Christmas Recap 2011

Sorry for the late recap…better late than never! I did end up paying Google for more blog space…

Anyways, for Christmas we took a short road trip to be with family over Christmas weekend. Lucky to have lots of family only a few hours away!

As we said, we had a very “Pinteresting Christmas”! Here is my mom and grand mom figuring out out to make our olive penguins (scroll down for more!).

PK decided to outfit a few of the penguins with headbands, hats, scarfs, etc. Aren’t they adorable??

And the whole family got in on making them!

Mom even made a cheese ball igloo…

The gorgeous REAL Christmas tree in my parent’s house, it smelled wonderful!

Here is PK, myself and my younger brother, Connor:

Us with my grandparents!

Little family photo.

Puzzles… another family holiday tradition…

Us with PK’s parents!

Both sets of parents – these pictures were taken on Christmas Eve at a little gathering at my parents house!

More puzzle action --

Ranger and Rio – best dog buds.

My mom’s Christmas Mickey collection --

This is Ranger on Christmas morning, amongst the wrapping chaos!

At PK’s parents house, Ranger always in the middle of the action. We got so many great presents this year!! And of course, Ranger got his fair share of gifts himself. Spoiled dog.

PK will two of his cousins: Kimberly and Lorraine!

PK’s grandparents --

And check out Ranger’s new bandana, sent all the way from Courtney in Alaska! Isn’t it adorable??

And finally, here was our stuffed car and our exhausted puppy after a busy Christmas weekend with family.

We have much to be thankful, especially celebrating the real reason for the season! Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are looking forward to a brand new year!

Maxed Out

Well - I've officially maxed out all my available Google/Blogger/Picasa space availability (why I'm late on my Christmas Recap post...)

My first blog was in August of 2010. Since then I've posted 182 times. And I've used over 900 pictures. And maxed out at 1 GB of space. Averaging about 9 posts a month and about 5 pictures per post.

Has this happened to you guys yet? Did I just miss the memo on posting less pictures?? Is it worth it to buy more space from Google? It's dirt cheap. Since it took me 17 months to use up my first 1 GB, I'm thinking that another 19 GB will take me decades to use up! At only $5/year...?

Or should I go back and resize all my photos? Seems like a hassle. Since I seem to have picture-heavy posts, even if I did resize, I'm sure my space limit would be reached soon anyways.

I've just discovered that PK's laptop (that we bought almost a year ago) has Windows Live Writer, which seems much fancier than just using the blogger.com website. So looking forward to figuring out the ins and outs of that. And since this space issue has come up, I've now discovered the Picasa Web Albums by Google.

Can you tell I'm still a novice? Advice please!!

NYC: Everything else!

Here's everything else that didn't fit into one of my categories and were pictures I wanted to share with you!

Lego Lion in the lobby of the NY Public Library =

 Grand Central Station =

 Showing off his new hat and scarf =

 The Wall Street bull =

 Cute couple =

 Brooklyn Bridge =

 Subway =

 Central Park =

 American Museum of Natural History =

 Wicked =

Well there ya go! That's the last of my recaps. I love New York City and was so happy to bring my husband there for the first time! Until next time NYC!

NYC: Fairfield Inn & Suites Manhattan

While in NYC, we stayed at the Fairfield Inn and Suites (owned by Marriott) located on West 40th Street and 8th Avenue, just a few blocks away from Times Square. In the picture below, it's the red part of the building. It was in a pretty good location, close to a subway station, late night pizza and drugstore. It was a bit claustrophobic... there were only 6 rooms per floor. It took forever for the elevator to get to our floor. The actual hotel room was really nice. 

The theme for the christmas decor in the lobby were these silver and blue colors...

One of the cool things about our hotel was the rooftop restaurant called the Sky Room. It had an outdoor lounge area, with an awesome view of the Empire State Building!

The best part about the hotel was... complimentary breakfast. It was totally awesome to not have to worry about paying for breakfast every morning. They even had authentic breakfast sandwiches, which made my husband quite happy.

Overall, I'd probably recommend it, but I probably wouldn't stay there if we went back. Mostly because there are so many hotels in NYC to try that I wouldn't want to stay in the same place twice.

I've got one more NYC post left with a few more pictures and then that's all I've got to say about our trip! Had enough yet? :)

NYC: World Trade Center 9/11 Memorial

The World Trade Center 9/11 Memorial just opened in NYC in September 2011, 10 years later. You have to make a time reservation to enter, but it doesn't cost anything. The museum won't open until sometime in 2012, but we did get to see the two memorial pools. The two "infinity" pools are located exactly where the two WTC towers used to stand. One of the most striking things to me was the huge open airspace where the towers used to be. It was so obvious in the middle of downtown Manhattan among all the other skyscrapers.

Surrounding each of the two memorial pools were the names of those who were fallen.

This is one of the new WTC buildings under construction. 

My family was actually at the top of one of the WTC's in early 2001 and then we went back in December 2001 after 9/11. It was interesting to see how the site has changed over time and to hear about some of the families that were affected 10 years later. Definitely worth visiting if you're in NYC.

NYC: Rockefeller Center Area

We highly recommend going to the Top of the Rock, which is the top of the Rockefeller Center. It has great views and wasn't busy at all (although we did go at like 10am on a Sunday).

 After the Top of the Rock, we stuck around the area and saw a few things...

The Rockefeller Christmas tree and Prometheus!

And here are a few more pics from surrounding attractions:

Christmas-time in NYC is awesome! So glad we went when we got to see the Christmas trees and decor!