I drove to NYC last week with Coban to meet our lovely friends for a destination Thanksgiving.

You know it’s a cold one when this child is willing to don a scarf. (The next day he snuck back to the hotel room before we left to remove his fleece and leave his gloves behind, perhaps because the long underwear from the parade day had made him sweat. This happens when you run everywhere at full speed.)

The Thanksgiving Day Parade was cold, but quite an experience. My cold-blooded friend brought hand warmers, which we stuffed into our boots, and those and the fleece tights under my jeans kept me feeling fine.

The floats are just huge, but we could barely see the street where they walked. And yet, being there with other people from all over was such a nice bonding experience. It’s not that we made friends and shared blankets, but I felt a certain positive energy from waiting in the same space for an event that everyone agrees is kind of awesome and worth freezing your pants off for a few hours.

I just love the textures of the city. So many designs interplaying every where you look.

I also loved how our kids made their own fun no matter where we were, running and jumping and moving quickly under pipes and railings.

My child jumped up and down with excitement when he saw the first fast-moving subway, but then a few trips later he decided it was old hat. I find both of these positions entertaining. He may make a good traveling companion.

These colors. Imagine this for a quilt pallet. Or a hand-woven rug. Yum.

The new World Trade Center is nicely designed.

And the monuments and the nearby tour guides made me cry.

But I thought it was worth the wait to get to the 360 view at the top.

This was the site of a mini-meltdown, so someone was pouting as he took in the views.

But what can a bagel and lox not fix? Not much. After that, we jumped on the Staten Island Ferry.

I didn’t get a picture of the guys behind the counter at Ray’s Pizza, who grumbled at me when I asked what something was, but I have a nice mental picture of how good it felt to sit drinking a beer and eating a slice on Thanksgiving with old friends while our kids listed things they were thankful for, which of course included pizza and Minecraft.

But hey, we were all really thankful.