and then came back home, with three extra friends, for some Tai food, wine and a few rounds of Heads Up, which is a very fun game! Get the app now. It’s from Ellen Degeneres. The Daughters and friends played it on the subway Monday night.

Monday during the day we (everyone except Daughter #1, who had to work) went to the Guggenheim. It’s nice to go to a museum that you can see in one afternoon. I enjoyed it.
After that we walked around the city and stopped at Serendipty 3. We were told there was a 45 minute wait, so we put our name in and then went to visit Dylan’s
to satisfy everyone’s sweet tooth. Which was pretty redundant, since we were going to Serendipity to get their famous frozen hot chocolate.
Seriously.

We also spent some time in Macy’s, where I may or may not have zeroed in on the shoe department so I could get some black warm boots ……. that were on sale.
🙂

Then we decided that we’d go ahead and have dinner at Serendipity, which was a pretty good decision since our wait was more like an hour, plus change, and it took them over half an hour to bring our order. I think we were there for almost 3 hours.
Then Son #1 and I decided to stay in for the night (it was pretty dang cold by then) and the girls went to an improv place.
We were all happy with our choice.

Yesterday I went to a training session for Jump Start, where I was accepted as a volunteer to read to preschoolers. Well, I was accepted …… as long as my background check goes well.
We shall see.
🙂

I also went to a doctor’s office so that I could get yet another TB skin test (I just got one in TX a year ago, but couldn’t get my records as soon as I’d like). I had to have it for the Jump Start program.  Or rather, for NY public schools.
That was interesting.
The doctor didn’t use a nurse. When a patient was called back, he was the one who met them and took them back into the exam room. He seemed nice enough.
For a TB test.

Then I walked the 2 miles back to the apartment (as it snowed off and on). The rest of the group had gone out for lunch, shopping and meeting up with friends. So I had the apartment all to myself.
For about 10 minutes.
And then they returned.
🙂
But everyone crashed soon after so it became very quiet again.
Then the girls went off for dinner and to see “Big Fish”.
Son #1 and I stayed home until about 7:20 and then went to see “Pippin”.

Which we loved!

Today most of the group headed out to go have lunch at Shake Shack, but Daughter #3 and I stayed behind to veg a bit.  Then we left to meet them at the Museum of Natural History.
Big mistake.
Huge.

It would seem that every other person in the city had the same idea.
No kidding.
There were so many people at that museum that they kept shutting down the entrances, not letting anyone come in. Somehow, Daughter #3 and I got in the doors that you see above. With no bag search or no one telling us to turn around and leave.
Weird.
When we finally made it to the main lobby where the tickets were being sold, and the “will call” kiosks were, there were hundreds (I’m not kidding, HUNDREDS!) of people in line. We made our way to a kiosk with mostly no line to pick up our tickets. And then we attempted to find the rest of our group.
The funny thing was (not funny “ha ha”, but funny “strange”), we had no service on our cell phones in the museum. And no map. And no idea of where we were, exactly.

This is the one picture that I took:

Pretty, right?

Well, that was all the pretty we saw. After trying to contact the others for almost an hour, we were done.
We were beyond done.
So we tried one last text and phone call before heading out to see the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade balloons being blown up.
Which was WAY more entertaining than squeezing our way through that museum.

Note to the museum:
I paid for our tickets on line, even though the cost of getting in is a “suggested donation”. And I was charged a service fee. Per ticket.
So the next time I come to your museum, I shall not be making a donation. Of any kind.
Thank you very much.

Now for those of you who have hung in here through all of this boring stuff …… here are the balloon pics.
They were totally worth it all.
🙂

So there you go. Three days in NY.
Oh, and by the way, today is Daughter #1’s birthday. I won’t tell you how old she is because frankly, I can’t freaking believe that she ….. and I …… are that old.
Seriously.

I hope that you all have a nice Thanksgiving. I wish you peace, joy and warmth.
And I hope that you can all think of at least one thing that you’re thankful for.

I have at least 20 …… and you can find them here.

Happy Thanksgiving, Peeps.
🙂