much to be thankful for . . . .

I just finished up a fantastic Thanksgiving weekend. The past four days were filled with lots of food and plenty of relaxing. On Wednesday night, Nick and I decided to get a jump-start on holiday shopping by checking out the crazy sale at Saks and the cute holiday display they unveiled the night before. Half of the windows featured the Swarovsky windows featuring designers including Zac Posen, Alexander McQueen, Bill Blass, etc, but I wasn't all that impressed. I did, however like the cute windows based on the book A Flake Like Mike.
The story is based in "Snowflake City," and centers around this adorable snowflake, Mike:
The basic jist of the story is that Mike is different, and eventually encourages all of the other snowflakes to be different too ----- which is now each and every snowflake that we see is different from the rest.
A pretty cute story encouraging kids to embrace their identities as individuals!

We couldn't handle midtown for more than a couple of hours, so we hightailed it to the Upper West Side to check out the balloons inflated for the next day's Macy's Thanksgiving parade. It was crazy-crowded, but we had a blast checking out the balloons without having to deal with the terrible parade-day crowds:
It's crazy how big the balloons are! Look at at old Horton here compared to the apartment building.
This is me + Nick posing with my favorite balloon, modeled after a Keith Haring piece, in honor of what would have been his 50th birthday:
Although Nick and I opted out of seeing the actual parade, here's a picture of some of the balloons making their way through the parade route on Thanksgiving day:

After freezing our buns off outdoors, Nick and I decided to check out the new Shake Shack outpost. For you non NYC-ers, this place is famous for its burgers and milkshakes. People will wait in line for an hour to get their hands on Shake Shack goods. Luckily, with the new branch, there's no need to wait outdoors, and the line was only 15 minutes!

Here's the before picture. Nick got a cheeseburger, I opted for the portobello mushroom burger + black & white milkshake, ice cream sundae, and piles of fries to share.
We clearly loved the food, as evidenced by the aftermath:

After a restful night of sleep, Nick and I headed to Goddard Riverside Community Center to help prepare and deliver Thankgiving meals to homebound elderly folks in the community. The event was a part of a program the center puts on every year, which includes serving Thankgiving dinner to about 1000 homeless New Yorkers. It's the second year we've volunteered, and is a highlight of my holidays.

Since both Nick and I are far away from family, we continued our tradition of making a meal for just the two of us. We made way too much food, but managed to eat most of it anyway!
It was Sid's first Thanksgiving, which he seemed excited about. Well, at least he didn't look as annoyed as usual when I stuck a camera in his face:
And, in accordance with Thanksgiving tradition, Sid quickly learned the art of the food coma nap and cuddled up with his new mouse friend:
I spent the rest of the weekend meeting up with some friends, watching lots of bad movies, and just having a great break. Although the past few weeks (and years for that matter) have been filled with ups and downs, I have a great deal to be thankful for. And for that, I feel blessed.

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday with your family/friends/loved ones! Sending lots of love your way.