When we first decided to go to New York I really only wanted to stay three nights. On Aflac trips I’m fine without the kids for the first couple of days, but towards the end of the trip I start getting that I-miss-my-babies itch! However, I’m very thankful we decided (well, Zach really decided!) to stay four nights for this trip. Day 2 was kinda a bust due to the weather and I’m glad we had another full day to enjoy the city!!! SNOW FREE 🙂 I don’t think I’ve ever been so thrilled to look out the window and not see snow falling 🙂
We slept in, which was heavenly, and Zach ran down to “our” bagel shop to get us breakfast. Breakfast in bed is another small luxury you just don’t fully appreciate until you have children 🙂
More amazing sexy pictures of yours truly 😉
Our first mission was to go back to Central Park. While it wasn’t snowing, the snow was still on the ground and we wanted to get to see it!!! Both of us agreed that this was probably our favorite thing from the trip. It was just so beautiful. If you visit New York in the winter time, you MUST go see Central Park in the snow!!! There is nothing like it!
Standing in SNOW!
Sent the kids a picture of a legit snowman 🙂
Finally getting to see some ice skating (If I wasn’t pregnant and didn’t have a lovely foot issue we totally would have done it!)
We enjoyed walking around and taking it all in. It was still cold that day but not nearly as cold as the day prior. Def better walking around weather! I also realized that a lot of my foot pain was due to the cold and not actually all the walking so I wore boots instead of tennis shoes and it helped a TON with my pain!!!
While we were more comfortable with our clothing…shoe choice on Zach’s part may not have been too smart. Melting snow = puddles. Hahahahaha
Soaked through!
We did the horse and carriage ride through Central Park on our Honeymoon (I also did it when I went to NYC in middle school with my cousin). So, so overpriced! Something we are glad we did once, but that we won’t ever do again!
After we left the park we were on a mission. A SOCK finding mission! Poor Zach. His shoes were SO wet that it was all the way through his socks and he was miserable! We went into a couple stores and finally ended up in a drug store. He found a pack of socks and was much better off!
We didn’t have a lunch reservation but we knew where we planned to eat and we also knew what time our next scheduled event was so we headed to lunch. Oh yall. My husband is AMAZING at directions but we hit some bad luck and ended up all over town. We rode the subway, a lot. And were thankful we had the unlimited metro cards! I felt so bad b/c I’m ZERO help with directional skills and he was frustrated with map issues, phone service issues, and just not knowing where were going. We finally ended up calling the restaurant and it ALL worked out how it was supposed to b/c it turned out we were trying to get to the wrong place!!!!
Long story but we fell in LOVE with this pizza place in Brooklyn and wanted to go there again this trip (it’s Zach’s favorite pizza!). When I looked it up it said it’s a chain now and that’s where we were trying to go. When we called they told us we were actually closer to their Brooklyn location than the one we were trying to get to in Manhattan so we got on the subway and headed to Brooklyn. Once there we realized there were TWO pizza places. The name of the one we’d been trying to find and then the actual place we ate at before! Turns out the owner of the pizza place we loved sold his name to a franchise and that’s the new place. Then he still kept his original place (the one we loved) but changed the name!
If you are looking for the BEST pizza in NYC head to Brooklyn and hit up Juliana’s!
Had to get dessert! I do not like the taste of pizza in my mouth after I eat it? Something sweet always helps 🙂 It was called the Brooklyn Bridge so I HAD to get it!!!
Next trip we will know EXACTLY where to go for our pizza!
Yes…it’s also a #1 rated 🙂
It’s literally located right under the Brooklyn Bridge!
The other pizza place (literally next door)
After lunch we headed straight for our next show! Zach and I both reallllllly enjoy seeing plays. I know most men aren’t into that kind of thing and I love that Zach is different. He truly enjoys it! With my foot issues we decided to book two shows this trip as it was a great way to stay warm, rest my foot, and enjoy ourselves!
When I did my hunting I found this play that is a prequel to Peter Pan. Duh, that was the show for us! It was actually our first time seeing an off-broadway production and it was so cool! Our seats were literally the third row so we had an amazing view!!! It was neat to see a “lower budget” performance and to see the creative ways they brought the story to life!
