Susan's Home

Marshall and I slept in again this morning. We spent the rest of the morning finishing up laundry and unpacking. We finally took showers and headed over to Susan's house to welcome her home. Stacey was picking her up from the airport at 2pm so we were meeting Brian to finish up some last minute wrapping on Susan's house before she got there. Just to mess with Susan, we had posted the pictures of the blow ups on Facebook so she had to stew for a night knowing they were at her house and she couldn't do anything about them. What she doesn't know about is all the wrapping inside her house.

We met Brian at his house where we left our car and then we headed over to Susan's house. We wrapped the outside of her front door so she would have to tear it down just to get inside. We then entered her house via the garage where we set up camp and waited for her to arrive with our cameras rolling to record her reaction at her house. Boy was she surprised! Fortunately for us she was also a little bit tipsy from her plane ride. Thank you first class upgrade! She walked around her house laughing at all the things we wrapped. I knew she was tipsy when she headed outside and I actually caught her hugging one of the blow ups. She had brought home with her hats for Marshall and Brian. Marshall received a Whalers hat and he loved it. In fact, he didn't take it off for the rest of the day. He even fell asleep wearing it!

On the way home, we stopped at the Walmart in Leland to look for ugly sweaters for our Christmas party. We didn't find Marshall one, but found me an ugly vest. I also took the opportunity to do a little shopping for the party. Once home, we made tacos for dinner and sat down to watch the rest of Abraham Lincoln. Only we never made it through the entire movie. We both fell sound asleep about two thirds of the way through the movie only to wake up after it was over and get a second wind. Instead of trying our hand at Abraham Lincoln again, we watched ParaNorman in 3D on our 3D TV. That we stayed awake for! After ParaNorman was over we moved into the bedroom where we turned on the TV and fell asleep for the night.

Blow Ups

Marshall and I slept in pretty late this morning, still exhausted from our travels the day before. We eventually made it from the bed to the couch where we watched TV while I did laundry. Eventually, Billy showed up with our luggage my Mom had brought home from Aunt Jo's. Before we knew it, it was the afternoon and I was starving. We showered and headed over the bridge to Leland where we were to help Stacey and Brian decorate Susan's house for Christmas. Before we could do anything though we had to eat so we stopped at PT's Grille along the way where I had an awesome chicken sandwich and Marshall had a burger. Once fueled up we were ready to go.

Now Susan has been gone a month to Conneticut where she is working CAT duty for hurricane Sandy. She had asked Stacey to decorate her house for her. Little did she know what our decorating plans were for her. Susan hates blow up Christmas decorations. Actually, she loathes them. So what did we do? Well, we put an 8 foot blow up Santa on her roof and 7 more blow up characters in her front yard. Not to mention the flashing icicle lights we hung from her roof and the colored ones we strung on her tree. But our decorating skills didn't stop there. Nope, we also wrapped virtually anything and everything in her house - from her pillows to her coffee maker and remotes. The only places we didn't touch were her office and her bedroom. We wrapped the towels and the rug, her canned goods and frozen entrees, her spoons, the candles, her pictures on the wall, her fireplace and TV and even Sailor's dog collars. Nothing was safe from our wrapping skills.

By the time we left there it was dark and our wrapping paper was dwindling down. On the way home, Marshall and I stopped at the grocery store to pick up some food for the house. We ended up settling on a frozen pizza for dinner and Marshall rented Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter from Redbox. I think I only made it through 20 minutes of the movie before I was fast asleep on the couch.

Leaving NY

Today we had to leave New York. We got up this morning, stopped and got an egg and cheese on a roll and headed to the Edison Hotel for the last time. We dropped off our carry on bag at Mom and Aunt Jo's room and ate our egg on the roll. By the time we had finished breakfast, the bell hop was there ready to load up the bags and Aunt Jo's car was being pulled around. So we thought we would stay and see Aunt Jo, Ashley and Rylee off. We helped them get everything loaded up in the car, hugged them goodbye and sent Candie, Mom and Jannah along their way with some directions.

Then we headed over to the Discovery Place to view the Spy and Harry Potter exhibit. The Spy exhibit was the first one we saw and we got the audio tour with it. It was super interesting and Marshall really enjoyed it. It was amazing the things they showed you in there. I think maybe in another life Marshall would like to be a spy. Perhaps he would have been one in this life if he had thought about wanting to do it earlier in his life.

