NEW YORK CITY!

          It’s December 6th, 2008 and here we are off to New York with my sister-in-law, Anita and my niece, Stephanie.    Anita is a flight attendant and she and Stephanie were headed to New York for a long weekend and invited Becca and I to go along.

       

 

          We boarded an early morning flight and since we were on buddy passes, we were afraid that all four of us might not make it on the flight, but we did.   I was so excited.  I’d never been to New York, much less at Christmas time and it was one of the things on my “Bucket List” that I wanted to do.   Becca and I had to take our traditional “self portrait” to get the trip started off right.

           The first thing we did after checking in at our hotel (which was about a block from Times Square!) was to find a street vendor and buy hats, scarves and gloves.  It was freezing and the wind just cut right through you!  We ate at Bubba Gump Shrimp Company and then took a tour of the city.  It was lots of fun to see how they decorate everything for Christmas.  We went to Grand Central Station, The Brooklyn Bridge and lots of other places.

           We rode the subway a lot while we were there (it was mine and Becca’s first time to ride one).  We went to see the Statue of Liberty, China Town, Little Italy, Ground Zero and lots of other places.  We had a ball!  While we were in  China Town, Anita wanted to take us to look at some of the knock-off purses that they sell there.  After she asked a shop vendor about a Prada bag, he called someone on a walkie-talkie and then a lady came and carried us to a little side street and had us get into a parked van with all these purses lining the sides and back of the van.  I must admit, I was very uncomfortable with the situation, wondering when someone was going to start the van and kidnap these four stupid women from Georgia.   Luckily, Anita had done this before and said it was harmless unless the police raided the van.   Well, since I worked for the police in a manner of speaking, I figured it wouldn’t be a very good thing for me to get arrested in New York for buying counterfeit purses.  From then on, I stayed on the outside and just acted as a look-out!  Hahaha, I felt like I was in a James Bond movie!  They did get some nice looking pocketbooks for a really good price though, I must admit!

                      

Becca picking the nose of “Lady Liberty” (or at least a life sized replica of her face and Becca and I with the Wall Street Bull

                  

        Trinity Church was an amazing place to visit and to learn the story of the sycamore tree on the Church grounds that fell without damaging the church, the cemetery or  anything else was amazing.  God is so awesome in so many ways!

         There is no question in my mind though that my MOST FAVORITE thing we did was to go to Rockefeller Center and see all the lights, decorations and of course, the ice rink.  It was everything I had dreamed of and then some.  It was so beautiful and to be with the ones I love made it just that much more special.  Afterwards, we visited the NBC studios, and looked at some of the amazing store windows.  What better way to start off the Christmas season than with a trip to the beautiful city of New York! 

            If for some reason I don’t get to do all of the things on my bucket list, I will have gotten to do one of the top five on my list.  I may have frozen while doing it, but it was one of the highlights of my life!

         

          Thank you Anita, Stephanie and Becca for making my trip so memorable and fun!  I Love You!

Most of what happend in Vegas will stay in Vegas!

Wow, I can't believe that it has been so long since I posted a blog, but it has been a busy couple of weeks. Becca and I went to Las Vegas with my sister-in-law, Anita and my niece, Stephanie so that we could celebrate Stephanie's 21st birthday. We had an absolute blast.

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I wish my whole family could have gone with us, but for a first time visit to Vegas, going with Becca was a lot of fun. She and I for the most part, like the same things and enjoy a good laugh!

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It was a little nerve-wracking at times because Becca will not be 21 for another month and she wanted to be able to play the slots some and be able to have a drink with Stephanie. I just knew we'd get busted, but since Becca looks older than she is, she was able to play a few slot machines (she even won $50) and got to have a few drinks, so she was extremely happy! She only got asked for ID one time and that was as we were walking through a casino.

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We did the whole tourist thing, checking out a lot of the hotels and sights. Someone told Becca that after she had been there for 4 days she would have seen it all..... they lied! We were there for eight days and didn't see half of what we wanted to see. I am exhausted!

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Some of the hotels go all out to decorate and some of the artwork was just awesome. I loved all the hotels with themes like Excalibur, MGM, New York - New York, Paris, the Bellagio, etc. Las Vegas at night is a whole different world from the daytime Las Vegas, so it is like visiting 2 different cities.

Of course I was in hog heaven and took over a thousand pictures (some will be deleted because they are so bad and some will never be seen - if you know what I mean!!)

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Becca made me ride the roller coaster at New York - New York for which I will forever hate her and she will never be able to repay me for the pain and suffering she put me through. I bought the souvineer photo of us on the ride only so that I would have something to blackmail Becca with for the rest of her life. I love roller coasters, but this one was 5 or 6 stories in the air and had so many loops and twists and turns that I could hardly walk when we finally got off the ride. My whole body felt like it was bruised and battered and I hurt for days! Getting older is not what it is cracked up to be.

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My niece did not get to Vegas until about 9:00 on the night before her birthday (had she been at home she would have already been 21, but since Vegas is 3 hours behind us, she had to wait a while to turn 21). This was a good thing since it gave her a chance to be at a casino ready to put her dollar into the machine at the stroke of midnight. She ordered a drink and they carded her which made her very happy - she got to show them that she was 21 even though her license said she was "under 21". It was funny to see how excited she got!

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I'll write more about our trip later, but for now I'm just glad to be home and back to a normal routine. I missed Bobby and all the puppies more than I thought I would. Enjoy what you have, because no matter how wonderful it looks, the grass is not really that much greener on the other side. There really is no place like "Home"!