I want to point out that the play was titled: Peter and the Starcatcher: a GROWNUPS prequel to Peter Pan. Like it says, in the title, it’s meant for grownups. I was disgusted with the amount of children there. Just as I am disgusted when parents take their children to rated R movies. You know going in that it’s not appropriate!!! Often I think it’s the fault of the production. Like adult cartoon tv shows make no sense to me. Hello, it appears to be made for KIDS! And if this play didn’t have that CLEAR warning in the TITLE then I would have blamed the show for appearing to be child-friendly. But it was far from child friendly. And it didn’t claim to be! I’m glad we were up front so I could pretend I didn’t see all the kids there behind us haha!
We both LOVED the show. It was a GREAT take on how Peter Pan came to be and had some super funny parts too. It dragged a good bit at parts and that took away from it for us, but overall we greatly enjoyed it. It also gave us a chance to change out our socks and let our feet dry out a bit! Haha!
If I had to pick a theme for Day 3 it was “direction hunting.” This was my view for a good part of the day 🙂 Thankful he’s easy on the eyes haha and that he didn’t get too annoyed about it all!!!
Side note: I thought those touch screen gloves were “must haves” for our trip but they honestly didn’t work that amazingly! We kept taking them off to use our phones!
We had some time and still hadn’t gotten the kids a prize from the trip so we headed to the Disney Store at Times Square. It was AWESOME!!!
We debated and debated about what to buy for the kids! Finally we picked the perfect presents 🙂
The Statue of Liberty Minnie Mouse was a MUST for me! Even if Britt didn’t really need another dang stuffed animal…I mean it’s awesome and I’d totally take it if she didn’t want it 😉 For Kye we got him a plane from the movie Planes. We hadn’t yet seen the movie but knew he’d like a toy plane since we flew on one to go on our trip!
For dinner on our last night I wanted to end with a BANG! and booked us the #1 rated Italian restaurant in Little Italy 🙂 Pellegrino’s! Walking down the street in Little Italy really did take us back to LEGIT Italy. People were standing out front of their restaurants trying to lure us in, just like they do there!
Had to get some gnocchi!
I was pretty crunk about my lemon chicken!
It was a bit of a crowded, loud, experience. The table beside us was pretty intense but gave us some good entertainment! We had a great meal! Zach LOVED his. Mine was good, but I was sad that it wasn’t enough lemon for me to be able to taste it (since I can’t smell, I also can’t taste very well so I need stuff to be STRONG!). We still had a great experience though and would def try it again!
For dessert Casey recommended a place called Ferrara and when I did some research it was also top-rated so, duh, we hit that junk up!
Yes, we were FREEZING the ENTIRE trip but we couldn’t resist: we had to try the gelato!
It was good for sure! I’ve avoided trying ANYTHING that is called “gelato” since we’ve been back from Italy. I know it won’t compare and I don’t want to risk tainting my amazing memory of the deliciousness! While this was good, it wasn’t the REAL DEAL for sure. I actually also got a canolli and ate it later on in the room and THAT was phenomenal!
Since getting back I had a friend ask me if I thought NYC was a good place to go with just my spouse or if it’d be better for a girl’s trip. I LOVE traveling with Zach. He’s my favorite travel partner FOR SURE but I def understood the question. I mean there are places that are just more fun with the girls ya know? Personally I think NYC is great for BOTH. While I’ve never gone on a girl’s trip there, I really really really hope we can afford for me to take Britt when she’s engaged 🙂 We saw a mother-daughter duo on the flight with all their wedding magazines and I would LOVE to be able to do that. I think it’d be a blast to shop with girl friends but other than that everything is so FUN with Zach that I def think it’d a great place for a mommy-daddy getaway 🙂 There is so much to do and it’s very easily romantic too 🙂
On our way back to the room we passed by this…there were TONS of limos out front and people dressed in mega fancy gowns. I was freezing. I was tired. But if I had been there with girl friends you better bet we would have sat our butts outside that door to catch some celebrity sightings!!! It is NOT Zach’s thing so I didn’t even ask to do it. He would have not had fun but I will say that is the ONLY thing I think would be better as a girl’s trip than with the hubby. Dudes don’t care much about celebrities. Girls do and you know if I did have a girl’s trip there our motto would be “Celebrity Hunt” haha!!! Much like if Zach had come with some guy friends they probably would have tried to sneak into the Heisman Award Presentation 😉
I googled around the next day and found out that Anchorman 2 had premiered in NYC that night! What we had passed by was actually the after party!!! I think we were too early for everyone to really be there yet and I think a lot of the limos we saw were people arriving from the premiere! Pretty cool huh?
