Summer traveling has officially ended.......(well maybe)

Back from our last BIG trip of the summer.

We're tired and ready to start focusing some energy on things that are going on here.

The business is in a scramble.....need staff immediately.  How different it was from this summer when we were fully staffed up with awesome people.  Well.....that's the way the cookie crumbles (or the pizza tosses).

I still have suitcases sitting on the floor to unpack.

I've got a mouse (or mice) in my house that needs to get taken care of.

Moles in the yard.

Pictures to download and two trips to still document.

House to clean.

The never ending mountain of PZ paperwork that has to be done constantly.  That job will be everlasting.

And a whole lot of remodeling that needs to get done.  We're ready to start on our home rennovations project which will include kitchen, 3 bathrooms, siding, gutters, new flooring throughout the whole house.  Wow!  And I want it all done before the kids get here for Christmas (lol).

Oh yeah.......still have a dumb little dog that I need to get fully housetrained.

So no more traveling for awhile.......except I plan on taking the older son out for a couple of birthday adventures.....but those would just be little day trips.

Stay tuned for our latest adventures.  We still have almost all of NYC to finish.  But.....here's some pictures that downloaded off of Paul's phone.......it will give you a sneak peek of our New Mexico trip.

Hopefully I can get back to this blog soon.......I have so much to tell you and I need to hurry up and do it before I forget it.......ha! ha!

You know those recipes you see on Facebook?

You know what I'm talking about......the ones that always look so delicious and you see them get shared a million times.

Well this one popped up from my mother one day and I thought I would give it a try.

Upside Down Sweet Potatos.......let's give it a shot and see if we should keep it or if we should toss it.

 

Sweet potatoes washed and lined up ready for duty.

 

Two Sweet Potatoes cut in half and placed in a baking sheet with brown sugar and butter. 

Now they just need to bake for about 45 minutes

So while we are waiting for those taters to cook.....we'll start making the side dishes......

Salad and cruciferous vegetables to snack on!

And here's our finished product.  While I do think that the carmelized sugary and buttery coating on the top was delicious......it didn't seep enough in the potato to flavor it.  I ended up having to add a little more butter and a little more brown sugar to mine. 

I find this recipe good, but I can get the same flavor by just baking my potatoes and adding the stuff when they are done.  It's easier and faster.

And in other breaking food news.......I took a picture of our dinner before I cooked it.  It was the celebration dinner for getting last year's taxes done and turned in.  That's always a great feeling.

So we feasted on grilled Ribeyes, grilled mushrooms with onions and cheddar, and grilled zucchini sticks.   Some nights you just have to go all out and enjoy a feast!

Here we go.......Day 2 in the BIG city!

Day 2 began kind of early for us......we were actually out of the hotel and at the Starbucks by 9am.  We wanted an early start......the weather forecast was HOT HOT HOT.

Here's our little neighborhood Starbucks that we visit every morning.  Right near 87th & Broadway and just a short walk away from our hotel.  If you haven't figured it out yet....my husband does NOTHING and goes NO WHERE until he's had his coffee in the morning.

As we sat in Starbucks we made our plans for the day.  Drank our coffee and juice and off we were to Times Square and see what kind of trouble we could get into for the day.

After perusing through all the tourist documents and pamphlets we could find......we decided we wanted to take a bus tour through the city.  Last time we visited, we did not travel above ground at all (only using the subway) that we really had no clue what it all looked like above ground.

We found a great tour and signed up for two days hop off and hop on. 

While we waited for the tour to began.....we took some cheesy tourist pictures (again), but seriously the view is so incredibly awesome from the top of a double decker bus!

Once the tour started.....I couldn't get enough pictures taken.  It was visually exciting.  I loved hanging my arm over the side of the bus and grabbing as many street shots as I could.  So.....just enjoy these next few pictures and I'll tell you what they were (if I remember) as we go along.

 

Times Square in the daytime

 

Paul is plugged in and listening to the tour guide!

Darn it.....I so wanted this shot to be good.  But it was hot and I suck at taking selfies!

But my husband sure looks cute!

For some reason.....visions like this just fascinate me. 

The Wall Street Bull.....it was always packed with people taking pictures of it when we went by.

The tall building with the spindle top is the Freedom Tower.  This is the building they built where the World Trade Center buildings once stood.

The Empire State Building as seen from the top of a double-decker bus on a GORGEOUS (but hot) day in New York City!

This is an extremely old church right in the middle of the city

and is also the burial place of John Adams.

 

After completing the downtown tour on the Tour Bus......we hopped off to grab some lunch, research our options for the entertainment that evening, and to just chill for awhile.

 

Our lunch spot was:

 

 

The Iron Bar and Grill.  We shared a cheese stuffed hamburger and a fancy salad and decided that I was going to get my wish fulfilled and see Book of Mormon that night.  Although.....it was really tough to get tickets for that night online.....we wandered over to the theater and found 2 somewhat reasonable tickets.   Yay......I'm so excited.

 

After eating and securing our tickets, we hopped on the tour bus again and began our tour of Uptown Manhattan.  It was getting to be about 4pm and we needed a nap and needed a break at the hotel to freshen up and get changed for the show that evening.  We found the stop at St. John's Church to be a 2 block walk and a 2-stop subway trip to our hotel.

This church was so huge and magnificent.  You could not even get the whole church into one picture. 

We made the walk to the hotel, took a short nap, a shower, and changed into some fancier clothes.....and off to the theater we went (after a short ride on the subway)!  Next stop......Eugene O'Neil Theater.

We had amazing amazing amazing seats with box seats right next to the stage.  I felt like royalty and our view was amazing!

