Celebrating in NYC

Ellie turned 14 last week.   

Yeah, she's our baby, so this is pretty much craziness.

Several months ago (right after Glen got his new job) we decided we wanted to see a show in NYC.  When we were looking at the available dates, we were immediately drawn to Ellie's birthday weekend!   It would be so fun to celebrate her birthday in NYC...so that's what we did.   

We saw two shows: 

The first was "Dear Evan Hansen," which was the show we planned this trip around. 

It was a powerful performance, albeit a little edgier than we expected.  WE'd been listening to the soundtrack for it for the last year or two, so we thought we knew the story, but there's so much more power to it when you see it performed in real life.     It was amazing. 

The next show we watched was in the evening...."Frozen!"  We added this show to our schedule later and didn't get as good a seats for it.   Still, it was high energy and so fun!

 Ellie and I threw keto eating out the window for the weekend and let her choose her birthday food.  We had real deal pizza for lunch, burgers and fries for dinner (no picture!)....

 and doughnut ice cream sandwiches for dessert!   We don't mind keto eating for the most part, but it was fun to be able to enjoy some fun foods that we didn't cook ourselves!    YUM!  

In case you're wondering...yes, going off keto affected her seizure control for the worse.  We got right back to it when we got home again. 

 WE literally only spent about 24-hours in NYC, so we didn't have a lot of time outside of the shows and the eating, but big city life is always entertaining too.   

The flashy billboards and glittering lights are sensory overload themselves, but then there are just the random full-size airplane parked on the side of the road...   

 And the oddball assortment of people that make people-watching an entertaining activity on its own accord.    I don't know what it is about big cities, but they seem to attract the oddest and most colorful personalities!  

We laughed a lot and just enjoyed being together...

 which is something that is all too fleeting these days. 

We are grateful for Ellie and a good excuse to celebrate!   

We love you, Ellie!