walking off the turkey in nyc.

Van Gogh's A Wheatfield with Cypresses

     For this Thanksgiving, our friend Chase came down from Dartmouth to stay with us for the weekend. Jason drove to Boston to pick him up from the South Station Bus Terminal and they didn’t come home until late at night because of holiday traffic. We both haven’t seen Chase since our wedding, so it was fun hearing Jason and Chase catch up and it was nice to finally host someone inside our home.

     Thursday we drove to Morristown, New Jersey to have Thanksgiving dinner with Jason’s cousin Seth and his wife Lindsay. Seth and Lindsay moved around the same time we did to the east coast so it was fun to swap stories of Hurricane Sandy and the differences of living here opposed to the West. It was also a lot of fun meeting Cohen for the first time and playing with Addy who has some hilarious things to say. All and all, it was perfect spending Thanksgiving with family and we hope to see the Gonzales Family more often.

Numero uno on Jason's Christmas list

     Saturday Chase, Jason, and I went into the city. We planned to do some shopping on 5^th avenue (being Black Friday) but it was so incredibly crowded in the stores. We did end up going into Barney’s and looking at clothes that we could never afford. Jason had fun trying on a Russian hat made from silver fox fur that was thousands of dollars.  

Pink Christmas tree in the Plaza Hotel

     We ate awesome Mexican food at Burrito Box. We have struggled to find a good Mexican restaurant in New York (since Costa Vida doesn’t exist on the east coast) but Burrito Box definitely did the job with free chips and salsa.

Burrito Box

A walk through Central Park

     We had a nice stroll through Central Park. The park was less busy and a perfect transition to our destination of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art or just simply the MET. Apparently there is a recommended admission of $25 per person, but you can pay whatever you want to be admitted. Jason paid only $10 dollars for the both of us! Jason and I have been to a couple of art museums: Detroit Institute of Arts Museum (DIA) and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA),  but this art museum definitely had the most well known paintings as well as an extensive exhibit of Andy Warhol’s work. Jason and I don’t necessarily like modern art, but it’s an amusing break from a constant flow of serious paintings and sculptures.

So many amazing paintings

Hall of Greek and Roman art

     Some of the amazing art we enjoyed: Van Gogh’s Self Portrait with Straw Hat, Irises, and Wheat Field with Cypresses; Monet’s Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies and The Houses of Parliament; George Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte; and Picasso’s The Blind Man’s Meal. It was also fun looking at the Roman and Grecian art sculptures including one familiarly face of a Lord Voldemort? Well, at least I thought it was him from the broken off nose.

Voldemort

     After the Museum, we again walked down 5^th Avenue in search of a Barnes and Noble to regroup and go book shopping. Chase bought us Scrabble as a Christmas gift and for having him in our home. We than went on a journey to east village to see an artsy movie at City Cinemas Village East Cinema.

Snowflake on 5th Ave

     It was a fun day of navigating our way through Manhattan that involved lots of trains, subways, walking, and asking of directions. By the time we got back to Grand Central it was already 11 o’clock. And our dinner was an entrée of bacon and cheese potato skins from the restaurant Fridays.

No holiday complete without a game of Scrabble

     Saturday morning we said goodbye to Chase. And spent the rest of the weekend recovering from a busy few days. Now my attention turns to finishing school and officially graduating from BYUI as Jason’s turns to writing his research papers and getting a leg up on studying for Finals. We both have so much to be thankful for this year starting with an amazingly smooth transition from living in the small town of Rexburg, ID to living on the verge of the biggest city in the world.

Goodbye Chase