New York City Day 5: The One Where You Get to Stop Hearing About NYC

You poor, poor people. I know you don't want to talk about NYC anymore. I think it has been about a month now that I've been blabbering on and on about it. I promise, this is it!

Day 5 in NYC goes like this: we woke up and packed our bags and then we went to the airport. I had some grapes and then we flew home.

And that is all.

On a more serious note, I am so, so thankful and blessed to have gotten to take this wonderful vacation with my husband. We had a fabulous stay and it was just really, really quality time together. I'm very grateful for how the Lord has blessed us.

It's Friday afternoon and I couldn't be more thrilled about that! This has been a long, long week and I look forward to relaxing this weekend.

At some point Grant is planning on teaching me to drive his truck and I'm pretty wigged out about that. He feels that I need to learn how to drive it in case something happens to him and I have to drive it for the first time in stressful circumstances. I think he is imagining that he will break a bone while we are somewhere and I have to drive him to the emergency room and I back into a brick wall or something cause I've never driven something that big.

I'm pretty sure that is exactly what would happen. :)

Anyhoo, thanks for letting me bore y'all with vacation stuff. I'm back to normal now!

New York City Day 4: A Tiny Bottle of Wine

  Saturday morning was a very exciting morning for me. My cousin Katie and her husband James live in NYC and agreed to meet us for lunch! Katie is pregnant with sweet baby girl Josephine who is due to arrive around May 2. It was so fun to visit with them! We had a yummy breakfast at a brunch place in Greenwich Village. After brunch, Katie walked me by the "Friends" building.

Anytime they show the outside of Chander, Joey, Rachel and Monica's apartment on "Friends" this was the building they showed.

I looked across the street for Ugly Naked Guy. Didn't see him.

Now, I think what I am most ashamed of is that we didn't get a picture with Katie and James. I KNOW, I know. I'm a horrible picture-taker. We said goodbye at the subway platform, although Grant looked over at one point and saw James taking a picture of us..... they are like the papparazzi!

That's Grant in the white hat and me in the tan jacket. It looks like we're under surveillance.

We took the subway to the Brooklyn Bridge. This was a really, really beautiful walk.

It was definitely brisk that day!

Such a cool view!

Then we walked down to Ground Zero of the World Trade Center. That was humbling. The actual site of Ground Zero is not easy to see since they are currently building a memorial. It basically looks like a construction site. We did walk over and look at St. Paul's church across the street from Ground Zero. This was the church that ministered to all the firefighters in the hours, days and weeks after the towers fell. They've turned this church into a little museum. It really was so beautiful.

We then took a subway back to the main part of the city. We walked into Tiffany's which was super fun. After browsing the main floor, Grant said to me "The engagement rings are on the 3rd floor. Do you want to go up there?"

Why yes. Why yes I do.

IT WAS FANCY UP THERE. And none of those sales people even took a second glance at us. It was fun to look at all the MASSIVE diamonds. Such a beautiful place.

After that, we walked into Trump Tower. We ate lunch in the Trump Grill... the food was DELICIOUS. Thank you, Donald Trump! I had pasta again and a brownie with ice cream for dessert.

Then we walked through the Plaza Hotel. It was so, so beautiful and ornate. I kinda wish we had eaten lunch there.

Then, we enjoyed my favorite part of the day! CENTRAL PARK! We walked around aimlessly just enjoying the weather and the people watching. We sat on a bench outside of the Central Park Zoo for about 30 minutes, just watching people go by and interacting with all the precious kiddos.

Then we walked over to the Boathouse in Central Park and grabbed a snack. They were selling these teeny-tiny little bottles of white wine. I got one with a plastic cup. Grant made fun of me. I was the lush in the park.

 We went and sat on a rock overlooking the water. We sat there for over an hour just enjoying the views and talking. And having conversations with these ducks.

Such a beautiful, beautiful day! This is what vacations are all about.

I love him.

After a brief rest back at the hotel (and a little bit of The Masters) we took another walk through the city and Times Square. We ate dinner at Junior's. AMAZING CHEESECAKE.

We sat in Junior's for quite awhile and got to see Kathleen Turner leave the theater she was performing in. I know she's a living legend and all that but when I see her all I can think of is "Look! It's Chandler's dad!!"

Times Square at night.

I love New York :)

New York City Day 3: Michael J. Fox and Pasta

Friday we slept in a little bit because, hey, THIS IS A VACATION. We really don't like going on trips that are meant to be relaxing but you come home more exhausted then you were when you left.

After a nice breakfast-on-the-go and some good coffee, we headed to Macy's. There is something so fun and historic about the New York Macy's and we happened to be there during the Macy's Flower Show. The entire bottom floor is covered in flowers. This picture hardly does it justice.

Yes, those are flowers hanging over the Coach handbags. It's a beautiful thing.

