Merry Christmas!

Christmas Day

Winter Break Wind Up

Holiday Hoopla

This year Carmen's birthday drinks had to wait until early December for a proper celebration. We gathered the ladies for a night out and she chose a spot called Milk & Roses in Greenpoint, Brooklyn for our first stop of the evening. Of course most of us are not cool enough to know where the "in" spots are anymore, but fortunately we have Tania on our team and she helped pick that spot and had a few others lined up as well. So after our dinner and some wickedly strong cocktails, we trudged out through the snow to a nearby bar called Achilles heel where we played the door keepers to the emergency exit like the moms we are. A few more drinks and the majority of us skated off for a final stop of the night in Bushwick at a 80s/90s/00s music party at The Silent Barn. Only it wasn't any of that. What we hoped would be a finale of wild dancing turned into a mostly empty room with some freestyle rappers giving it their best shot. Not terrible. Some of it was actually mesmerizing, but we definitely brought the median age in the place up about 20 years. Carmen's birthday celebration was complete and since I caught the sign "ALL AGES WELCOME" I figured that should apply to her dating life too! 

Nacho returned home from his last simulator training early the next week so it was time to celebrate with a lunch out in the neighborhood. We went to the new Vietnamese place on the boulevard and I think we both felt like a weight had been lifted. He's worked so hard to get to this stage of his career and I'm so proud and happy for him. He's earned every bit of this and I think we're both starting to feel like the bad juju of his final years at the regionals and his brief stint at JetBlue are shaking off. We're looking forward to some big changes in the next couple of years and talking it out and dreaming a little about what we want to happen has really kept us motived. I think we're both excited and a little scared of potentially leaving Sunnyside, but the reality is life keeps moving and changing. We both want more out of it, and our goal is to stay focused on what's best for our family. So we'll see what that means...

In the meantime, I'm using all my power to make sure that we do and see and taste all that living in NYC has to offer. And so of course I thought it was time to head back to see the Rockettes' Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall. We bought 4 tickets not realizing at the time that Nacho would be in training still. So when I found out he couldn't make it, I thought it would be fun to bring a friend and Skylar was more than happy to oblige. The girls had a lot of fun watching the holiday extravaganza complete with popcorn and cotton candy. I indulged in a glass of prosecco with its decorative candy cane and let the high kicking carry me away. What a great start to our holidays in this magical city.

School Pics

School pics 2017-18 were a success. Kind of. I had laid out two outfits based on the girls' specifications and they seemed pleased. Carolina wanted a sparkly dress and considering her choice of backgrounds (a speckled red), I thought the black and silver ensemble we inherited from Manuela would look great. Elisa didn't give me much idea of what she wanted, but I knew she liked a gray sweater we also got from Manu, so I put it with a long sleeved T and a flared skirt she finally grew into and thought I had an excellent layered outfit. Against the purple background she chose, she would look awesome. Then she came home from picture day and told me she had removed it for the class pic (at someone's suggestion) and then forgot to put it back on for her individual photo. UGH. I don't know why it bothered me at the time, but it did. It was like my effort to help her was completely thrown out. And yeah, that wasn't the case, but if felt that way. Finally the photos arrived and they both looked great. I forgot about the sweater for a minute and just enjoyed seeing these girls as they are right now. Growing up before my very eyes.