NYC - Day 2

Thanks to a relaxing dinner and early bedtime the night before, we were able to get up and GO Saturday morning. First stop, Chinatown. This is the one and only part of our trip that I can honestly say I did not enjoy. We went, we saw, we shopped. I won't say never, but probably wouldn't go back. ;)

 I should mention that I pretty much loved the subway. Not the way certain stations smelled, but the way we could get around that city in the blink of an eye. And the people we encountered. My favorite were too older gentlemen who hopped on at one stop, sang an old gospel tune about Noah, then hopped off at the next stop. They were taking "donations" but were not in your face about it and had pretty amazing voices. Subway Tip - we took the advice of a friend and bought a 7 day metro card. You can ride as many times as you want to for 7 days for the cost of about 11 rides. We rode the subway WAY more than 11 times in the 4 days we were there, so it was worth it.

 We needed to eat an early lunch so we could get ready for our 2 p.m. show (more on that in a second) and found a fun, modern restaurant in Hell's Kitchen, aptly named HK. I think they are known for their brunch and the food was good.

Behind my man, you can see they can open up almost the whole side of the restaurant to the street. Right across the street behind him was a HK Flea Market. We browsed but couldn't look long as we had to go back to our hotel to get ready for our Broadway-filled evening!

 First stop, Wicked at the Gershwin Theater. Now I've had one person tell me she didn't like this show. Her exact words were that you either love it or hate it. I love her, but cannot imagine NOT loving this show! It was honestly amazing. The music, the sets, the actors - wow. The cheers after EVERY scene make me think WAY more people love it than hate it. ;) I would recommend it to anyone who likes musicals. Oh, and so would my hubs.

In fact, we loved it so much that we decided to go ahead and see what else we could get tickets to that night for the 8 p.m. showings. We visited the infamous TKTS ticket booth, where you can get half price tickets for shows that still have seats that same day (btw - Wicked is always sold out. We bought our tickets about two months out). We were torn, but after our first choice ended up being sold out (Billy Elliott) decided to give a new show a try.

 But first, dinner. We had to cancel our original reservations at a historic Italian restaurant since we opted for another show. This was the perfect chance for us to visit a restaurant frequented by theater actors and patrons. My mom met Angela Lansbury here on her first trip to NYC, and of course, the name of the place is special.

 It was crowded and we were hungry, so we opted to sit at the bar and eat. It was so much fun! 

 Instead of getting dessert at Joe Allen's, we walked down to one of those "famous" cheesecake places. It was a tough choice, but the devil's food cheesecake won out. So glad we only got one piece. I'm drooling thinking about it.

 We had about an hour until we needed to be at the Lunt-Fontaine Theater, so off to the W we went! On the recommendation of a friend, we had a drink and people watched at the bar in the hotel. Very, very nice and we did see an actor here, but neither of us could remember his name.We did, however, see Dan Aykroyd sitting in a restaurant at a table right next to a big open window as we walked by on the sidewalk. I really wanted to take a picture but he was eating with a large group.

 The second show we went to - The Addams Family. I loved this tv show as a child and was soooooo excited that we scored amazing seats at half price. It was such a fun show and we were both so happy we went.

 Someone told me there isn't much that compares to Times Square at night, and wow, was she right. The lights were almost seizure inducing, and the amount of people was incredible. This was at 11 p.m. and it was getting more crowded as we walked around. 

One happy girl.

NYC - Day 1

We flew into New York late Thursday night. Our flight was on time, but once we landed, we had the pleasure of sitting in our plane on the tarmac for almost an hour. We weren't too upset, because a) we were so tired and b) we didn't have anything planned that night except to check into our hotel and go to sleep. We arrived close to 2 a.m. at our hotel that night and passed out.

After a good night's sleep, we woke up around 9 a.m. (which was 8 a.m. TX time and late for us!) and started out on our first day of sight-seeing. We found a nice place near our hotel for a big breakfast, since we didn't really eat dinner due to our long travel the day before. We debated trying the subway first thing, but decided due to the AMAZING weather to walk to our first destination - Rockefeller Center. We wanted to get a good feel for the city right away, and had heard the view from the Top of the Rock couldn't be beat. 

 On our way, we passed by Radio City Music hall. I'll admit, I was star-struck just by the sites. I made no apologies for my neck-craning gazing as we walked past. And no one seemed to care, as there were so many touristy-type people it was difficult on most days to tell locals from tourists. 

 We bought our NYC passes and had about 40 minutes to spare before it was our time to ride the elevator up. We walked around the bottom of the center and just took in the sights. Did I mention how beautiful the weather was? We couldn't have ordered more perfect weather.

 Looking north from the Top of the Rock, at Central Park and the Upper West and East sides. We would visit this area on Sunday. 

 Facing South. 

 Looking straight down. I was a little dizzy after doing this, but I wanted to show J how high up we were. A kind German lady took a picture of us with a breathtaking background and it, along with a few other pictures, disappeared from the hubby's camera. Boo.

 Back down around the bottom of Rockefeller Center. The flowers were gorgeous and still in the shape of easter eggs and bunnies since this was the Friday after Easter.

 I didn't take pictures of all of the churches we passed, but this is Saint Patrick's Cathedral and it was too stunning to pass without a quick pic.