Grant bought me a beautiful watch in the Macy's. And then we got the heck out of there because I CAN'T HANDLE THE THOUSANDS OF CRAZY PEOPLE IN ONE STORE. TOO MUCH GOING ON. Then as we walked out of Macy's, we looked up and said "Oh, look, there's the Empire State Building. Let's go do that".

As we waited in line, Michael J. Fox walked by. We exchanged a few words and he stood there long enough for us to take a photo. So nice :)

Sadly, it was a dreary day, but there are buildings as far as you can see....

More of the city...

And here I am. My hat is all kinds of dorky.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: THE ONLY PEOPLE WEARING HATS IN NEW YORK. I'm sorry but WE WERE COLD because WE ARE FROM TEXAS.

After the Empire State Building, we took a cab to Greenwich Village where we had lunch and walked around aimlessly. Then, suddenly, we stumbled into SoHo entirely on accident and HEY THERE WAS SOME SHOPPING THERE. I browsed in Louis Vuitton just for kicks and also visited Coach. People bring their dogs into the Coach store. (If I brought Moxie into the Coach store he would get hair everywhere and chew on the leather.) I had a lovely visit with a Sales Associate in Coach named Derek and he is very into musical theater and we gushed about broadway for about 10 minutes. Grant loved that part.

We went to the Apple store cause we heard they had bathrooms there.

Grant bought a few shirts at Penguin... and around that time I started telling my dear husband that his dear wife NEEDED A NAP.

So much walking. Feet hurt. Need to lay down. Thankfully I was able to convince Grant by reminding him that he could watch The Masters.

So we went back to the hotel for a mid-day nap.

After the nap we took the worst cab ride ever (so nauseous) to Little Italy for our dinner reservation at Da Nico.

The food was delicious. I had rigatoni pasta in a vodka cream sauce. I cleaned my plate :)

Tune in tomorrow for Day 4 which was filled with more walking and cheesecake and diamonds and more walking.

New York City Day 2: It's Not a Vacation Until You Wait in a Line

On Thursday morning we woke up rather early to go wait in line.

In the weeks before our trip, I had been calling NBC studios to try to get tickets to a taping of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Apparently they had been sold out for quite some time. They advised us that we could go on the day of taping at 8:00am and try to get tickets. By the time we got to 30 Rockefeller Center at 7:40am, the line was already forming.

We waited in line for about an hour drinking coffee and eating croissants and listening to some annoying people have some annoying conversations. Meanwhile we somehow got into a conversation about our ancestry. We are fascinating people. After we were given the stand-by tickets (which just meant "Hey, you still can't get in for sure, but make sure to arrange your entire day to be back here by 3:45 just in case you get in) we took a subway to the Museum of Natural History. Of course, we were looking for characters from the "Night at the Museum" movie but were unable to find any other than the dinosaurs.

One thing we did see was Dean McDermott (Tori Spelling's husband) filming his reality show with his children.

Immediately after this photo was taken, two young foreign girls came to me and said "Excuse me, do you know?". Once I realized that they were wondering who this was, I said "Do you know who Tori Spelling is?". I think they figured out who I was talking about once we established that Tori Spelling played Donna Martin in Beverly Hills 90210.

After this we took a walk across Central Park to make our way over to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Now, I love the arts but I'm more of a music girl. I was quite surprised how much I really, really enjoyed this museum.

There was a whole section where they assembled some rooms from an old French hotel using the original flooring, doorways, walls, and furniture. This was SO COOL.

This is our bed from our hotel room. Just kidding. :)

She has to pee.

Ah, my first real, live Monet. Absolutely stunning.

This is my favorite Van Gogh. I have to apologize for my appreance. I had recently been wearing a hat and spent alot of time walking outside. I looked cuter than this for the majority of the trip, I promise. Please look at the Van Gogh.

Another Van Gogh.

After the museum trips, we headed back to 30 Rock to see if we had made the Stand-by list. We just waited alot more. And then we found out we made it.

My friend Jennifer saw me and Grant on TV. See the back of my head? I'm waving my hands like a fool.

Our guests were Helen Mirren, Damon Wayans Jr., and Paul Simon. Paul Simon was SO COOL. Played two songs for us. I was missing Garfunkel but still, it was awesome.

We went straight from Jimmy Fallon to grab a quick bite at the Olympic Diner before we caught the broadway show! We saw "Catch Me If You Can" at the Neil Simon theater. Our tickets were AMAZING. 4th row center. The music, dancing, and singers were FANTASTIC. Also, Doris Roberts, the grandma from "Everybody Loves Raymond" was there and that was super fun :)

And after that we went to bed because WE WERE EXHAUSTED.

However, this was probably my favorite day of the trip.

Tune in tomorrow for Day 3!