NYC: Day 2!

Eeek. ... . sorry for the 10 day delay! It's been a rough 2 weeks, but I don't want to complain more than I already do, sooooo . . . on to NYC!

Day 2 of NYC was busssssssssssssssssssyyyyyyyyyyyy. But fun! And we saw so much!


First on our itinerary was the Statue of Liberty! We got a later than scheduled start due to us being completely exhausted from the day before and due to our very comfy bed, but we wandered on to the subway and luckily found our way to the South Ferry Station! As soon as we walked up we saw the "Staten Island Ferry"! We decided to go check out the Statue of Liberty first!

There she is!! Waaaayyy off in the distance! (Darn my camera not having a super zoom lens yet! They are just so expensive though!) We decided to pass on the boat ride there because you could not go in the crown and we also heard you were not even allowed to go in the Statue of Liberty at all! We also passed on the free 2 hour Staten Island Ferry ride because we figured we probably would not get any closer to Lady Liberty than where we were and we were ok with that.

We then took the subway to the "World Trade Center". This is all we could see, which I guess is good, because they are rebuilding and making an awesome looking memorial!

The spots where the towers were will remain, but will contain waterfalls! This board was in the "remberence store". It really was just so sad being there and remembering what all happened and for ridiculous reasons.

I loved the signs. "No Horn Honking!" But you know NYC, . . . EVERYONE honks!

How would you like to work on that crane way up there?!

Yay! We walked over to the Brooklyn Bridge and walked all the way across and back! It was a long walk, but luckily there were guys every couple of feet selling water and pop.

I love how you can see the city from the bridge! Soooo fun!

Shaney found the watchtower. So we caught up with Superman for some lunch.

We did not look like tourists at ALL . . . except for the constant map looking, the HUGE cam cam, and the "should we get off the subway here?!" comments.

Empire State Building! It keeps going and going and going!!

Macy's! Largest store in the world!! (Or so it says . . . we just took their word for it).

Back to the empire state building! We decided to go in and check it out but didn't want to pay the moolah to go up it since we were planning on going to the top of the rock on our last night.

Shane & the replica!

Once again. People following signs very well in NYC. "Maybe if I squish really close to the side, then that means I can still sit on the stairs, even though the sign says don't sit on the stairs."

Grand Central Station!! This wasn't originally on our itinerary, but it was something in the back of our minds to do if we had the extra time . . and we did! So we checked it out, and so glad we did because it was b. e. a. Utiful!

Let's play a game called "Where's Staci!?" Can you find me?!

The MoMA! We tried to go to the "Free Fridays" (from 4pm on, I think it was) they had going on, but umm . . . the line was wrapped around the entire building, and although it would've been cool to see, we weren't that bummed because we aren't very big art people.

Radio City Music Hall! They were setting up for the MTV music awards when we were there (the awards actually weren't until the week after we were there though)! Dang. One week too early. Missed all the famos.

NBC Studios! We went on the studio tour the next day but were in the neighborhood so we checked it out a little early.

Rockefeller Center! A LOT smaller in person! That ice rink looks huge on TV!

Ran into Matt Lauer! He was nice enough to pose in a pic with me!

Loved these shirts! Took the pic for one of my bff's, KC!

Went to get some food at the Hello Deli (the deli shop from the David Letterman show, with Rupert!) . . but they were closed.

And last, but not least, to end Day 2, we saw Mary Poppins on Broadway! You can't go NYC without going to see a broadway show! It was a great show and definitely recommend it!

NYC : Day 1!

Thanks for being patient with me. It's been a rough week folks. Ok, maybe not really rough (besides work), but busy all around. Saturday was Nikkie & Matt's wedding (post to follow), Sunday we welcomed home Rita & Don from Germany (visiting Dan & Marissa) with Sommer, Bry, & Bryce. We also celebrated Sommer & Bry's 7th Anniversary with some yummy cake I made for them (pics later). I had my first photography class with Mase & Bethany on Monday! Super fun and excited to learn how to take better pics (hopefully)! We have weekly homework assignments, so I will try to post about those! Tuesday we celebrated my parents 30th wedding anniversary (post to follow), and Wednesday I had a doctors appointment. It was quite the checkup. I have been having problems with my heart (almost like a sharp, sudden pain in my heart followed by my heart racing a mile a minute), so they checked out my heart and he said it was very strong and sounded good (no murmurs), but wanted to do an EKG just to make sure. The lady who did it tried to make me feel as comfortable as possible, but seriously . . . how does laying on a table half naked with a bunch of electrodes and wires hooked up to you feel comfortable?! Anyways. . . . the EKG came back normal as well (thank goodness!), and he thinks what I am feeling is called "Atria Catch". It's when the top chamber and bottom chamber of the heart open and close at the same time and create that pain feeling because the pressure is pushing together. He said it's normal and no medicine is needed. Ok. If you say so. But really, it is always nice to go to the doctors and get a good bill of health!

