New York!

For our 16th anniversary, Kirk and I went to New York!!  I had been wanting to go see the Big Apple for several years, and Kirk obligingly took me, even though it wasn't his type of vacation.  We went and saw and did everything in the city, it seemed.  Beforehand we had purchased the City Pass booklet that gives you tickets to many of the most popular sites, so we always were on a dead run on to the next big thing.  It was great to be able to see so many cool places, awesome architecture, and national monuments. 

We took the red eye into New York, pretending to sleep on the plane. So our sleep-deprived selves weren't ready to deal with the fact that when we went to check in at our hotel, they had somehow "overbooked" us, so we didn't have a room there.  They graciously sent us to their "sister" hotel down the road several blocks, which we walked past three times before realizing that this door was actually a hotel.  It ended up being pretty nice, and we got upgraded to a suite, which was still crazy small, our bathroom being smaller than our one bathroom in our house on Temple (not possible, I thought.)  But we were so happy to have a room and a bed that we could take a much needed nap on.

After our naps, we were ready to go and spent the rest of the day walking around, taking it all in.  We saw the NY Public Library (pic 1) and then went to St. Patrick's Cathedral, which had some pretty amazing architecture. 

We also went to Top of the Rock at Rockefeller Plaza (which is one of the tallest buildings) and saw the city at night.  Pretty cool. 

Then we went to Times Square with what seemed like the rest of the world. 

The next day we went to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.  It was nice and sunny, but totally windy.  Right now they are doing some repairs on the inside of Lady Liberty, so we couldn't go up inside.  It was fun seeing it though, because Lizzie was learning all about immigration and was so excited for us to go and see where she was learning about, and had told us some fun facts too.

That afternoon Kirk talked me into eating at a sketchy Vietnamese place, to have a bowl of Fa (spelled way differently, but basically a bowl of noodles with random stuff in it.)  I made him pick a restaurant that got an A rating (as seen in the window), and it didn't make me sick, but was probably not my favorite restaurant we went to on this trip.  :)

  

But we did find Planet Donut which has donuts the size of your head that were delicious!  I had to try each kind.  Some of my favorites were the creme brule donut and the coconut creme donut.  So good!

  

The next day we headed off to Central Park.  The weather had really cooled off and the day started off at a brisk 22 degrees.  I had decided that I had packed all wrong the night before, when I came home with aching feet and frozen hands.  I had brought all my cute boots, because I didn't want to be one of "those" tourists who wore cute clothes with tennis shoes.  But after two days straight of walking everywhere, my Friday outfit included all the shirts I brought, layered on top of each other, and my tennis shoes. 

Central Park was so pretty and I kept wishing that it was Spring, because it would've looked amazing in all the different colors, instead of just gray. 

Then we went to the Natural History Museum.  We loved it!  Probably my favorite museum we went to.  I loved the dinosaurs, all the animals posed in just the right position, and the ancient artifacts.  Night at the Museum in real life!

That night we went and saw Mary Poppins, which was my very favorite part of the trip!  It's my new favorite musical, so fun and happy.  I'm sure I looked like the biggest dork, as I sat watching it with the biggest grin on my face and my toes tapping.  We had gotten our tickets online before our trip and when we found them, we found out that they were on the front row.  I was nervous because I didn't want it to be like when you sit in the front row at the movies and end up having a crink in your neck.  But it was fabulous, we were close enough to see all the expressions on the actors faces, and really feel like we were part of it.  So so fun!!

The last two days were kind of a blur.  We went to shop on Canal Street, saw the 9/11 Memorial, went to the Museum of Modern Art (lame), walked across the Brooklyn Bridge at night, went to the Metropolitan Museum, and ate and ate and ate and ate. 

We definitely felt like we could eat tons though, because it seemed like we walked everywhere, miles and miles each day.  We kinda sucked at the subway system, and our handy dandy map was brought out every 10 seconds, but we still ended up being lost or getting on the wrong train 9 out of 10 times.  (Someone should have told me that Downtown and Uptown actually mean south and north, duh! that might have helped.)

This is typical of the first couple days, us on the train, sitting by the map so we can try and decipher where we were and where we were going.  Kirk ticked and me telling him it's okay and this is fun and part of the experience. 

By the last day we had pretty much had enough.  I had to drag Kirk to the Met, but he ended up liking it a lot.  We loved seeing the sights in New York, but Kirk decided when we were done that he needed a vacation after his vacation. 

It was great just to be able to spend time with one another having fun!  I sure love this guy and am excited for 16 x 16 million years together.