We used to take a trip to my mom-mom and pop-pops about every year and it seemed to get longer and longer each year! We would sit and drive ourselves crazy riding in the car for 12 hours eating junk food the whole ride up! Looking back I’m sure we drove mom and dad crazy more so than ourselves…
Never the less this year, on the day after Christmas we made the trip as a family….only one way though- we flew home, Thank God!
Tara was our wonderful pilot the WHOLE way there! 
In car one that is…. yup, we car pooled 2 cars up to North Carolina and then gained another car after meeting Angela and car pooled 3 cars up to New Jersey WITH walkie talkies!!
It was pretty much amazing let me just tell ya, I had (thankfully- and your welcome) decided that morning that we need to make the trip a bit more Griswaldie (after being disappointed we weren’t renting a big fun caravan for all of us to ride together). This is where the idea of NEEDING walkie talkies came in :)
Handles
Mom: Trixie (her original from he 70’s- yes we informed her that is now a stripper name)
Dad: Cisco Kid (his original from the 70;s)
Billy and Angela: Lead Foot
Tara, Alex and Jen: Baby Blue (Lou and I were only “Baby Blue passengers “though”)
(Only) Other exciting news from our road trip was stopping at the oh so famous Lung Wah!
You just have to know the story for this to be important to you…. Anyway, every year we would drive past this billboard that say Lung Wah 5$ and always pretended to stop. This was the first year we actually stopped after 25 years and no worries, we all had our 5$ bills ready!
Sadly, the menu changed to 6$ and the food was awful! At least now we know right!
Around 2 am we finally made it and we spent the next day lounging in the house trying to recover from the trip with our little ring bearer, mommom, Autie G and Uncle John!
I think we consistently ate the entire day from sun up to sun down, and play cards and cooked and then ate again!
Jason was quite the card player and Alex’s double!
We made our way to Philly to visit Billy and Angela’s neck of the woods before heading to New York City!
Their area was gorgeous and so historic!
Parking however was another story…. but Baby Blue pulled through for us yet again!
Ahhh… I can smell the street food now, we arrive in New York City to play tourist for 3 days thanks to Mary and Lillie’s wonderful generosity!!!!
The first night we were starving and had a good Mexican place in mind- it was closed, walked to second Mexican place- it had been shut down, third Mexican place- looked sketchy, fourth Mexican place- ehh we weren’t impressed but settled there anyway to eat and drink!
We decided to move on for dessert, drinks and pancakes at a cute Ukrainian diner after dinner to get the full satisfaction feeling!
Cheers*
Day two was full of shopping and more tourism!
*Shopping on Broadway*
Tara found a Georgia Southern Eagle!
*Wall Street*
….but no occupants to be found!
We found some crazy Chinese store that sold everything imaginable, including dried fish and shrimp!
*China Town* 
China town never sleeps!
I hate to report that we ate at a place with their famous “catch” hanging in the window. Tara had bragged about Noodle Town since before getting to the city and we couldn’t turn her down…. Obviously we sat Billy and Angela with their back to the “display”.
As promised, the salt baked shrimp was AMAZING!
B and Angela found a vegan dessert place on night 2 and got crazy ass sounding flavors of milk shakes :)
*Time Square*
We got an early start on our last day in the city and went straight to Time Square where they were already setting up for the next nights New Years Eve celebration! 
Where the ball drops!
In the middle of time square, hungry at lunch time…. maybe we should have eaten before coming to the middle of all the action!
The big Toys R Us with the carousel inside was between us and food so we decided to check that out first! 
Billy and Angela finally caved for the street vendors roasted Chestnuts! 
This cathedral was beautiful… and so is the picture I took of Tara above right??? My favorite! 
*Central Park*
*Rockefeller*
* Time Warner Building*
Several years ago when Alex and I were visiting New York Billy snapped a picture of us crossing the street and I loved it so I had to have him re-create it…
Good bye New York!
Our ride home was by train and we absolutely fell in love with this particular mode of transportation!!!
WOW, if only planes were this comfortable and roomy!
We made it back to Jersey just in time to bring in the new year with family and friends at Auntie G’s and Uncle Johns!
Above and to your left you will see two best buds and biggest bull shitters of your life, they’re crazy!
Yes, my Aunt Gloria is an amazing suzie homemaker… she cooked 4 different types of lasagna to suffice for the vegans, vegetarians, meat eaters and "no red saucers”!
Aunt Gloria and Mommom both have the same dessert/liquor cart and I have always been absolutely infatuated with them! 
We sat around and listened to the best stories about all daddy’s relatives “olden days”…. apparently I had a pretty crazy Aunt Gin who didn’t believe in rules or laws and thought it was completely normal to see a chicken on the side of the road and snap it’s neck for dinner…. actually, word is, it would be a sin to not….
Now I know where crazy mom mom gets it from :) 
We got our bellies full and it was time to settle in for the countdown… I loved the three bald heads front and center.
Sorry, I couldn’t resist! 
Aunt Gloria has had the same party hats and music makers from the 50’s, they were so cute and antique looking and it was a MUST that everyone wears one! 
Happy New Year mommom, we love you!
On New Years day it was time to return home to the babies and thankfully, as fun as our 15 hour road trip was, we were flying home!
I was so excited about getting some pleasure reading done both on the way there and the way home!
I finished A Stolen Life by Jaycee Duggard on the ride up (So good but so hard to get through, especially the details of her actual kidnapping on day 1, but stay with it). On the way home I got to brush up on some counseling techniques in “35 Techniques Every Counselor Should Know” from a book my co-worker lent me :)
We had the best homecoming of all New Years Day, getting to the babies who were safe, happy and healthy!
Milly actually jumped up on me over and over and cried the whole time we attempted to carry on a conversation with Alex’s mom thanking her for taking care of our babies. Milly is quite persistent and let it be known she was ready to go!
So thanks again Mrs. Karen for watching our babies, sorry Tucker kept you up all night- he thinks he is quite the guard dog :)
Also, thanks SOOO MUCH again Mary and Lillie, we absolutely adored yall’s place in the city and it was so nice of you to have us stay there!
***Happy 2012***
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