NYC day 3

We were all excited to see the parade on Thursday. We debated many ways to watch it – from GJ’s “parade view” room, from inside the Shops at Columbus Circle, but ultimately decided (at GJ’s encouragement!!) to go grab a spot on the curb and take it all in from up close and I’m so glad we did. Even if I had to get up at the crack of dawn to get that spot! I was ready to go at 5:30 fully bundled with hotel towels and a robe in tow!

I got what I thought was a great spot on the edge of Columbus Circle…until about 6:00am when the police officers told us all we had to move! oh no!! By that time GJ had come out to keep me company and we took off going up Central Park West trying to find another spot. I saw some friendly looking people at the corner of 62nd and asked if we could maybe squeeze into their space. They obliged and it ended up being the best spot ever – one of the guys had graduated high school in Arkansas and the other family was from Tennessee! GJ quickly made friends and they could not have been nicer or more considerate to the kids when they got there. Speaking of the kids – Robert was back in the hotel getting my texts saying “ya’ll need to get on out here asap or you’re going to get blocked!” They were closing off streets and not letting people in. They all got to the corner by 7:30 and were just in time. We managed to get them on the right side of the barricade and we were all happy to be there!!

We snuggled up to stay warm and luckily no one had to go to the bathroom for the next 3 hours! ha!

Maxwell had the best vantage point and got awesome pics of the parade!

The cheerleaders! Bet they were as cold that day as I was when I marched in the parade in high school!

Santa!!

I spent most of the parade like this trying to get pics of the kids with the floats! ha!

I got a few!

Jimmy Fallon waving at us!

Gloria Estefan too!

This is Luperon and he was doing a good job keeping us safe…and getting in just about every single photo I took!

It really was the best spot to watch the parade. The barricade to our left kept out the huge masses of people which made our little block not crowded. I’m not sure how we got so lucky to get to stay in that block but I wasn’t complaining! A really fun morning in NYC! After the parade we warmed up at the hotel and grabbed bite…

and then headed to Radio City for the Christmas Spectacular featuring the Rockettes!!

Let me just say…it was spectacular indeed!! We all loved it, even the boys! Those Rockettes are just impressive. Even better? We had fantastic seats right in the middle and no one sat in the 6 seats in front of us! Amazing!

After the show we walked around Rockefeller Plaza…

We then had tickets to ice skate! Not gonna lie, I was kind of dreading it but it ended up being really fun. It was organized and not too crowded on the ice. The kids have gotten to be pretty good ice skaters which makes it nice too!

After skating, we had a great Thanksgiving meal at Capital Grille! It was truly a perfect NYC Thanksgiving from start to finish!!