Seattle, Philly, FL, NYC! XMAS!!

First of all, we are up to 250 hits on our blog!! That's crazy. I have no idea who is reading this thing, besides our family and a few friends who express their pleasure/displeasure with it, as it

 started to just preserve our memories and experiences accurately, but that's awesome! Glad i'm writing to an audience, so maybe I can quit my PT job one day, and write for Fodor's :)

The last week since we left Seattle has been a virtual whirlwind of activity. Amy and I were able to escape seattle after the first snow storm. I flew out on Sunday to Florida, and Amy flew out the next day to Pennsylvania. I arrived in FL without a hitch, but the next AM I got a panicked

 call from Amy, as no cab would come out and pick her up because the roads were so bad from a storm 2 days ago!!! Believe it or not, the Cascade mountains surrounding the area protect Seattle from a lot of snow, so no one knows what to do when it snows. With a little luck, and pleading from both Amy and I, a cab came by and picked up Amy in the nick of time and she made her flight out home. I spent the next couple days in 80 degree weather, sitting in the backyard (like i am now) soaking in the sun and relaxing. Amy spent some time with her friends in the Poconos, and on Wednesday, I flew up to spend some time with Amy and her family in Downingtown. I got to the airport in West Palm Beach with plenty of time to spare, but as I approached the gate, they made an announcement saying that the flight may be delayed for 2 hours secondary to bad weather conditions around Philadelphia. Frustrated, I walked down the terminal a bit and sat at a little pizza place to grab a bite. 20 minutes later, as I was finishing my pizza, I hear my name announced over the intercom! They had gotten clearance and were waiting for me on the plane. I ran onto the plane, with no problem, and made the flight. Amy picked me up from the airport and we drove back to her house where we hung out with Mr. and Mrs. Ward. Mr. Ward cooked an awesome seafood dish recipe he got from the Bonefish Grill. Amy's Xmas gift also came that day, so we exchanged a gift or two, and even though, she wanted a wide angle lens for her SLR camera, I got her a laptop to more adequately store and manage the pictures she has. (Also, i was getting tired of fixing the problems with her old one). She wasn't thrilled with the gift at first, but I think she is enjoying it more now. The next day, we awoke with plans to have lunch with Amy's "grams", but she wasn't feeling up to it, so we ventured to the King of Prussia mall to do some last minute Xmas shopping before we met with my sister, Vanessa, who is working currently in Pennsylvania, doing contract work for Wyeth. Dinner with Vanessa was good, but we had to cut short our meeting, as we had plans to take Amy's brother Scott and his wife Gail to New York to catch some of the Xmas sites. We drove to Scott's house in Conshohoken, which looked awesome with all the Xmas decorations and renovations they did to their house, and spent the night. The weather forecast for NYC the next day was Heavy snow with sleet, and more snow. After further contemplation, we decided to go. We awoke the next AM and drove to Hamilton, NJ to take the NJ transit into Penn Station. We had plans to meet my aunt Nora and my 2 cousins in Chinatown for Dim sum, so that Amy could meet them, and so Scott and Gail could

have their first dim sum experience. We exited the train

 station, and had some time to kill, so we walked to times

 square (in the snow). We weent into the Toys "R" Us. I haven't been there in years, but it was bigger than I remembered, with a ferris wheel spanning over 4 floors of toys! Pictured at right, they even have this life sized animatronic T-Rex that moved and growled.We cabbed it back to Chinatown for Dim Sum to see my sassy but cute

 cousins. Scott and Gail were troopers, trying a lot of the food, which i'm sure they had never

 seen before. Afterwards, we took the subway back to Midtown Manhattan and saw St. Patrick's Cathedral, Rockefeller center, the NBC store, and then walked uptown past the Macy window displays, to go to FAO Schwartz. The tree at Rockefeller center was gorgeous, but it was snowing so hard, it was a little tough to see. FAO, was fun to walk through, with big lego

 structures of batman, harry potter, and star wars characters. By that time, I think all of us had

 wet socks and shoes, and didn't want to continue to slush

 through

 the streets of manhattan with cold/wet feet. As we exited FAO, amy said the magic words, "hot whiskey" and Scott's eyes lit up. We found the nearest bar and hung out for a

 couple hours  until Scott and Gail had to meet their friends in the city for dinner. Amy and I were going to meet with our friends Mike and Lauren at the famous Buddakan restaurant in the meat packing district, but the weather was so bad, I cancelled our reservation and told Lauren it wasn't worth it to drive from NJ secondary to the road conditions. We took the subway back downtown as I had bought us tickets to go see "In the Heights", the new Tony award winning Broadway musical. We parted ways with Scott and Gail in the subway, picked up our tickets and then wandered around looking for dinner. We had passed the famous "Gray's Papaya" hotdog shop earlier, and had just seen it on Anthony Bourdain's show "no reservations" so we walkeddown a few blocks to try it. The hot dogs were thin, covered with saurkraut and a papaya sauce, with a papaya shake. The hot dogs were pretty good, but I would never trade it for a Fenway Frank. We walked back to the theatre, and had great Orchestra seats for the show. My feet were still wet and cold, but soon, the upbeat merengue/hip hop/salsa music filled the theatre. The musical was Awesome!! It was one of my favorites behind Phantom of the Opera, Avenue Q. Below, pics at the theatre, and of the set!!