And on to NYC:

I love organization. Some people might think you can have too much of it, but I live on it. I like to have plans, I like to see everything all neat and tidy, I like to know what I'm doing when. I feel like this way you can maximize the time you have, and make the best of everything. This is why I made a NYC Trip Itinerary. So we weren't walking/subwaying from North to South Manhattan and wasting all our time travelling back and forth. So we knew what we wanted to see and when we could see it. Now with that said, we did follow the itinerary mostly, and it worked and helped out a lot!! But we did not let it deter us from cool things! If we saw something we wanted to see or do, we did it! (I left some wiggle room in our itinerary for that reason).

We flew out of the Buffalo Airport . . . (Erie, you need direct flights to big cities!). We umm, love unhealthy food. It's just soo yummy!

So on our flight we had individual TV's in each of our seats!! Coolest thing ever! I got to watch HGTV the entire trip! And swapped over to free XM Radio during commercials.

Can you see the city from the airport?! I was getting sooo excited right about now!

Next Stop: Ours! The 7th Ave & 53th Street subway stop came out RIGHT by our hotel! Quite convenient!

We stayed at the Sheraton New York Hotel & Towers! Definitely recommend that hotel! Within walking distance to Times Square, Central Park, Rockefeller Center, Moma, Magnolia's Cupcakes, and several other fun spots! The bed was nice and the room a little smaller (but really all we did was sleep there, so that was perfect)! And the bathrooms need a little updating, but for what we spent and how close it was to everything, it was perfect.

I loved that for key cards we got one that shows Shane's idea of a dream vaca and one that shows my idea of a dream vaca! Can you guess which is which?!

We decided to take a stroll in Central Park our first night, and I cannot tell you how much I LOOOOOOVED it!! We need one in Erie! It was just such a great atmosphere! So many things going on and so many beautiful sights!

There was a giant kids playground and huge rocks that people were laying on.

A big lawn where people were playing frisbee, learning self-defense, working out, playing soccer or catch, or just laying back and reading a book.

An awesome fountain (at this point we thought we were almost through Central Park b/c we were walking FOREVER, but really we were like 1/4 of the way through it. . it's HUGE!) with a pond with lots of cute turtles! You could rent paddle boats or take a gondola ride.

As we were trying to find our way out of Central Park, a bummy guy came up to us and said "Counting Crows is in town! That's how you know it's going to be a great weekend!", and then we tried to see if it was a free concert (yeah right), but we could still hear everything outside, and we were tempted to join this guy's (white shirt w/grey beard w/hand raised) party! He just kept singing and dancing all around . . by himself.

Late Show!!! Shane and I are both huge fans of David Letterman! We tried to get some tickets for the Thursday show, but that didn't work out. . . so we went to Angelo's (right next door) for our first dinner in NYC . . .

More pizza! It was ok. I think we were expecting it to be the BEST pizza we ever had since they hype up NYC pizza so much.

And what's NYC with out wandering around at night! We decided to take a trip to Times Square to see what all the fuss was about!

On our way we ran into Obama Condom boy. He was trying to sell condoms. Obama's - "Ultimate Stimulus Package", Palin's - "When Abortion is Not An Option".

We read that we couldn't take cameras to the broadway show with us (not true. they never checked and there were TONS of people with cameras. bummer.) so we decided to find Mary Poppins (New Amsterdam Theater) so we could at least have some pictures of it.

Me in Times Square!! Really . . the city that never sleeps! I mean, ok, we only stayed out till 11 or 12, but there were ALWAYS sooooooooooooo many people! And it was sooo bright! I actually felt more comfortable in Times Square than I did on a "not busy" street.

On our way back to the hotel we decided to check out the four level Toys-R-Us store! We ran into a T-Rex! Don't worry! We outran it!

And they have the best tourist stores there!!! I got a "I <3 New York" t-shirt for $3!!! I gave Shane the best husband award for going into all these stores for me.

That was Day 1, 3 more to go!

Let's Go Steelers!

My cousin, Lilyauna, ready for the big game!

Let's go Steelers!!

Home Safe from NYC!

Well, we got back safe & sound on Sunday from our AWESOME NYC trip! I took close to 500 pictures and will try to post all about our trip ASAP . . . unfortunately, ASAP is going to be a while . . . it's been a busy, crazy week! And this weekend is the wedding of Nikkie (one of my friends from like 1st grade)! I will leave you with a couple pictures from NYC . . .

These were taken from the "Top of the Rock" (Rockefeller Center/GE Building).
We went up before the sunset and stayed until the sun went down so we could get pics of both!

Jeffrey Ross

So we were walking through Central Park and we saw Jeffrey Ross walking around, how cool is that?!


One night down two to go! Loving every minute!

Austin’s 6th Birthday!

We celebrated my cousin Austin’s 6th Birthday this past weekend at one of the zoo pavilions! It was a little chilly, but the kiddos were having a great time with their face painting, playgrounds, and cupcakes!

To be young again though . . . the funniest part of the whole birthday was when Austin and his friend Ryan were waiting for their friend (Liam – snake face) to get his face painted. Ryan leans over to Austin and says, “Hey! Do you want to chase me while we wait?!” . . . to which Austin replies, “Yeah!” and he starts chasing Ryan around with his transformer mask on! I could not stop laughing!