![\"\"](\"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/IMG_0129.jpg\" "\\"IMG_0129\\"")
<\/a>The family spent most of the week relaxing; Dave and the boys played with LEGOs and Lincoln Logs, and the whole family enjoyed going through box after box of photographs from when Dave was younger.<\/p>\n I got to spend a nice day with my mother-in-law, she and I took the Long Island Railroad into Manhattan, where we enjoyed a nice lunch, some walking around the city, and a Broadway show!<\/p>\n It was my first-ever Broadway show — I got to choose which show and I wanted to see the revival of\u00a0Evita<\/cite><\/a>. This was mostly because Ricky Martin was playing Che, but around Labor Day we received a notification that Martin was vacationing the week of Thanksgiving. (And his last performance will be on January 26, 2013). That’s okay, I still love the musical and Dave’s Mom and I had a great time seeing it.<\/p>\n We also visited the NY Public Library and enjoyed an exhibit called\u00a0Lunch Hour NYC<\/em>. It was really really cool! \u00a0Highly recommend (stay tuned for a GeekMom<\/a> post about it)!<\/p>\n After our day trip to the city on Wednesday, the very next morning Dave, the boys and I got up VERY early to take a train to the city for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade! We took a ~5:30am train into NYC, then took the Subway up to Lincoln Center, which was near our viewing spot right off Central Park West. We were in place before 7:30am and the kids had their DSs and my iPad to keep them occupied during the wait.<\/p>\n For anyone wondering, yes, seeing the parade is VERY crowded! We didn’t have the best views of the “low” stuff — the bands, clown, balloon handlers — but we had wonderful views of the balloons and the tall floats. \u00a0We were standing in front of the “Ghostbusters Building<\/a>“, but near a corner which gave us a view up the street. \u00a0The building had a scaffolding in front — the kids were all over the scaffolding, and Timmy was no exception. \u00a0He had the best view of the group of us!<\/p>\n The weather was PERFECT! The balloons require light winds, which we had, and we had a sunny morning with temperatures in the upper 30s when we arrived, and it was near 50F by the time we left around 11am.<\/p>\n Fellow\u00a0GeekMom Amy Kraft<\/a> came down from the northern part of Manhattan to visit us while we waited! \u00a0It was wonderful to get to meet her and our chatting really helped the wait time fly by! And it went by too quickly! \u00a0I could have talked to her all day…<\/p>\n Enjoy some pictures of what we did get to see during the parade! There were 18 “giant balloons” along with a couple dozen other balloons. They are definitely the highlight of the parade.<\/p>\n We got back to Dave’s parents’ house by about 2pm and enjoyed a nice Thanksgiving dinner with the family. Dave’s Mom did a great job with the turkey…and she has this gift of timing all of the food perfectly. I’m awful about that…<\/p>\n The following day, we met another fellow GeekMom writer, Andrea Schwalm Stolz<\/a>, along with her family, in the town of Northport, which is on the north shore of Long Island and right on the water. \u00a0After a great breakfast at a local diner, the kids had a good time playing, our husbands chatted about trains and climate change, and Andrea and I talked about everything from the just-released GeekMom book<\/a> to the military Exceptional Family Member Program<\/a>, which provides services to military family members with special needs.<\/p>\n We flew home last Saturday and were glad to have Sunday to relax before we were back to the normal life on Monday.<\/p>\n This coming weekend will be filled with holiday celebrations right here in Navarre — the boys and I are running the Navarre Jingle Bell Run in the morning, then will be back for the Christmas parade with our Cub Scout pack. \u00a0Like with the Veteran’s Day Parade in Pensacola<\/a>, I am the Cub Scout pack coordinator for this parade too. \u00a0Compared to some of the other stuff I’m organized, this event was pretty easy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Our family got to spend last week with Dave’s family in New York. Even though Jacob, Timmy and I get to go annually — the boys spend some time up there — I sometimes go up to pick them up from their visits…Dave hadn’t been since 2009. We flew the family up this year, driving … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[30,203,336,335,37,38],"class_list":["post-1527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-family","tag-geekmom","tag-macys-thanksgiving-parade","tag-new-york-city","tag-travel","tag-vacation"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>