                                                                           ,       I highly recommend it. After the show, we walked down to Penn station, met up with Scott and Gail, and took the train back to NJ. Besides the weather, it was a nice NY trip and we got to see a lot despite the weather conditions. The next AM, we faced the BITTER cold, and Amy took me to my first Cracker Barrel experience for brunch, we made a quick stop at the traffic congested King of Prussia mall where Amy dropped me off and I ran in and ran out. We stopped by a couple other places for last minute gifts, picked up Grams at her house, where she showed me Grampie's amazing woodwork and her collection of tomtegubbars (swedish elves) and brought her back to the Wards, where my sister was going to join us for another amazing meal by executive chef Mr. Ward. The intoxicating smell of Turkey and all the trimmings filled the air of the Ward household, and when my sister arrived we had a great meal. Vanessa really enjoyed the Wards, and kept telling me how much fun she had at dinner meeting Amy's family. After dinner, Amy's friend Alicia and Brian, who I met in Virginia and fresh from their new engagement, were visiting her family in the area, and were at Victory, a local microbrewery. Amy dropped off Grams, and I rode with Vanessa to the bar. We stayed for a bit, enjoying the beer, and catching up with the Halitsky's. We made it home a little late that

 night, and had plans to go into Philadelphia the next AM to see and hang out with Tiffany and John, our friends we met in Naples, now living in Philly. We took the train in the AM and enjoyed a wonderful day of eating, drinking, and eating and drinking in Philly. John is a chef at a Stephan Starr restaurant, so we definitely appreciated his presence among us "foodies". We started in chinatown for another dim sum session, where we ordered John a virtual smorgasbord of chinese cuisine. Afterwards, we hit bars........First Triumph where the tanks of beer hung from the rafters feeding directly into the taps. Vanessa met us out, and then we continued to preceed to 2-3 other places where we tried different drinks while catching up. We walked back to Tiffy and Johns, caught some of the Philly Eagles game :( had a couple bottles of wine, and then we made it to Buddakan!! We've been wanting to go to Buddakan for some time now, and having missed it in NYC, we made it a priority to frequent it in Philly. Plus, Buddakan

 is a Stephen Starr restaurant, and John works for a Stephen Starr restaurant, so we got great

 service, choice seating, a discount, and free desserts! The layout of the restaurant is beautiful, with a huge statue of Buddha overlooking the entire restaurant. The food?? Amazing. I think we ordered 5 entrees and 4 appetizers between the 5 of us. All served Family style where we could all share, we nibbled on Kobe beef skewers, king crab dumplings, seared duck salad, diver

 scallops, Chilean Sea Bass, braised short rib, Wasabe encrusted Tuna, Duck breast, creme brulee, dimsum donuts with ginger cream cheese/rasberry/chocolate, and a banana/cookie tower...........an amazing meal!!! Again, a must have experience where this earns a Brandon and Amy Must Try....And after the amazing meal with the VIP treatment and discount, i think we only payed 30 a person!! After dinner, we waddled out the restaurant, said our quick goodbyes to Tiffy and John, and hit a cab back to Vanessa's friend's apartment, where Vanessa drove us

 back to the train station. The next AM we awoke and rescheduled our lunch with Grams for noon that day. Amy, made me dress up a bit, and I was a bit confused as she insisted on taking her Grams to Nudy's. Not sure what to expect, we picked up Grams and headed to Nudy's. My curiosity disappeared as we pulled up to a quaint little breakfast/lunch place located in a strip mall. We had a great lunch with grams, who is both sharp as a whip, and just a wonderful

 person. Afterwards, we headed back to the Wards house, where Mr. Ward ordered us all great Philly Cheese Steaks, and Amy's childhood friend Steph, came by to visit. The Ward's presented me with awesome Xmas gifts, including red sox gear and a little booklet of pictures chronologizing Amy's childhood! Little Amy pictures were awesome and I will post some of them upon request :) However, when I showed my mom the book when I got home to Florida,

 she got really excited and is out now putting together a little brandon book for Amy. That night, we spent the night at hotel Scott Ward's again, and left early the next AM to Vanessa's hotel, where we flew back here yesterday. Overall......a great trip to Philly. I'm sure those of you readers who know Amy's family know that they are a great hospitable bunch, and I am looking forward to visiting again. As for our travels next? We still do not know. All i know is our cars

 are under 2 feet of snow/ice in Seattle, and when we fly back there next week we will drive south towards better weather. We are still holding out for Arizona, but if we don't secure something by the time we get there, we will drive east towards florida and try to get a job

 there, if that doesn't work, we will turn north towards Virginia and look for positions there. Anyway, we are both enjoying this little bit of time off before we move again and start somewhere else. So, to all of our readers, we both wish you a very merry christmas and happy, healthy, and safe holidays. We hope to see you all again soon as our travels take us from west back to east. Happy Holidays!!!