NYE in NYC

The McAfee family arrived in New York early in the morning of New Year's Eve. Such perfect timing.
"I'm not even tired!!!" claimed Bailey and Ryan, who didn't sleep on their redeye flight. 20 minuteslater they were all snoring on the beds of our hotel room (it was too early for them to check in to theirs). 
After their catnap, we rushed over to the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where we had ticketsto watch Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker performed by the New York City Ballet company. 

It was so amazing!!!!!!! It is a tradition in my family to watch The Nutcracker during Christmastime,so I have seen it many, many times. This was by far the absolute best! The dancers were incredible (and little Clara was actually played by a little girl, unlike the granny that played her at the San Gabriel Civic), the choreography was so beautiful (they actually nailed the Intrada, my sister's and my favorite song), and somehow the whole ballet had a humorous side that I've never before seen. So happy we splurged on those tickets. 
After the show, we decided to make our way towards Time Square. We stopped for some Waffles & Dinges before haha. SO YUMMY. Thanks for the recommendation, Jenny!

We also stopped at the McAfees' hotel for a bit, so they could change and, ya know, a short photoshoot. View from their hotel:

Anyway, by this time it was about 5 PM and, unbeknownst to us, the crowds had been amassing since 2 AM the morning before!! Suffice it to say, the streets immediately surrounding the ball dropping were roped off by the police and my family and I had no choice but to linger around the outskirts of the festivities for the rest of the night. At one point we got really close to the ball but the streets were total insanity and the cops started to move everyone out of that area.

Frustrated, we grabbed some pizza, returned to our hotel (which was only two blocks away from Times Square) and ended up going outside just before the ball dropped to do the countdown. It sucked that we didn't get to see the performances and the actual ball drop but it was still pretty amazing to be out there with the crowd and feel the energy of the night. Moral of the story: if you want to see the ball drop, wait there at the crack of dawn and be prepared for a lonnnnng day. There were people who hadn't peed in 20 hours. HAH. I would've peed on myself.  

P.S. Isn't my cousin Ryan such a stud? Props to him for putting up with eight girls all week. Then again, I guess he's done it his whole life hahaha
Click here for NYC Part I, II, III, and IV