Christmas 2017

The best part about Mike still being in school is that he gets actual breaks, just like students at universities get.  He got two weeks (!!!) off for Christmas/New Years so we packed up our car and headed south to Virginia.  We left the Thursday before Christmas after Mike got done with work.  While this meant that we didn't get to Northern Virginia until midnight, it meant that Finn slept for almost all of the drive, which was well worth it. 

We spent two nights with Mike's mom, Jim and their dog Tucker.  Finn was very hesitant about Tucker at first and cried every time Tucker barked, but by the end of our stay, he was laughing every time Tucker went to lick his face.  It was the cutest thing!

Saturday morning, we bid farewell to them (including Tucker) and met Mike's dad and grandmother.  Mimi is an incredible woman who at 97, is sharp, sassy and quite the firecracker.  And, she loves Finn.  We went to her retirement home and the pictures of Mike and his dad (the only pictures in her room) had been replaced with six of Finn. 😀  We went to lunch with Mike's dad afterwards and exchanged Christmas gifts.  Finn (okay, really me) made photo calendars for all of his grandparents which were a huge hit and brought both of his grandmothers to tears.  Good job Finn!

I love this picture!! A week after we visited, Mimi fell and broke her femur.   She's a tough cookie though and pushed through surgery and is now in rehab.   What a woman!

Once Finn started showing signs of getting tired, we jumped in the car and headed south for Virginia Beach.  (You know you're a parent when you start timing your travel times around nap time).  The drive took wayyyyy too long and we were practically jumping out of the car by the time we pulled into my parents' driveway.  Luckily, we got there in time for Finn to say hello to his grandparents and great grandfather before he made his way to destroy the Christmas tree.  

"See Grandpa, you just move all of these gifts out of the way and then you'll be able to get to the tree."  -valuable advice on how to destroy a Christmas tree from Finn. 

My aunt hosted Christmas Eve dinner and it didn't disappoint.  Everyone, including Finn, enjoyed dinner (we all know how much Finn loves mashed potatoes!) and left feeling very full.  Finn and Mike headed home for bed time while the rest of us went to church.  Christmas Eve mass is my favorite church service of all year because you can feel the anticipation of what is coming the next day in the air.  It's exactly what Advent is all about.  

Finn woke us up early the next morning, clearly excited to open presents and see what Santa had left for him.  Santa actually already came to our house in Groton before we left, but he did make a little pit stop and managed to leave a rocking horse and some gifts for Mike and I and fill our stocking.  Funny how his taste is eerily similar to my mom's? 😉

We spent the day hanging around and opening presents.  Mike and I made the mistake of going to see Pitch Perfect 3 that night and we both walked away with the sentiment that it was aca-awful. 

The rest of the week was a lot of the same.  Mike went to Annapolis to watch Navy destroy UVA in the bowl game. I bought a new winter coat and caught up with my friend Rachel.  It was really nice to just relax and hang out with everyone and the perfect first half to our winter break. 

New York at Christmastime

One of my new year's resolutions is to be better about blogging, so I'm not posting about our trips a month after they happen.   Finger's crossed that actually happens!

There is something special about being in a city during the holidays. Whether it's the storefront displays filled with festive decorations, the wreaths on the lamp posts or the holiday cheer that seems to fill otherwise grumpy people I'll never know, but regardless of what it is, it works and makes New York City the perfect place to fill your heart with holiday cheer and get you in the mood for Christmas.

We took the train from New London into the city Saturday morning which was perfect because we didn't have to worry about parking the car and the train ride through New England was stunning.  It had snowed earlier in the week and everything still had a nice dusting.  Luckily, our hotel was only a couple of blocks from the train station.  Unfortunately, our room wasn't ready, so we dropped our stuff off, loaded Finn into the stroller, and headed out in search of some New York style pizza. Joe's Pizza was right around the corner and didn't disappoint.

Finn slept through our pizza experience, but woke up just in time to go to the Christmas market.  In case we were questioning his dislike for the cold, he reassured us that sentiment still rang true.  He began fussing within minutes of waking up and really didn't stop. Fortunately, the Christmas market was cute and we got two new ornaments for our tree.  Random coincidence, the people who were working in the shop were all Turkish! They loved the fact that we had lived in Izmir and that Mike could speak to them in Turkish!

