15 Years!

Jeremy and I celebrated our 15 year anniversary on July 29th.  (It's also Jeremy's 15 yr anniversary since he was baptized!)  Of course on the actual day we went to Southlake and ate at Copeland's...it's our yearly tradition.  :)  The real celebration came this past week though, when we went on our very first ever trip without the girls.  (OK, technically the second.  But I'm not counting the 2 days we left them with my mom and dad last Fall when J's papaw passed away.)  I have very mixed feelings about leaving the girls.  On the one hand, I enjoy taking them on trips and experiencing new things with them.  I also worry about them when I am away from them, and worry about the people watching them.  But, I know that we would have never have been able to take them on this kind of trip- not while they are young anyway.  We walked waaaaay too much.  I think for us, taking an alone trip only for certain big events is a good balance.

We left Wednesday afternoon and got to our hotel in NYC around 10 pm.  We immediately threw our suitcases down and went out for a quick walk.  Our hotel was just around the corner from the Empire State Building, so we walked past that, then back up to Times Square.  Then we headed back to the hotel because we wanted to get up for an early start in the morning.

 

I love how Jeremy failed to tell me the basil made it look like I had food in my teeth.

Just for Joey.  We asked Spidey for a pic and creepy Woody jumped in.  I guess he was hoping we'd give him money too but instead I yelled at him for photobombing us.  Haha!

Thursday morning we had actually planned on going to the Today show, but decided last minute not to waste time doing that.  Instead, we woke up super early and went down to the 9/11 memorial, then Wall St., grabbed a bagel at a deli, went to Tiffany's, went to Trinity Church, then hopped the Staten Island ferry to catch a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty.  After that we had lunch at Shake Shack (good, but over-hyped), then went to Macy's, then over to Washington Square Park, then headed back to the hotel for a quick rest before we got ready to see Amazing Grace, which was...amazing.  After the play we had a late dinner at Heartland Brewery (because it meant little walking) and then made a late night stop at the Cake Boss' shop for some canoli's and lobster tails.  (The canoli's were average, but the lobster tails were YUMMY.)

 

I guess I was giving some weirdo a look while on the subway.

For mom: the wooden escalator.

For some reason I had not slept very well Wednesday night, and only got about 3 hours of sleep.  So after such a full day on Thursday, my body was exhausted and we ended up sleeping through the alarm on Friday morning.  Oops.  We took it easy and slowly got ready, then headed over to the library for a quick walk around, then made our way to lunch where we ate a yummy Reuben.  After that we took a walk through Central Park.  It is such a beautiful park.  I love all the rocks and the trees throughout.  After that we went over to Serendipity for a delicious frozen hot chocolate, then back to the hotel to get ready for dinner.  We had a great date night in Little Italy, where we ate at Il Cortile, then walked up and down the light-lined streets.  Then we walked all the way back to the hotel, stopping at Union Square Park to watch a real life rap battle and random groups of people dancing together, and then stopping at the Empire State Building to become "elite members of the 102 club."  Actually, I just found out there is a secret 103rd floor and now I feel a bit like Jay in Modern Family when they went to Las Vegas.

 

Seriously gross.  And I'd already washed my feet once earlier.

Saturday morning we woke up really early again.  I told Jeremy to get ready because he was about to feel like he was on the Amazing Race as we raced around the city hitting all the last spots on our list. We grabbed some breakfast at the hotel and ate it as we walked over to Grand Central Station and caught the train down to the Brooklyn Bridge.  We walked the Brooklyn Bridge, then caught another train (after walking in circles trying to find the subway since the entrance close to us was closed) down to Coney Island.  Once there we ate a Nathan's hot dog (yep, at 10 am) then walked around a bit.  We didn't even put our feet in the water (or the sand for that matter), because quite frankly it looked like a MS beach.  Lol.  We just didn't think it was worthy of getting sandy.  Then we headed back up on the train and hit up Chelsea Market and ate some yummy tacos.  We grabbed dessert to go and ate up on the High Line.  Jeremy then got taken advantage of by some Cambodian monks and gave them $40.  Hahaha!  He won't live that one down any time soon.  Then it was back to the subway all the way up to Yankee stadium.  Then it was back down for a walk through the Upper West Side (but not before we accidentally ended up in Harlem), then we cut back through Central Park and made our way to the Guggenheim.  It was pretty cool seeing Van Gogh's and Picasso's in person, but not so cool seeing weird naked boobs and weird junk hanging from the ceiling that some person called art.  If we had to do it over we would have made it a priority to go to the Museum of Modern Art where we could have seen Starry Night.  Oh well.  After that we walked along the Upper East side past the Met, then caught a cab back to Times Square for souvenirs for the girls, then walked over to Radio City Music Hall and 30 Rock.  Then back to the hotel to change for dinner at Craftbar (a Tom Colicchio restaurant), and Doughnut Plant for dessert.  Whew!

 

 

We had a very early flight home the next day and we were super happy to get home and see the girls.  We were glad to hear they were good for my mom and dad.  We can't thank them enough for watching them so we could go on our trip.  My legs are still recovering from all the walking!  Now to plan our 25th anniversary trip...