New York Trip...

Oh, how I love New York City!!

That's the Empire State building.  We left on a Wednesday around 10 and flew through the night.  We had a lay over at 3 am our time and thought it would be a good time for a buttery pretzel, so weird.  Then we arrived in New York at about 530 our time but it was 830 their time.  We weren't aloud to check in for 4 more hours.

So half awake we dropped off our bags and hit the streets.  I just love how you can walk around and be entertained at every corner.  So much to look at and see it's amazing.  We went with our good friends the Oberly's.  While Leslie and I went back to the hotel to take a snooze, Brett and Mark somehow got us tickets from a guy to The David Letterman Show.  So we were no longer aloud to take a nap because you have to check into the show early.  So then we are prodded into some kind of foyer and told for an hour how you need to laugh at every word that comes out of David's mouth.  Seriously we were all stuck in roped off lines zig zagging back and forth and I just wanted to sit down, but we had to hear these guys who must have been on some kind of happy drugs tell us how happy we need to be.  Right when I was about to punch somebody in the face they let us into the studio.  Then like 8 more kids on crack start jumping around and clapping like a bunch of idiots to get us to do the same.  It was cool though because Gwenyth Paltrow was the guest, but by the time it was her interview my head was bobbing back and forth because I kept falling asleep.

Please excuse Brett's hair, he was hadn't fixed it for two days by then :).

I was on a mission to find cool pictures for blog backgrounds.  And being a faux painter I couldn't believe how many awesome walls and doors, and architectual elements there were at every turn.  It's funny because people pay me to make things look old and rustic and it's just everywhere there naturally.

Isn't that the coolest crackly wall?  It was right in front of the David Letterman Show.

Sorry if these are boring, I just loved seeing all this stuff :).

Can you see Angel Moroni?  We stopped at the church/temple building.  It was funny cause a guy there asked us if we could help him out and go to a photo shoot at the church building by Union Square.  So we did and it was on the roof of the building with a big tent kind of set up.  They said they needed people for pictures which will be put on Mormon.org.  So ya, were gonna be kind of famous now :).

This is Union Square and we saw this big Immigration Protest on our way to the church.  They had alot of signs saying to protest Arizona.  We were hoping they couldn't tell we were from there, lol.  The guy was yelling that in Arizona if your illegal they take you out of your beds and haul you back to your country, crazy!

Oh, my, did we eat!!!  One of the best things about New York is the food!  They had these awesome cupcakes at every turn.  Something happens to you when your there and you just give up on trying not to spend too much money on food.  I actually bought a pack of 12 mini cupcake which included the one above in mini form ,along with 11 other delicous flavors, and paid a whopping $18 for it.  Who am I?

I wish I would have gotten pictures with Brett's cousin and his family.  They live right by Union Square and showed us this place to eat The Chat and Chew.  It was so good I brought Leslie back the next day.

Another one of my favorites, Central Park.  The weather was absolutely beautiful when we were there.  After the first day, we didn't even have to wear coats at night.  Central Park was packed with people.  It's such a lovely park.  Why can't we have something like that in Arizona!?

Sheep's Meadow is behind us and that's in Central Park where everyone goes to lay out and just sit and relax in the grass.

The last time I was in New York was in 2006.  This is where the Twin Towers once stood and last time we were here this was almost empty looking.  Now they have like 20 cranes and big structures that they are building.  Pretty awesome to see.

Yay, Brett fixed his hair!  We are riding on the subway.  How cool is the subway.  You can get to point A to point B in minutes.  The whole thing is confusing to me as to which one to go on, but that's what Brett is for. :)

And we did see a couple of celebrities, ha.  Even Sponge Bob wants your money for taking a picture.  You feel like you are throwing your money left and right, for everything you do there.  But it's so worth the experience.

This picture was classic!

This was a piece of something, can't remember exactly, that was left from the Twin Tower's falling.  But it had a flame that was going as a memorial.

Next we were off to the ferry to see The Statue of Liberty, and Ellis Island.

I can't tell you how beautiful the weather was! 

There she is.

The view looking back to Manhattan.

Brett went on his mission to New York and said he had never been to Ellis Island so we decided to go.  In case you don't know Ellis Island was the place all the immigrants had to go to check in before going to America.

I loved all these antique trunks that they had displayed.  It was all they had to hold their whole lives worth of stuff to bring to America.

Dunt Dunt, Law and Order.  So cool to see the big courthouse that's on movies and tv all the time.

Can you believe these tulips are real?  So funny it's such a rarity in Arizona that we had to take a picture next to them.

And the beloved China Town where there are sights and smells galore.  I bought my girls two cute chinese fans.  They love them.

You feel like you can't look anyone in the eye there or they'll try to sell you something, ha.

This picture is out of order, but really it's from Law in Order, hee hee.

So my camera ran out of space after this and I didn't have pictures of us going to the Musical Chicago and what happened after that.  So last minute we got tickets to Chicago and we didn't have time to eat dinner.  So when we got out at 10 we were starving.  We stopped into this place called Maxie's that we remember liking from last trip.  But this is our last night and our pockets were feeling a little light and a sandwhich for $21 seemed a little steep.  So we ditched that place but were still starving.  And what was staring at us when we walked out? Olive Garden.  I know, I know , who goes to Olive Garden when they are in New York City?  Well we had gift cards there and we were all craving the salad and bread sticks.  So on our way in we see and hear a bunch of sirens, and notice a couple block of Time Square has been blocked off.  Seriously I think every fire engine, ambulance, police car, and bomb squad vehicle was there.  Still on my mind is food, right?  Brett realized he left the gift cards at the hotel, so he told us to get a table and they'd hurry and get them.  So normally they could go there and back in probably 15 min. with the subway, but they tried and it was stopped.

Meanwhile Leslie and I were informed we couldn't have a table until they were back.  Just torture me, 11 at night and smelling Garlic City.  I looked up on my phone Time Square and read there was an suv with a suspiscous package.  We could actually see the suv we were so close.  But do think we cared, no we just wanted to eat.  To make a long story which is already too long, shorter, I'll just tell you it took Brett and Mark an hour to get back because they had to walk most of the way, and just as they were approaching Olive Garden the block before it got roped off.  I seriously almost took some left over breadsticks from a table and ran, but I didn't.  It was so weird, when Leslie and I walked outside we were the only ones out there and walked toward the mass of people roped off.  So it's midnight now and we finally ate dinner at about 1230 at AppleBees.  Don't judge me again for eating somewhere like that, we were flipping hungry and felt like dropping $100 to eat semi okay American food.  The End.

Oh wait, we later find out that it wasn't just a suspicous package, it was an suv loaded with amateurish explosives that failed to blow up, The End Again.

Artistic Impressions by Gina...

My friend Gina took these beautiful pictures of the babes.  To go to her website click HERE.