We went to New York

Aaron has a cousin that lives in Manhattan. Over the last year or so they have been in contact quite a bit via email, discussing all the various problems and idiosyncrasies shared amongst the Dukes. The funny thing is Aaron has probably only seen his cousin Raleigh maybe 4 times growing up. We were excited they invited us for Thanksgiving, especially since Raleigh's brother Emerson was also going to be there. I think Aaron has seen him even less. It's so strange to me that you can grow up having cousins that you've only seen a few times your entire life.

Our day started before the sun rose so we could catch the train leaving New Haven at 6:46am. I was honestly surprised we made it! The kids were excited to ride on a choo choo train and made sure to wear their conductor hats. Sarah was excited but fell back asleep on the train.

Raleigh and his daughter Amelia met us at the train station and we made our way to the Macy's Day Parade. We took taxis to Central Park and then walked through the park to the parade. We lasted about 20 minutes at the parade before Sarah started flipping out about being cold, and we had to leave. She cried the entire walk back to their apartment, and her fit continued for another half an hour once we were there. Her hands were freezing, and she did not handle it well. Once she snapped out of it though she was fine, and everyone was happy for the rest of the day.

We had a nice Thanksgiving feast at their apartment. They were so generous to host everyone, especially considering Raleigh's wife is 8 months pregnant. They were even nice enough to indulge me and purchased a cake for Aaron since it was the day before his 30th birthday. Aaron was pleasantly surprised when we came out with a cake singing Happy Birthday.

We gathered all our stuff up after dinner and made our way back to the train station a little after 4. Of course we missed the train heading back to New Haven by 2 minutes, so we had to kill an hour in Grand Central Station. Sarah fell asleep in my arms as soon as the train started moving. About 20 minutes from home Eli started crying about his ear hurting, and he cried for the next hour and a half until I got him calmed down and asleep. Luckily they all slept great and didn't wake up until 9am. To our relief, Eli woke up feeling great. It turned out to be a great Thanksgiving, and we were very happy to spend it with Aaron's family in New York.