December

December is always a busy month for us with both kids having their birthdays and the usual Christmas shenanigans.

We celebrated Ben's 14th birthday on Monday, 2nd December with a dinner out at Red Lobster, a seafood restaurant that possibly had its heyday in the 90's but was a great meal nonetheless.

Check out that seafood platter!

We had to wait until Laura had finished at a gym competition (yes, you read that right, it was a miraculous recovery!) to have cake, which we did at home.  

Gorgeous birthday boy <3

The following weekend Russ and I were invited by one of the British gents on course to eat, drink, and watch a fireworks display from their apartment overlooking the wharf, which is a very trendy location in DC (kind of like Southbank in Melbourne, but on a smaller scale).

The most amazing sunset

Walking along the wharf

Yay, fireworks!

Ben had his birthday sleepover the night of the 13th, which five friends staying over. They're all fantastic kids who ate a lot of food (including cooking eggs at 1am) and made a lot of noise, but Ben had a great time.

We celebrated Laura's 16th birthday with dinner out at a local dumpling restaurant with our Australian friends Luke (who lives here), and Julie and Chloe (wife and daughter) who were visiting from Canberra for the holidays, on her birthday eve. On the 17th December, Laura's actual birthday, she had cheerleading practice so we had cake when she got home at about 9pm.

Sweet 16.

Laura also had a sleepover for her birthday the following Friday. The girls went out to dinner and then came home and made an abundance of TikToks, with marginally less noise than the boys!

The kids started two weeks winter break on the Friday, not quite the Christmas break we're used to, but they were happy for the time off.

On Sunday, 22nd December we were up bright and early for another trip to New York. We arrived at midday, dropped our bags off at our hotel and found a great rooftop restaurant for lunch.

Rooftop restaurant. Can't remember the name.

I kid you not, we took 16 photos in the lobby of the building the restaurant was in, and this is the best one!

After lunch we walked up 6th Avenue past Radio City Music Hall and the Rockefeller Centre to New World Stages. It was really busy and freezing cold, so different from last time we were in New York (weather wise anyway). We watched an off-Broadway production called The Play That Goes Wrong which was absolutely hilarious. We all loved it, the kids even said they'd like to go back and see it again.

Radio City Music Hall

The Play That Goes Wrong set

Following the play we walked back to our hotel to check in and get rugged up for ice skating in Bryant Park. I don't think I have ever been so cold in my entire life!

Ice grooming time

Waiting in line to get our skates. I think my feet were numb already.

We were booked to skate for an hour, but about thirty minutes in Laura and I couldn't handle the cold any longer so decided to get off the ice, get some dinner and have a look around. Dinner was dumplings in the Bryant Park Winter Village, which is full of food and drink stalls. On our way back to the hotel we had a wander through Macy's. It spans eight floors and also has a basement and mezzanine. It was beautifully decorated inside and out, and incredibly busy. 

So pretty!

The whole store was this busy. It was filled with people actually doing their Christmas shopping - crazy!

Russ and Ben finished their skating, found some dinner and met us back at the hotel at about nine pm.

Monday morning Laura met up with a friend who also happened to be in New York and they went shopping together. 

The girls in Times Square.

Russ, Ben and I set off to explore some more of the city. It was a glorious sunny day, but very cold. We started at Hudson Yards which is a relatively new residential and shopping development and explored Vessel https://www.vesselnyc.com/ which was stunning.




View from the inside looking down.

Vessel forecourt.

It was a short walk from Vessel to the Hudson River, where Russ admired some boats, we had a wander around a few piers, and then found our way onto The High Line https://www.thehighline.org/ which is a park built on an disused rail way line. Along the way we saw some beautiful buildings and art installations. Not much privacy in some of the apartments!





View up a street from the High Line.

View of Little Island.

Towards the end of the High Line we stopped off at Little Island https://littleisland.org/, another beautiful public park.


View from the park. The tall building is One World Trade Centre.

Lunch at The Grey Dog.

After lunch we walked back to our hotel to meet Laura before heading to the Empire State Building for a late afternoon booking.

Lobby

80th floor

View from 80th floor

86th floor

Looking south 



102nd floor

We left the Empire State Building at about 6pm and headed back to our hotel (only one block away) before heading out to dinner at a reasonably close Chinese restaurant. 

Our view of the ESB on the way to the restaurant. So pretty!

We walked just shy of 17km that day and were all pretty tuckered after dinner.

The next morning, which was Christmas eve, we woke up to reasonably heavy snow which was exciting. A quick breakfast before heading to catch our bus and we were home by 1pm.


Christmas Day was a lot of fun. It was a novelty for it to be cold and we enjoyed being able to wear our Christmas jumpers.

  

We spent the day with Luke, Julie and Chloe - who kindly hosted - and in testament to what a great day we had, the only photo taken that day was of the gingerbread house the kids decorated! 


On 30th December our final family activity for the month was a trip to watch the Washington Commanders play their last game of the home and away season, which was against the Atlanta Falcons at Northwest Stadium. We really enjoyed watching Laura's high school's football games and have a reasonable understanding of the rules. The trip to the stadium was not for the faint-hearted! It was drizzling and although ordinarily we would have been able to catch a train from our local Metro station and be delivered to the stadium's Metro station, there was track work in progress, meaning that instead we had to take a train, another train, yet another train, then a bus, then finally another train. It was also about 1.5 km from the Metro station to the stadium. It was absolutely well worth it though, especially given that the Commanders won in extra time.

Nose bleed seats!

Still a great view though.

The game went for over three hours, and with the commute we didn't get home until about 1.30 am.

New years eve was a quiet one for Russ and I. Ben spent the evening with his mates and Laura went to a party. How the tables have turned!





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