After the Christmas market, we headed down to Rockefeller Center. We weren't the only ones who wanted to check out the gigantic tree and ice skating rink because we were quickly overwhelmed by the crowds.  I'm sure it's even crazier at night and both of us were glad that we had experienced it before and didn't need to hang around very long.  That being said, it is really spectacular and worth experiencing at least once.  The tree is beautiful, especially with the ice skaters around. 

We were there days before Matt Lauer got fired!

By this point, our hotel room was ready and we headed back to alleviate Finn from his screaming and let him crawl around a bit before dinner.  We had plans to meet up with one of Mike's friends Ramon and his girlfriend for dinner at a Korean restaurant.  As it turns out, one of Mike's really good friends Ben from DC (who introduced him to Ramon) came up and surprised him for the weekend. Such a fun surprise!  The food was delicious and the company heart warming.  

Finn slept through half of dinner and decided to wake up for the stroller ride home.  Along with waking up, he decided to scream for the entire 20 minute walk home.  Just lovely.  The funniest moment was when we were crossing the street.  Finn is screaming and there are people standing in little ramp that allows strollers and wheel chairs to easily access the side walk.  We are crossing the street and clearly coming for the ramp.  It's impossible to miss us since Finn is screaming, but the people weren't moving, so Mike, with little patience at this point, doesn't even stop the stroller and just says "Are you going to move?" to the people.  They scurried out of the way just in time for us to come through.  Normally, I would have felt kind of bad, but at this point, Finn was screaming and the people clearly saw us coming, so I just had to laugh and not look back.  

Once we got to the hotel, we put Finn down in his crib and he luckily settled down.  Mike was thinking about going back out to meet up with his friends, but was waiting to make sure that Finn actually went to sleep. When we are in hotels, we have to put Finn in the crib and then move out of sight so that he falls asleep.  Usually, we can go in the hallway, but that night, we chose to lay in bed with the lights off.   I'm sure you can guess what happened.  Spoiler alert: we both fell asleep at 8:45. I woke up around ten and was completely confused.  Mike did the same around midnight.  Needless to say, he did not meet up with his friends. 

We woke up the next morning feeling extremely refreshed after ten-ish hours of sleep! Mike hit the gym and Finn and I hit up the breakfast buffet.  We had plans to go for brunch, but when you wake up at 6:30, brunch at 11:00 is basically lunch, so breakfast is necessary.  After Mike finished at the gym and we finished breakfast, we all set out for Brooklyn! We quickly learned that all metro stations are not handicapped/stroller accessible and got an arm workout as we carried the stroller up many flights of stairs. 

We ended up at a Mexican restaurant for brunch which was delicious.  We felt the need to do some walking, much to Finn's chagrin and set out to explore Brooklyn by foot.  Finn fell asleep for a little while, which allowed us to all leisurely stroll through the neighborhood and take in the sights.

Finn woke up just in time to stop for a coffee/hot chocolate break. 

By this point, we had to say goodbye to our friends and head back to the train station.  We did grab dinner in the train station and Finn had his first encounter with a balloon, which was as exciting as you can imagine.   Otherwise, the rest of the evening and the end of our trip were uneventful.  We returned home late on Sunday and happy to have spent the weekend with friends and surrounded by Christmas cheer. 

After this trip, we decided that travelling with Finn will have to take a different approach.  There will be less sight seeing and more relaxing/playing.  Finn's dislike for the cold, as well as his desire to be out and crawling around made him pretty miserable this entire trip.   I guess I can't blame him. It looks like we'll be doing lots of beach vacations in our future!

Christmas in the Baltics

I love Christmas. I love everything about it.  The music, the decorations, the anticipation of what's to come.  All of it.  Most of all, I love the traditions that surround the holiday. While they have changed slightly from year to year, for the most part, I grew up doing the same thing every Christmas Eve and Day and LOVED it.  The Christmas Eve church service followed by hanging stockings and reading Christmas stories.  Christmas morning spent in pajamas opening presents and eating breakfast casserole. The big Christmas dinner with all of my family.  I love all of it. 