The Harry Potter exhibit was also pretty cool. I was actually amazed by the details in the robes. Even being in the film business I never realized how elaborate the robes were. Then we decided to head on towards the airport, not knowing how long it would take us to catch the train. Well, as fate would have it we caught a train as soon as we purchased our AirTrain tickets. Oh boy!

We got to the airport 30 minutes later and even the line to go through security wasn't that long. And I even made them do a pat down on me so I didn't have to go through the scanners. We still had 4 hours to kill before our flight! So we sat down at the only restaurant in our terminal - Ruby Tuesday - and had some lunch. We took our sweet ass time, but still only managed to kill 45 minutes. So we walked over to the little news stand, purchased a couple of books, some Twizzlers and a water and sat down at our gate to read a little and hope the hours passed by quickly. I grew very sleepy reading my book and dozed off for a bit, but Marshall powered through and read over 100 pages in his book before they started boarding our plane. We both read some more on the flight from Newark to Charlotte and by the time we landed in Charlotte Marshall was nearly halfway down with his book - Alex Cross. We made our way down to our new gate in the Charlotte airport and while I sat and read, Marshall went and grabbed us some Starbucks. I didn't get much reading in before we had to start boarding. We read some more on the way to Wilmington, despite the teeny boppers beside us jabbering away the entire flight.

By the time we landed in Wilmington, Shea was already outside waiting for us. We drove home and Shea came in to watch some X factor. We started with the previous week's episodes and by the time we got to tonight's episode I watched a couple of performances and fell asleep. Marshall and Shea stayed awake and watched it all though. I woke up just as Shea was leaving and headed off to get some real sleep in my own bed. I really enjoyed our "Baby Moon" to NY but I was glad to be home.

New York Winter

This morning we met my family at their hotel and we all took the subway down to the 9-11 memorial. It was a cold day with a mix of rain and snow. Somehow it seemed fitting with the memorial. I wasn't sure what to expect when we got to the memorial because I haven't seen any pictures as to what the memorial was like. It was two vast pools that sunk inwards. I could see no end to them. Along the edges were the names of all the service men that lost their lives and their corresponding units. It was a very humbling and somber place and the weather definitely heightened the feeling of loss. I used to say I couldn't imagine what the families of the 9-11 victims were going through, but now I think I actually might have a clue. The sudden and tragic loss of a loved one is something that nobody can ever be prepared for or know how to cope with.

After we left there we walked up to Chinatown in the rain. The girls went shopping while Marshall and I set in the Starbucks across the street and drank some coffee. Soon after Mom came and met us. Eventually, we waited so long for the rest of the family to join us that Marshall and I had to run across the street to McDonald's to pee. When they finally met back up with us, we took Aunt Jo, got on the subway and headed to the Empire State building. It was too cloudy for us to go up in it and be able to see anything so we just walked inside and took some pictures and left. We walked up to Time Square and left Mom and Aunt Jo at the bus stop so they could do the uptown tour of the bus ride they had purchased yesterday. Then Marshall and I got on the subway and went up to Central Park to go to the Natural History Museum. Since the museum wasn't open but a couple of more hours by the time we got there, they didn't make us pay full price for our admission. We walked around and looked at all the exhibits and it was really interesting. My previous experiences in New York with museums had all been art museums so this was something new and different.

When we were done we headed back down to Time Square and met Mom and Aunt Jo in their hotel room.  They were both freezing from their bus adventure. While they sat downstairs in the bus, the bus apparently had no heat and every time the bus stopped, rain water came rushing down the steps and soaking their feet! We all relaxed a bit and warmed up until the other girls made it back from their shopping adventures to Soho and Macy's on 34th Street. We all then walked a couple of blocks over and ate at John's Pizza. It was a nice place and the food was decent but it did not sit well with me. After dinner the girls decided to do yet some more shopping so Marshall and I walked Mom and Aunt Jo back to their hotel room, stopping along the way to grab some souvenirs. We were just picking out some mugs for Sally and Shea who had been watching JoJo for us when it hit me - massive stomach cramps. The greasy pizza was giving me hell. I grabbed my mom's key and ran out of there and around the corner to the hotel. I barely made it to their hotel room in time. No sooner had I gotten out of the bathroom and laid down then my Mom was calling me to meet Marshall downstairs to let him in. The pizza ended up getting to him too. Once Mom and Aunt Jo returned to the room, Marshall and I left and headed back to our hotel. Tomorrow afternoon we were heading home, so we had plans to get up early and head over to the Spy Exhibit at Discovery Place.