Summary of our LAST DAY!!!
I was hoping to get an early flight home the next day but the flight from Atlanta to Valdosta was the same no matter when we flew from NYC so instead we slept in, again. And it was amazing, again! When we got room service they had actually overcharged us so to make up for it they gave us free breakfast 🙂 Whoop whoop! Love us some freebies!!!
Being well rested and warm does my looks some good huh? 🙂 Probably the only decent pic of me from the whole trip!!!
Before we left we really wanted to go to the roof of the hotel to check out the view, it was super COLD (especially in our Valdosta-ready travel clothes) but it was cool and I’m so glad we did it! One last look at the beautiful city!
haha Lookin’ cool with that hood up 😉
We had a pretty long wait at the airport but I got to finish my book (Divergent! Can’t wait to read the rest and see the movie!). I also got caught up on my social media. Ugh. It is the worst thing EVER to get back from a wonderful trip and find out a bunch of bad news. I mean when we got back from Italy I checked FB and found out a sweet woman from our church had died while we were gone. This time I found out a sweet couple from our church had to deliver their baby who had passed away at almost full term. So, so sad. It is def a jolt back to reality to hear about such sad, sad news.
Sent the kids a pic of our plane!
On our lay over Mrs. Charlotte called and told me Kye was running a fever. I was already missing my babies SO BAD but I was dying to get to them when I heard he wasn’t feeling well!!!
Back in May, before we even thought of going to NYC, I was crunk when I heard Justin Timberlake was coming to Atlanta! I saw him 10 years ago when he did a tour with Christina Aguilera (and Black Eyed Peas Opened!). It was AMAZING. He is BY FAR the most talented artist of our time, in my opinion at least!!! I spent a good part of a day getting tickets for the show for Robyn and her sister as well as for myself, Casey and Jordan. Jordan surprised Casey with the tickets for her birthday in September and I was SO PUMPED about the show!
Well. Timing was not so great because we actually got back from NYC the day prior to the concert. So that meant I’d get home, turn around and drive to Atlanta the next day, then come home after the concert that night. Kinda a lot! I was still very excited about the show though and worked it out where when I got home from NYC I went to SLEEP. My plan was to sleep in as late as I could the next day and then be refreshed for the concert.
Kye having his fever changed everything. I told Mrs. Charlotte to call me the next morning and wake me up if he still had a fever. I told Zach that night when we got home that if Mrs. Charlotte called me I for sure wasn’t going to the concert. Kids come first PERIOD.
Sure enough, she called me that morning. I hurried to get dressed and met her with the kids at the walk-in clinic. It was SO great to see the kids. Kye was so, so pitiful. Mrs. Charlotte took Britt so she wouldn’t be around all the other sick kids and I sat with Kye, literally in my lap. He wanted me to hold him and kept saying he just wanted to go home. If my mind hadn’t already been made up about the concert, that decided it right there!!!
He tested negative for strep but had all the symptoms of it so we decided to treat him for strep. Bless is heart it was THE sickest he’s ever been. His fever lingered and would drop then go back up. After a couple days I got sick. It was the start of the longest phase of sickness our house has seen! At first we treated me for strep too then I finally broke down and went to the dr (a whole week after we got back!) and tested positive for the flu. I assume then that Kye also had the flu but that it just looked like strep. We got through it but, whew, it was tough being pregnant with a sick kid and being sick myself…and especially with having a WELL kid. Britt was FINE!!! She never got sick at all, which is a huge blessing, but also made her tougher to handle! Kye was cool with chilling and watching movies…wild child Britt needed entertaining 😉
Thankfully I was able to sell my Justin Timberlake ticket within 10 min of posting it on Facebook. I sold it for what I paid for it which they were going for three times that. I wasn’t out to make money, I just wanted someone to get to enjoy the show since I couldn’t and be able to get back what I had spent. While I am SO SAD I missed it (I mean when I heard he SANG ELVIS I died)…it was a proud mommy moment for me. I had no doubts or debate about what to do and didn’t regret it at all. My baby needed me and I was there for him. And that was worth more than any concert! (Yes, even when it ended up getting me sick too!!!).
Overall we had such a wonderful time together in New York!!! I always cherish alone time with Zach and every time we go away together we come back refreshed in our relationship and our love for one another. Plus we get to add more memories to our wonderful love story 🙂
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