New York Weekend

My two best friends decided that we needed a girl's weekend away, and picked New York City as our destination.  This choice was made because Tracy had never been to New York (or any really big city, actually) and Sarah had only been when she was pregnant.  They picked a time when their husbands could stay home and watch the kids and asked if I'd be able to manage it as well.  It just so happened that I was already trying to plan a New York trip so I could meet my newest nephew, Nolan Henry, born March 2 to my baby sister Rachael.  So I was on board just as soon as I could make sure my kids would have adult supervision the entire time I was gone!  (Much thanks go to my mother-in-law for watching everyone Friday afternoon, and for Craig for taking care of everyone the rest of the time and making it look easy while he did it!)

It was hard to figure out a consensus between three (buried-in-children-busy, hard-to-talk-to-on-the-phone) people, but about a week before we were going we got the basics planned: we would stay at my sister Leah's house in the suburbs (this had two huge bonuses for me-- one, it's free; two, I'd get a chance to see Leah and her family!).  We would rent a car and drive it to the city and back-- this might sound silly since all three of us are 2-car families, but we couldn't take the large cars without leaving our husbands stuck with no way to transport all the kids, and all our husbands drive total beater cars that we weren't sure could be trusted for such a long drive.  So the rental car idea won out, and that was definitely a GOOD decision.  (Added bonus, we got upgraded to a Jeep for free, so we had plenty of space!)

We left Friday afternoon.  I met up with Sarah at the Charlottesville airport, where she got our rental car and I left my car in our Stake Center parking lot and hoped it wouldn't get towed.  We drove up to Manassas (making a stop at the Moo-Thru for milkshakes and dropping in on our friend Emma to see her new baby!) and picked up Tracy and we were on our way!

On the road!

Can I just say how relaxing and easy a road trip is with your best friends?  No whining, no big deal if we needed to stop for a bathroom or food.  And we always have SO MUCH to talk about!  And we had awesome luck and didn't hit much traffic.  Before we knew it, we were an hour away from Leah's house and-- oops!-- almost out of gas!  We hurriedly pulled over in what turned out to be Hackensack, New Jersey, filled up, and then finished the trip to Leah's.  The drive included going over the George Washington Bridge, which usually involves lots of yelling at each other while Craig and I try to figure out where we're going.  This time was slightly less stressful, with Tracy in the back seat ooh-ing over the Manhattan skyline as we went.  Not bad at all!

We got to Leah's and she showed us where we'd be staying.  I was a little obnoxious and claimed the bedroom-- I really can only handle Craig sleeping in the same room as me.  But Sarah and Tracy were excited to stay up chatting, so I think they were okay with that.  We figured out our plan for the next morning with Leah's help.  We'd been thinking we would take the train in, but Leah pointed out that parking in the city would probably be easier and cheaper, so we went with that plan, and she was totally right!

Saturday morning I got up early and showered and then hung out with Leah and Brian (and their adorable boys, Eliot and Theo) while Sarah and Tracy got ready.  I hadn't seen Leah in a year, so it was really great to hang out again!  Then we piled into our Jeep and headed into the city!  Parking was easy, although by the time we handed the keys over to the valet parker, there was a line behind us.  We headed to our first stop: the Manhattan temple

and were able to spend an hour doing some work there and seeing how beautiful (and quiet!) that building is, then we began working on Tracy's bucket list.  Her first request was just to walk through Central Park.  It was a perfect spring day, and we weren't tired yet, so the walk was lovely.  We stopped to get a crepe and, same as the parking, by the time we were done there was a long line before us!  We were so lucky!

Then we headed to our next stop, Serendipity where you can get frozen hot chocolate.  I wasn't as excited for this, and I was getting anxious to get over to see Rachael, so when the wait was going to be at least 45 minutes, I headed uptown to Harlem and let Tracy and Sarah enjoy hot chocolate without me.  (They assured me it was fabulous; Rachael assured me I wasn't missing out on much.  I guess I'll never know!)

I was kind of nervous to find Rachael's apartment on my own.  I've spent a lot of time in New York City, but I'm usually there with other people who lead the way and I just have to follow the entire time.  I wasn't too sure of navigating the city on my own.  Fortunately, Ian gave me excellent directions, and once I was above ground, Rachael talked me into heading the right direction and then once I was close by, popped out of her apartment to get me.  Phew!  I made it.  And then I got to sit and hold little Nolan and talk with Rachael for the next few hours, so what could be better than that???

Tiny babies are so precious!

Ian came home and we all walked around the park some more-- I may have gotten a touch sunburned.  And before I knew it, it was time to meet back up with Sarah and Tracy!  We had tickets to see Something Rotten on Broadway, and had decided to meet up at the Times Square Shake Shack ahead of time.

Now, I'm going to be a touch snobby here and just say: the Times Square Shake Shack is not nearly as good as the one I usually go to over on the west side (I think?  Remember how I don't navigate NY?).  But, it was still really good.  So, no complaints.

Sarah was thrilled to have left all her children's various nut allergies behind, and we spent the entire weekend enjoying everything with peanuts we could find.  Like this concrete:

(That's Sarah laughing at the nut warning!)