I knew when Mike and I got married that we wouldn't be spending Christmas like that every year.  I'm a traditionalist, but also realistic. When we moved overseas, I knew going home for Christmas wouldn't be in the cards.  That being said, December has proved to be the hardest month each year. It's resulted in many tear filled days, unmet expectations and lots of loneliness.   Last year, I spent Christmas morning taking a Turkish test instead of in my pajamas eating breakfast casserole. Our Christmas dinner comprised of just the two of us and was over in about 20 minutes. It was nice, but not what I was used to. 

This year, I felt like such a grinch because all I really wanted to do was skip Christmas.  Don't get me wrong, I loved going to all of the German Christmas markets, decorating our house and listening to Christmas music.  It definitely helped being in a country that celebrates Christmas because everywhere we went was filled with the Christmas spirit. Despite all of this, I knew that spending another Christmas Day of just the two of us would be tough. So, when planning our big winter trip, we decided to add a few days onto the end and spend Christmas in the Baltics!

We flew from Sweden to Tallinn, Estonia and landed there late afternoon.  While it stayed light a little bit longer, it was still dark when we arrived at the hotel around 4:30.  By this point, we're pretty used to that seeing as sunset is normally around 4:00 in Berlin!! Anyways, our hotel was walking distance from the old town, so after we dropped off our bags, we headed downtown for dinner. 

The next day, our first stop was the KGB museum, which we both LOVED! Our tour guide was hilarious and wasn't afraid to make some jokes about Soviet Russia. Definitely worth the tour.  We also went to the maritime museum, which was also really cool!  We saw Estonia's first submarine that could hold four people and got to go down into a WWII submarine, which had Mike giddy with excitement. 

Estonia's first submarine

It's like he's back on Lady Jax!

The next morning, we ventured up the hill to check out the other part of Tallinn that we had heard so much about.  It was a cute little neighborhood filled with charming cobblestone streets and lots of little shops and restaurants. 

Baby Maximus and I in Estonia! Checking countries off the list!

The best part of this neighborhood was the view of the city, St. Olaf's Church and a bird included

We had an afternoon flight to Riga, Latvia, which was only a 45 minute puddle jumper, so we arrived there mid-afternoon, which allowed us to do some exploring.  There is some dispute between Latvia and Estonia over who can claim that they are the creators of the modern day Christmas tree (the NYTimes did an article on it that I found while we were in Riga.  Perfect timing!).

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One of the things to do that kept popping up of things to see was the cats on the roof in Riga.  We didn't know what to expect, but this is what we found. It's said that the man who commissioned the building wasn't allowed into the Tradesmen's Guild, so he had these cats placed on the top of the house with their tails facing the Guild House. 

Our second day in Riga was Christmas Eve, which was interesting because it turned out to be the major Christmas holiday for Latvians.  A lot of things were closed and the Christmas market was pretty bare.   Regardless, we walked around and enjoyed the city for a bit before heading to a bar where we met some other Americans.  I tried to find a church service to go to, but an hour of trying to decipher Latvian online and a lot of tears (those pregnancy hormones don't have any shame) in the bar resulted in me giving up and just saying a prayer that the Big Guy upstairs accepts my apology.  

We woke up Christmas morning in our hotel room and, despite all of my dread surrounding this day, it actually was fine. I didn't regret coming because, to me, it just felt like another day.  The hotel didn't even really do anything for Christmas, which was a blessing in disguise.  We went down for a late breakfast before heading out to a movie (Sing! was good...not great).  By the time we got back, it was time to FaceTime with my family who was awake and opening presents.  It was fun to see all of them, although it obviously would have been better to be there in person.  Plus, we got to watch them open our presents, which was fun.   That evening, we had reservations at a fancy restaurant for Christmas, but by the time it was time to go, neither of us really felt like going.  We ditched the reservations and went for a restaurant called the Meat House.  Mike had a burger and I had pork loin.  It was the perfect way to skip Christmas.

The next morning, we caught another puddle jumper to Vilnius, Lithuania where we spent one rainy night. 

It rained pretty much our entire time in Vilnius, which definitely put a damper on our time there (pun intended), especially because there isn't a ton to do in Vilnius.  It's a cute little town, but there aren't many museums or actual sights to see. The one KGB museum we wanted to go to was closed, so we found ourselves without much to do, but I do think it's worth a stopover in Vilnius. 

That's kind of how I felt about all of these little capitals.  They were all cute, picturesque places  to spend a night or two, but there wasn't a ton to do in any of them. Despite this, they were great places to spend a few days over Christmas.