Brooklyn and NYC

Over Thanksgiving we took our crazy on the road to NYC! It was a wonderful trip and we will remember it fondly. The whole Castillejos family (which now includes some Kindes) made the journey, 10 adults and 4 little ones. My brother and sister -in-law have lived in Brooklyn for 5+ years and we have been wanting to bring the kids up to visit them.

I like telling stories in pictures so that's what we'll do here...

The plane ride went really well

Apparently I make a good pillow

When we arrived we met up with everyone at our rented apartment. Aunt Adrienne had some help making her yummy bread from two little assistants.

Oma playing with her four grandkids

The first night we kept it simple and ordered in some pizza. I mean, when in Brooklyn why not!

Clearly Nate gets most of his good looks from this side of the family :)

Day 2 (Thanksgiving Day), we woke up bright and early and took the subway into Manhattan to see the Macy's parade.

 We walked around the city trying to find a good place to watch from. Uncle Stephen and Nate buddied up. What a sweet picture of them!

In front of the Rainbow Room studio

This was hilarious. Elmo, Minnie, and I think Grover or Cookie Monster too came up to us and the boys got SO excited! How nice and thoughtful of these people to put smiles on children's faces for no other reason than to spread joy on Thanksgiving... right??

After Elmo set Andrew down, he motioned toward Serg and opened up his bag he was carrying. Serg said, "no thanks, we don't need any candy for the kids". Elmo motioned to his bag again, and Serg had an "AHA" moment. Elmo wanted money! So out came the wallet. I love my "think good of anyone" husband. haha!

We found a great place to watch the parade, with a big building off to the side which kept the anticipation up with what was coming next. The kids loved it and the whole experience was so neat.

Here I should mention that Nate licked a subway pole on the way home. He threw up later that day and had to be dressed in his girl cousin's clothes. That's our boy!

Sweet picture of Aunt Mary, Uncle Mike, and Nate.

I just like the way Andrew is playing with Serg's ears in this picture.

We had a great Thanksgiving meal that evening, and the following day went to Prospect Park for some football and soccer. Got a nice family picture out of it too!

Of course we found time to go to FAO Shwartz and Central Park on the trip. The boys loved the BIG piano and to be honest I was just as excited.

Spiderman was inside of FAO Shwartz! Can we say dream come true?

The whole trip went really smoothly and we all had a blast. I am not a city girl, so I greatly preferred being in Brooklyn over Manhattan, but still glad we experienced both. So thankful for this trip and for wonderful family to spend it with!