COUSIN!!! (And an aunt!!)

The month my parents introduced me to my baby brother, I also got a brand-new cousin - one who has shared countless happy childhood memories with me. I knew I couldn't get married without her being in my wedding party, and was thrilled when she asked me to be the maid of honor in hers.


So it killed me that after Breanne told me she was planning her first visit to NYC, I had to count down more than three months until she actually got here!


But the day finally came when she and her mom, my Aunt Liza, flew in to spend a long weekend with Brent and I, and we had an absolute blast - though I'm pretty sure I would have had more fun had I not had to work. Among the stuff they did while I was serving coffee was being in the audience on the David Letterman show the day Will Smith was on promoting his new movie, Seven Pounds, and getting onto two segments of Good Morning America.


But when I was around, I made sure to take them to see the holiday lights on 5th Avenue, the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, Chinatown and Little Italy, Wall Street, Times Square, and the Statue of Liberty.


And I got my monthly Broadway fix the day they arrived because we scored tickets for Grease. The following day, we thought it would be great to just chill in the evening, so we went the chick flick route and took in the surprisingly hilarious Four Christmases with Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon.


Thursday night, I took them to my favorite Mexican restaurant, Rosa Mexicana, where we ordered two of their famous $14 guacamole appetizers and just sat and talked over dinner and margaritas for nearly three hours.


So it came as no surprise that we were exhaused after a day out in the rain and snow on Friday, where a trip to the Statue of Liberty could have been better had we had any type of view from Liberty Island. All we saw was snow and all I felt was hail and coldness! After drying off, we ate dinner at the Italian restaurant on the opposite corner of my apartment building and spent a night playing a fun, but endless game of Trivial Pursuit.


And what I've found is that it's amazing that you think you know someone until you spend every waking minute with them for even a short period of time. You might know what a friend prefers to order at a particular restaurant, but that's because you're with them at the time. What you don't know is everything leading up to that fact - how many outfits she tried on before heading out or what songs she listened to on the car ride on the way over.


But when you are with a person from the moment they wake up until the two of you say goodnight before going to sleep, you learn a whole lot that you didn't know that you didn't know. Because I grew up with Breanne, my Aunt Liza was always around, and we'd usually talk about this or that, but I didn't realize how much quality time I was missing with her.


So amid the catching up during the five days my cousin and aunt were in town, I relished the fact that we could not only catch up, but I could get to know them on a whole different level - all while having a blast in the city!