Our fun New York City Christmas!

For such a curious, persistent young man, Hardy has both enjoyed our Christmas decorations and has been pretty good about leaving them alone. We put unbreakable ornaments on the bottom of the tree; a good thing since Hardy has been retrieving some of them. But instead of eating them, he brings them to us; something for which we are grateful! 
After completing our holiday preparations, we headed to Brooklyn, NY, for our Christmas celebration with our children and their significant others. We stayed in our son, Devin's one bedroom apartment while he stayed with his boyfriend, Anthony. Our daughter, Kristen and her boyfriend, Sean, brought their 11 month old Pointer, Soapy.  On Christmas Eve and Christmas, we had three large dogs, one cat (with claws) and 6 adults in a one bedroom apartment. Thankfully, the dogs were all very well behaved - Laurel had taught both Hardy and Soapy about inside play (while laying down), the cat was extremely tolerant and the humans all animal-friendly. All the dogs are crate-trained and we had one for each of them which certainly helped with management. 
Since there was absolutely no grass anywhere around the apartment building, Laurel and Hardy got to practice their abilities to toilet just about anywhere. Since we do visit NYC on a regular basis, this is an important skill. 
Because Laurel and Hardy travel almost everywhere with us, it was wonderful to have them so well accepted! Because the apartment wasn't dog proofed, they slept in their crates and since I didn't want to leave Lab hair everywhere, we used Furminator's waterless shampoo. We put it on in the bathroom and then dried them off. Once they were dry, we used the Furminator on them and got tons of hair. They shed much, much less than they had been recently! We will continue to use it at our house (when we can't do showers) and will definitely utilize it when traveling and when staying in hotels or with friends/family.
One of the loveliest moments of many from the visit was Christmas evening when I looked over to see Anthony (who had been afraid of dogs because he'd been bitten in the face as a child) laying on the floor with his head resting on Laurel's side using her as a pillow and Devin, who was sitting on the floor cradling Hardy, sound asleep in his lap. 
We left early Sunday morning, the 26th, and beat the record-breaking blizzard out of NYC. We ran into some snow in the mountains but nothing too serious and were home safe and sound by the time the worst hit Brooklyn.