Back in New York

I hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving! We had an eventful one. I was back in Nebraska for a few days sorting out more things to decide what to bring and what to leave behind. I was able to enjoy a girls night out with a few of my friends, it was great to see them! We spent Thanksgiving at my parents. My mom made a wonderful meal, as usual!! The pecan pie was out of this world. When I asked Mzee what he was thankful for, he responded, "I'm thankful for pumpkin pie and turkey." It was great to spend the day with many of my family as it will be longer than usual until we see most of them again.
Friday was spent organizing and sorting and packing the car to bring back to NY. We even found time to go out to dinner with some friends at Mzee's favorite restaurant Sam & Louie's! Saturday my Mom and I ventured out with a very full car for a very long drive! We were blessed with wonderful weather, so the driving was pretty good! It took two full days to get to New Jersey. The scenery and landscape in Pennsylvania was beautiful. Everything went pretty well and we were making pretty good time until we hit New Jersey. The traffic really picked up and our mapquest directions didn't seem to match the signs I was seeing. Luckily, I had a bit of my bearings and recognized some road signs, so just went where I thought we needed to go. We were very fortunate to find our hotel without incident! We got checked in and then I went to where I am staying temporarily to unload part of what was in the car to clear out the back seat. We then walked next door to our hotel to have a nice dinner. We woke up Monday morning to pouring rain! We made our way to the train station - I got us lost once, but we eventually got there, with the help of a friendly police officer! When we got there, we just missed the train because we had to wait for the ticket agent to help the person in front of us! Fortunately, there is always another train. It was a long walk in the rain to work, but we made it. Mom spent the morning in the Visitor Center and we had lunch in the Staff Cafe, a nice sit down restaurant on the fourth floor of the UN. There are two cafes like this (one is a buffet) in addition to the three full cafeterias and several coffee shops throughout the UN campus.
Because of the weather and the busy post-holiday travel, Mom's original flight was delayed and would have caused her to miss her connection in Chicago. She managed to get on an earlier flight only to find out that her connecting flight would be delayed by an hour and a half anyway due to mechanical issues. Needless to say, she had a very long day getting home!
It's nice to have a car here, I can drive to the bus station, the train station and even to get food!
The kids are doing well and had a nice Thanksgiving. Milan is learning more words every day. She loves Grandma and Grandpa and has really become Grandpa's girl since I've been gone! Mzee has a sinus infection so is on decongestant and an antibiotic. He was concerned that Grandpa would be lonely while Grandma was with me driving to New York. I let him know that Grandpa was going to be working during the weekend and so would be ok without Grandma.
Tomorrow is the tree lighting at Rockefeller Center, and I'm planning to go see it. I have a friend who is in town for work from Colorado so we are making plans to meet up for the tree lighting. It will be great to see her!