We spent a lot of time over the next few days with Carri and more and more of the family joined us.
On new years eve our family got up pretty early and rushed off to NYC.
The convent was a few blocks from the train station and the train station was about 45 minutes from Penn Station. We had a few ideas of things we wanted to see but really we just wanted to explore around and experience the city.
We did a lot of walking in the morning and eventually we made it to that spot from home alone and all those movies.
It was pretty cool but our impression was that it was all smaller then it looks. Also too crowded. Around Rockefeller Center there was lots of cool stuff.
Atlas
Nintendo World
Lego Land
and Liz Lemon
We kept walking around but things got more and more crowded and crazy. Police were shutting down streets and thousands of people were already waiting for the ball to drop.
We had been walking all day so took a subway back to Penn Station and our train home. We got back with just a few minutes to spare before Carri had a practice run at the profession. She asked me to do some video and audio recording so I went for my own practice.
As you would expect I came up with a pretty unusual setup that worked pretty good. In case your interested read on, if not skip to next paragraph. The nuns wanted a live stream and a good quality recording. They had hoped to use a nice camcorder for both but the camcorder was not capable of that so I used my gorilapod to stick a USB webcam to the camcorder and we put the camcorder on a tripod infront of my seat in the church. I had one of those little tiny microphones that clips to your collar for my camera so we tied that around a speaker to try to cut out some of the echo in the old church. I had a laptop on the floor by the speaker and controlled it from my cell phone.
After the practice Carri had free time until 8:30 and Pops had just gotten into town so we all hung out with Carri. Then it was late, new years eve and we had not eaten dinner and were starving. Most of the little town was closed for the night but a bar and grill place we went to the night before was open. We got a giant table in the back and got busy eating and drinking.
I was expecting the worst in a bar new years eve with kids that walked all day and didn’t nap or eat but it turned out to be the best night of our trip. My whole family was together for the first time since my wedding. We were pretty alone and everyone had a lot of fun. The kids were pretty focused on devices but that was okay.
We wrapped things up a little after 11 and got the kiddos in bed. Heath and I joined my brother and mom for some new years toasts and got into a little more beer and wine then we really needed but it was New Years on Vacation so I may have been disappointed if we hadn’t.
New years day was Carri’s profession. You can read more about it here. I had more setup and configuring to do and we didn’t really have much free time this day. We did take the kids out for a little walk around the place.
Then we had the profession. We sat in the front row and got a good view of all of it.
It was about 2 hours and included mass.
The kids were actually really good. We were proud of them.
The live stream and recording worked great. The battery on the camera almost died but Heath and Bean took a quick break to get the cord for it and we didn’t miss anything.
Then it was time to relax and celebrate.
and eat.
and take a lot of family pictures.
If your wondering about the wall… They keep the nuns and the visitors pretty separate and usually with a 1/2 wall. We can hug her and obviously take pictures together but we stay separate.
Another thing we did was play games. There was a big reception with over 100 people, they slowly filtered out and we were left with just family. We got out some board games and played and had a few beers before calling it a day. Everyone but my mom was leaving the next day and wanted a good night of sleep.