New York City!

This past weekend Bob and I took a trip to New York City, our first time in 2 years without any kids. We had a great time, seeing all the tourist-y sites, and holding hands in the crowded streets. Even though he had a workshop Thursday and Friday, we were able to spend a lot of time together. How's that for cramming 2 years of dates into one weekend! (Usually we have "at-home" dates...)

I was welcomed warmly into the city by a pigeon pooping on my leg - Bob was soooooo jealous! I guess I can't get away from poop, even when I am away from my kids...

We saw the Statue of Liberty, Ground Zero, the Empire State Building, and we walked up Broadway to our hotel near Central Park (from the Statue of Liberty/Battery Park) which we discovered (post-walk) was 5 miles. We packed lightly (only using backpacks to avoid the airline's checked luggage charge) but by the end of the day we felt so tired! We dropped in to Bob's workshop's open house which had light refreshments (read "free food") and then crashed. We were in the City that never sleeps, but we slept!

The next day I walked up Broadway even more and saw lots of Central Park. I also visited FAO Schwarz and the World of Disney store. Can you tell I missed my kids a ton?!?!?! I did all "kid" stuff that day. We also accidentally found the UN building - I took a wrong turn that turned out all right. (In fact, that was how we found a lot of our tourist-y sites!) That night Bob and I walked to dinner near Times Square and then to a Broadway show, Cirque Dreams. It was an amazing circus performance. The spoiler was the woman's horrible off-key voice and the lack of any understandable melody. I cringed into Bob's shoulder whenever she came on stage, but loved the rest of it.

On Friday we went to the Manhattan Temple. We didn't see it until we were walking right past it. It blends in, except for the fact that it is one of the only buildings that we saw that had flowers around it! It was so quiet and peaceful inside. It was quite a contrast to the loud and boisterous world outside. Next I showed Bob my favorite things at the toy stores I visited the previous day and we also walked through and laughed at Tiffany's. Then we met up with Ben, my step-brother, who showed us great hospitality and let us stay at his place for a night. He also helped us sample some fantastic New York pizza, showed us the subway, and we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and saw the city at its best - all lit up.

For our adventures on Saturday we caught the subway again and made our way up to Times Square. We visited the Hershey store and M&M world. I love M&Ms. Note my face in all the pictures when I am surrounded by candy! We had lunch at the famous Carnegie Deli and loved the mousee torte cheesecake that we shared. (We missed the downpour of rain this way too!) We then caught an off-Broadway show, "The Fantasticks", which we thought was... fantastic. We enjoyed that much more than the Cirque Dreams show.

Exhausted, we caught another cab, and headed back to the airport. We needn't have hurried though. Our flight was delayed 2 1/2 hours, bit by bit. We flew into Charlotte, NC and Bob kindly drove the 2 1/2 hours back to our house. We crashed into bed at 3 AM.

Phew!

Special thanks to Bob and Raylene who watched our kids for the 4 days we were gone. The kids had a blast, and I never had a worry (although I missed them!)
Also thanks to Ben who showed us New York at night and let us stay in his apartment.