And, I blinked, of course.  Oh, well.  That's how you know it's actually me.

We still had some time, so we wandered around Times Square and let Tracy enjoy how busy and crazy it is there.  It's funny, because my sister Tracy (who lived in NY for about 15 years or something) always avoided Times Square like the plague because she hates crowds, so I really haven't spent much time there.  It was fun to show it off to my friend, but I can't say that it's my favorite thing about the city!

Something Rotten was absolutely fabulous.  My only complaint was just that it was so loud (and people were laughing so loud) that I missed a lot of the jokes.  But I still loved it, and have spent the last three weeks singing along with all my favorite songs.  My kids all know "Will Power" and "Hard to be the Bard" now!

We got outside and wandered Times Square a bit more, since it's even more impressive when it's dark outside.  Sarah was pretty wired, but eventually we made it back to our car and back to Leah's house.  I went right to bed (I missed my nap!) but Sarah and Tracy stayed up obsessing over Christian Borle and wondering where we could try to hang out to "bump into" him.  I love these friends of mine!

I meant to sleep in a bit the next morning, but then my eyes popped open and I thought, "I can hang out with Leah!" and then I was wide awake.  Leah had a big event that evening, so she was able to show me the video and slide show she'd helped prepare for it, so that was cool to see.  (Leah does medical fundraising, so the video was very emotional, but lovely!)  And eventually it was time to head back into the city again!

This time, we parked a car on the street near Rachael and Ian's apartment (Ian then helped us re-park it, since we were totally up on the curb) and I went to church with Ian and Rachael and Nolan!  This was Rachael's first time back at church since having the baby, and she was a bit nervous about it, but Nolan slept the entire time, so it was easy-peasy!  Ian had him in the Baby Bjorn, so Rachael didn't have to do anything!

Then I was dashing back across town so we could see She Loves Me.  This is the play which the movie The Shop Around the Corner, and then You've Got Mail, was based on, and it starred Zachary Levi (the voice of Flynn Rider from Tangled!) and also had Jane Krakowski (From 30 Rock and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) in it, so I was kind of excited to see them and they were GREAT.  It was a really fun show and the sets were amazing.  Sarah and Tracy had also managed to get tickets to Finding Neverland, but weren't able to get me a ticket.  They were very concerned that my feelings would be hurt by this, but I was actually just as excited to go spend a little more time with Rachael and Ian Nolan, so I skipped right back up to Harlem after our show and spent the evening once again holding a sweet baby!  By now I was getting much better at riding the subways by myself and finding my way around, so that was great.  What a relief!

We'd also wanted to go to the Stardust Diner-- one of those places where the servers are all hoping to make it on Broadway, so they sing and dance while you eat.  After their show, I met up with Sarah and Tracy and ate a super late dinner there.  (I think at some point during the afternoon I managed to get another concrete from the Shake Shack, too.)  It was fun-- a tiny bit depressing if I thought too much about how many of these actors were really going to "make it" but hopefully their lives will turn out the way they're hoping they will...?  Right...?

Singing waitress!

By the time we got out of there and made our way back to our car in Harlem, it was late and we discovered that Tracy is incapable of not speaking to people who talk to her!  This posed a problem with the random homeless guy on the subway and with the guy who asked what a bunch of white girls were doing in Harlem at one in the morning, but eventually we managed to drag Tracy away and no harm came to us.  It did make Sarah and I very nervous, and we spent a little time lecturing Tracy on proper New York behavior after that.

Home and to bed, and once again I woke up early excited to see Leah before she headed off to work!  Sarah and Tracy had a bit more sightseeing they wanted to do-- I think they saw the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge.  Rachael and I picked up Levain Bakery cookies for everyone and their husbands and I got to see a little more of this cute guy:

Then we met up in Chinatown to buy knock-off purses together.  I really liked the one I got, even though I don't think it looks like any kind of expensive brand (although I wouldn't know, even if it did):

Most of my purses (that aren't a diaper bag) are very small, and I wanted a messenger-style purse that I could fit a book into.  This fit the bill perfectly!

And then it was time to head home!  I was missing Craig and the kids and my shins were killing me.  We found our car (which had been MUCH harder to park on a Monday!) and were on our way.  We thought about finding another Shake Shack for one last concrete, but I was getting pretty anxious to be on our way by then.

The drive home was smooth sailing.  I think the fact that Sarah had an EZ-Pass sped things up considerably.  And even on the beltway, the traffic wasn't bad!

Love seeing the DC temple, and if you can catch it at sunset...!

We stopped and got dinner at Cafe Rio in Manassas before depositing Tracy back in her home.  Then it was back to the airport to find my car, still parked at the Stake Center (which was a relief-- it was in a very dark corner of the parking lot and for a moment I was afraid it had been towed!), return the rental, and take Sarah to Costco where her husband was meeting us, and then home all by myself, arriving around midnight.

It was good to be home again.  Craig had been a super-star and organized the bookshelves in our room and put up my shelf while I was gone so that was awesome.  But mostly it was really good to know that I could still go and do fun things-- not everyone has such great friends and family!

Seriously-- how lucky am I?