The show was very funny and I enjoyed it so much.  But now it was late once again and the dinner search was on.  

We found a John's Pizza shop and at 11pm......enjoyed our pitcher of Stella Artois, antipasto salad, and shared a brick oven Hawaiian pizza.

Fabulous way to end an evening.  But it was time to catch the subway home with full bellys and talk about what a wonderful day we had......and the fun that we would have tomorrow!

Yay......it's NYC time (Day 1)

I decided I need to stop and take the time to begin the documentation of this trip (before I forget it).

Our 2nd biggest trip of the summer......
New York City.  (Saturday, July 11th through Thursday, July 16th)

The day started off with one of those stupid EARLY morning flights.  That means getting up at 3:30am.  But.....in order to get to your destination early and enjoy the day means getting up at those ungodly hours.

The flight to New York City took us through Newark, New Jersey.  They gave us such a bomb-ass offer on First Class tickets for both flights that we took the bait and enjoyed all the extra amenities for those who like to travel in style.

First class on this flight included a full breakfast served on real dishes.  We had eggs, oatmeal, fresh fruit, croissant, juice, and yogurt, and sausage and potatoes between the 2 of us.  The only problem was......the food wasn't that great.   Oh well.....we were ready to snooze after we had the opportunity wiped ourselves off with warm wash rags. 

Arrived in Newark and after a long wait finally got our luggage.  We also splurged a little on this leg of the journey as well.....read such bad reviews on transportation options into Manhattan from the Newark airport, so we had a private limo service pick us up and deposit us at our hotel directly.  Didn't get a fancy limo, but we were picked up in a shiny black Suburban with tinted windows and leather seats.  Was nice to have the private and DIRECT ride to our hotel.

Our visit to the city had us staying at the Belnord Hotel again.  We love this small hotel nestled in a quiet Upper West Side neighborhood.  It's so convenient to restaurants, subway, and Starbucks (for Paul).  The hotel doesn't offer any amenities such as a soda machine, coffee maker, or ice......but it's a very reasonable hotel for the city and is away from all the tourist crowds.  The last time we stayed here we had a really tiny room.....this time we had a bigger room (but we're not talking gigantic here either).

Here's what the Belnord looks like:

Since it was around 2pm when we finally got checked in......we dumped our suitcases and headed to find something to eat. 

We found Bodrum Mediterranean Restaurant a couple of blocks from the hotel and while I feasted on a brick oven pizza.....Paul filled up on a Greek sampler plate. 

 

After lunch, we headed back to the hotel and took a quick nap (so we could stay out late and because we got up early) and make plans for the evening.

 

Since all visits to NYC always lead you to Times Square at night......our first mission was to check out the last minute Broadway show tickets at the discount ticket booth.  We jumped on the subway and purchased our week long unlimited riding pass for $31 each.

 

Got tickets for this show:

 

They had you come up on stage and check out some of the things they were going to use in the show.   Here I am on a Broadway stage with my audience behind me.....I've made the big time!

Of course, you have to save everything to keep in your little keepsake albums (the ones that you keep wanting to put together, but always have too many other things going on).

And although my husband broke the first cardinal rule of traveling.....remember to keep all tickets and stubs so that we can put them in our travel keepsake album we are going to make some day.  Unfortunately, the Penn & Teller tickets got washed after being left in his pocket.  Although, I was able to salvage this one.  A little beat up......but now it has a little more character.

The show was entertaining and funny and ended about 11.....so the hunt was on to find some place to eat dinner.  Back out to Time Square......

......where we entertained ourselves trying to take selfies (one of these days we're going to be good at this).

 

Aha!  This is a good one!

There are always things happening and a million people in Times Square.

After walking around for awhile, we really couldn't find anyplace that appealed to us (and we didn't want to eat a big meal)....so we hopped on the subway back towards the hotel.  Lucky for us.....we knew this little Halal truck was right outside the subway exit and one block from our hotel.

Here's the husband ordering our feast.....he ordered Falafel and Rice and I ordered a hot dog.  Hey....it's my first night in New York City......you gotta get a hot dog!

 

 Love this picture.  Love this city.  This picture reminds me of how it is there.  There is also about 1000 of these little Halal trucks all over the city.  Sometimes you'll find 2 or 3 of them right together.  The food is decent, especially late at night.

 

Took the food back to the room and started making the plans for the next day's adventures. 

One step closer to having those pictures here!

Had lots of fun the past week.  Well some of it fun....some of it business.

I did get the millions of pictures downloaded off of the camera onto my computer.....but haven't had time to do anything with them yet.   So instead.......

.........Here's the exciting pictures from the painting event last night.  I learned some things about myself during this activity.  Interesting.  I didn't expect it.  But I want to do the experience again, and see what else I can learn about myself.

Here's the very beginning of this project

 My completed picture.  

 

 Some of the amazing crew I attended the event with

 

 Yes......I was hard at work with this creation!

 All pictures turned out different and beautiful!

It was fun to have a night spending it doing girlie things.  Not something I've had a lot of experience with.......since my whole life has been spent with guys.

Ok.....onto other news.  Why does this dog think she's a cat and can lay on the arms of the sofa?

 Tomorrow we will be celebrating National Lasagna Day.  I had to pretend I was a professional photographer and take pictures of our Lasagna to tantalize people into buying it.  I sure do love this little dog that causes me so much extra work.

And......just to keep you interested in what we did while we were in New York City.....here's a few more pictures just to tease you.  I PROMISE the blog is coming soon of our awesome trip!

 

The end for today!