The Rockettes

I had the breakfast of champions this morning - a cupcake I had gotten at Magnolia bakery last night. Yum. It gave me just the sugar rush I needed to get me going this morning. We then headed down to Time Square to meet my family at their hotel. My cousins and aunt went to the wax museum Madame Tussauds in Time Square while Mom, Marshall and I walked around Time Square. We headed to Starbucks first to grab some coffee then into the Levi Jeans Store for Marshall to go shopping. He's been looking for a specific pair of pants and finally found them in that store so he was excited about that. It was getting lunch time and they were still at the wax museum, so we headed to Virgil's for some North Carolina style barbecue while we waited for them to finish.

By the time we finished lunch, they were done with the museum so we all hopped on the bus tour and headed downtown to see the Statue of Liberty. Due to the hurricane, you weren't able to go see the Statue of Liberty so we could only see it from afar. From there we walked over to the 9-11 memorial but weren't able to go see it because we didn't have tickets for today. So I went online and got us tickets for tomorrow morning and then we took the subway to Grand Central and then Time Square.





It was dinner time by this point so we grabbed dinner at Tad's Steaks. I ordered my steak well done, but part of it was slightly pink. Marshall got overly concerned that it wasn't cooked properly despite the fact that I didn't eat any of the pink parts. I know he is just concerned about the baby, but it really upset me because he just went on and on about it. In a lot of ways I still feel like it is my fault what happened to Nolan so when I get criticized about something I'm doing or not doing during this pregnancy it really upsets me. It makes me feel like if something goes wrong this time it is going to be because of that damn steak or something else I did. I feel like I'm doing everything I can to make sure this baby is healthy and it's all the same things, if not more, than I did last time. I haven't had any caffeine the entire pregnancy. I stick my finger 4 times a day checking my glucose levels even though I still haven't been diagnosed with gestational diabetes this year. I don't eat deli meat, soft cheeses, or the array of fish. I'm so on the extreme of what not to do that most pregnant women look at me like I'm crazy for not partaking in anything of the no no list. I probably wouldn't have gotten so upset if I wasn't full of hormones, but I do find I'm overly sensitive these days.

After dinner we walked over to Radio City Music Hall to go to the Rockettes show. We got there an hour early so we took some time to take some pictures in front of the ornaments in the fountain before getting in line to head in to the show. Once they opened the doors and we were able to go in, Rylee and I headed downstairs to go to the bathroom. When we came out we found Marshall, Mom, Aunt Jo and Ashley had come downstairs too. We all ended up grabbing some drinks and candy for the show before heading back upstairs to find our seats.

The show was great! The bus moving around the stage was really cool. They did the Nutcracker with giant teddy bears instead of people. It seemed like everyone enjoyed the show. Part of it was in 3D as in between live performances they would show an animated film.


After the show we walked over to Rockefeller Center so Ashley and Rylee could go ice skating. Marshall and Aunt Jo went walking around to find coffee with no luck. Marshall said he enjoyed his "Aunt Jo" time though despite the fact that they went to four Starbucks and they were all closed! The girls had a great time ice skating and I have to admit I was a bit envious of them. Oh well, I guess we will just have to come back some time when I'm not pregnant so I can go ice skating then.

When the girls were done ice skating Marshall directed them on how to get back to their hotel and Marshall walked me back to our hotel. My cousin Jay was a block away from our hotel having a late dinner with some of his friends so Marshall decided to stop by and see him for a minute before heading up to bed. He met Jay's friend Rob, his son and his girlfriend who apparently is a big Homeland fan. Jay told Marshall he was hoping I would have been up for coming out as she really wanted to meet me since I worked on that show. I, however, was busy enjoying my shower. By the time I had finished and had just sat down in bed to watch some TV, Marshall came in. We both were ready to just lounge on the bed and watch a movie. Tomorrow was our last full day in New York so we have to make the most of it.