 I was pleased to see a lot of great shopping right around this area as well (we were right around 5th after all). What made me laugh the most was the Lego store right next door to this...shopping for the whole family!

 Next, lunchtime! We found one of those awesome pizza places on the corner and had a slice and a soda. YUM! Jody actually took video of it! ha! After filling our bellies, we ended up in Times Square. Thanks to Disney Jr, our oldest son saw a short piece about this store and what you can make/buy there and told us that ALL he wanted from NYC as a souvenir is a remote control Lightning McQueen that you build at this store. So, an hour later, we walked out with all of the pieces to build TWO of those bad boys with our guys once we returned home. It was worth it - they are super cool and the boys LOVE them. (Plus, this is a pretty neat store.)

After our shopping spree, we headed down to the World Trade Center area. We wanted to go on Friday, and have a chance to really take it all in before the weekend rolled around. I am so glad we did. Other than a few tourists, it was mostly business folks down there and the church across the street, St. Paul's Chapel, where most of the firefighters and rescue/recovering workers went for food, sleep and comfort just had a handful of people in it. We were able to really look around and read through all of the information. It was overwhelming. I highly recommend going there to anyone that has never been. Not only does it serve as a quiet place to absorb the events of that day, but the history of the church itself is A-MAZING. Did you know it is the oldest surviving church building in Manhattan and George Washington's original pew is still there?

We had planned on taking a cruise around that ol' gal in the harbor but the wind was insane by the time we starting our walk to the pier. Anyone that knows me knows that me + wind + boat = extreme sickness. My sweet husband agreed it wasn't the best idea so we decided to call it a night and find somewhere fun and cozy to eat. We ended up at a fantastic Irish pub called O'Flaherty's. The food was divine, the atmosphere perfect and was just the way we wanted to end our first day.

How could he not be happy here with his favorite beer flowing all around him. ;)

Easter 2011

Easter 2011 was fantastic. We missed two of our cousins, who were in Dallas for the weekend at LTC, but Grandma M had the rest of her rugrats at the house for an egg hunt the day before Easter. Both of the boys had egg hunts at school that week, so by Saturday, they were pros!

 I had to include this photo of my sweet niece. I think she just looks precious, and by next year, she most likely will be finished with egg hunts!

 We stayed at Grandma's house, so on Easter morning the boys were SO excited to find that the Easter bunny had found them and left their goodies.

 Sweet boys.

 J was so excited to find that the Easter bunny left more eggs. As for his little brother...

...he was fine playing with his goodies and let his big brother find all the eggs for the both of them!

You Take the Good, You Take the Bad

Never has that silly theme song been more appropriate than this last month. While we have had lots of fun since my last blog post (I will fill you in on Spring Break and other fun times in just second), we have also had some difficult things going on around these parts. Family members having health issues, LJ being sick (twice since Spring Break and currently recovering from Strep or some nasty tonsil infection that came with high fever and vomiting), and oh yeah, a stupid root canal. That was not fun. But nothing prepared me for finding out that one of my oldest, dearest friends was just diagnosed with breast cancer. At the age of 35. It was difficult to digest when she said the words to me over the phone, and to be honest, it's not much easier to understand today, almost three weeks later.

I was able to sit with her mother and sisters the day of her double mastectomy two Friday's ago. Her husband is a tender, sweet man and it is clear he adores her. She has amazing support and more importantly, a strong faith in God that is getting her through what has been an incredibly painful time in her life. I just know she is going to beat the cancer, and that God will not waste this experience. But it still makes me sad for her.

In all this pain and sadness, I am blessed to have the two most amazing little boys that always know how to put a smile on my face. One morning last week I was especially concerned about my sweet friend as I was driving JW to school, and feeling kinda blue. We turned on his Bible verse CD (he is learning 20 Bible verses, and they all have songs to go with them). I will try to forever keep etched in my memory what I saw that morning as I came to a stoplight and turned around to look at him. He was smiling a BIG smile, had his little hands lifted up as high as they could go in the car, and was dancing and singing at the top of his lungs with his eyes tightly shut, "THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT IS LOVE, JOY, PEACE, PATIENCE, KINDNESS, GOODNESS, FAITHFULNESS, GENTLENESS AND SELF-CONTROL!"

:)

We also found time to have a little fun the week of Spring Break. We visited the Innerspace Caverns in our neck of the woods. Impressive for a local, natural wonder, but a little overpriced if I do say so. Looking forward to showing the boys Carlsbad Caverns at the end of May. I think they'll be blown away in comparison.

Touching the one area allowed. This part is already "dead" from precious hands being on it. 

One of the impressive rock formations.

J in one of the "big" rooms. I believe this is the room where the road crew (building I35 above) first drilled and discovered the caverns. 

All tuckered out after walking a few miles around the caverns.

We also found some time for a visit to SeaWorld (that's me and the boys at the bottom).

 

And not to be forgotten, one amazing concert by a blast from our past, Bon Jovi. It was AWESOME. As was dinner with my sister and brother-in-law. And yes, I know this picture is HI-larious. No matter how many pics we took of ourselves at the concert, my hubby always looked like this. HA!