I'm Back

I'm back and I think I am finally thawed. NYC was Fabulous and COLD!!!!!!!!!!!!! Especially for whimpy sun-worshiping Arizonians. I hadn't seen snow in a few years and when we awoke after our first night, the place was covered in the white stuff! The snow plows were out and the weather service was calling for a very wet day. They were RIGHT!!! Do you think that stopped us???? Heck no! :-)

Our trip began by meeting each other at the Newark, NJ airport. Daughter #1 arrived first and had to wait about 2 hours for Daughters #3 & #4 and myself to arrive. All four of us traveled to NJ by way of Continental Airlines. Daughter #2 was coming in on American Airlines, which meant that the 4 of us needed to take the airtrain over to her terminal. Well, while we were heading in that direction, daughter #4 gasped! OMG!! OMG!! OMG!! I'm thinking what the......???? When she squeels to daughter #3 that she just spied the band, My Chemical Romance. Daughter #1 says, No Way! Then, here they (the band) comes. Right in front of us. They were collecting their luggage and I'm sure they couldn't help but notice that my daughters were looking at them in a way that hungry lions look at their prey. Then came the whispers between them of: should we snap a picture? Should we ask for an autograph? Should we just stand here? And so on and so on. Finally, daughter #1 makes the decision to approach them and ask if they would allow them to have their picture taken with them. They said sure and my giddy, embarrassed, blushing girls stood next to the most popular band members and dear old mom snapped a couple of pictures. Needless to say, daughter #2 was very disappointed about missing out on this part of the adventure. Here's the pic.

We didn't do much the first day. After all of the traveling and getting checked into the hotel and everyone talking at the same time to catch up, there wasn't a whole lot of time left. We did walk down to a local restaurant and eat dinner together that night. I just smiled while listening to all of the constant chatter. Then, of course, there was the viewing of daughter #2's pregnant tummy. Wow! I think we're all still in shock over that. I guess because she's the first one.

The next day, we took one of those double-decker tour bus excursions. They take you to all of the most popular places and since the snow had now turned to rain, it helped to keep us a little drier. Here's pics of us on the bus.

Daughters 4 and 1. As I was looking at these pics, I realized that only one of my daughters has their original hair color and that would be daughter #3. #1 is a natural red-head and #4 is natural light brown. Not here though.

Here's #3 and #2 and myself. #2 is a natural blonde.....but no more. I should've had my pink redone!

One of the first stops on the tour was The Shopping District. With 4 girls, of course, we got off the bus! Especially when they saw this store (H&M)! Oh, and yes, mama bought them some stuff.

After shopping, we jumped back on the bus and decided our next stop would be Ground 0. It was raining like crazy, but we didn't care. We wanted to pay our respects to the people who lost their lives. Needless to say, we felt very humbled standing here.

 

Next stop, was to buy an umbrella, from a man selling them on a street corner. Only in NYC! Daughters 3 & 4 proved that their Starbucks radar was in fine working order, so we stopped in to warm ourselves and drink in some hot tasty beverages. The next pic gives you an idea of what the weather was like outside of Starbucks.

This sign caught my girl's attention......

So, after some more sight seeing, the girls decided they wanted to do a little shopping from the street vendors aka black market stuff. This is just crazy!!! We didn't snap a picture, as we didn't even think to, since we had soooooo many people in our faces every step we took (literally, not kidding) offering to sell us knock-offs. I must have had a neon flashing light on my forehead that said Please Come Sell ME something, as they were on me like flys on........well, you know what I mean. I was glad when that was over.

I started to hear rumblings coming from the stomaches of my herd, so we asked a couple of police women where we could get some pizza and they sent us to Little Italy. A few blocks later, we arrived and the streets were just Beautiful!! We soon met Vinny, who was trying to convince us to eat at a restaurant that he was standing in front of. I asked, do you have pizza? He said no, but listed all of the other yummy italian dishes that they had. I'm sorry, I said, but we want pizza. He sent us down the street to Paesano's and said to tell them that Vinny sent us. Well, we did and the pizza was great. Here's pics of Little Italy.

Okay, that's all for now. This post is getting a little lengthy. There is still more to share, so come back and see our NYC adventures.

Hugs!

Michelle