Start spreading the news.....it's Day 3 in New York City!

Let me just start off by saying (in case you've never heard me say it).......I LOVE THIS CITY!  I seriously would love to live here for a year.  It's such a vibrant and alive place.....hard to describe it unless you've seen it for yourself.  I can see why so many people live here.

Well we begin Day 3 with a continuation of Day 2.  We had gotten off the tour bus close to our hotel for 2 reasons:
1.  So that we didn't have to go far to get ready for the show last night
2.  So we could begin the tour in the same place we got off yesterday and not be very far from our hotel. 

So after the usual stop at Starbucks.....we jumped on the subway and headed towards the church stop we got off yesterday.

While I was waiting for Paul to get his coffee.......I sat in the middle of Broadway on a bench and just enjoyed how beautiful this street was.  It was so relaxing.

When we got off the subway at our stop to find the church.....we walked down the street and discovered this AMAZING pop culture trivia spot.  The restaurant where they filmed TONS of Seinfeld episodes.  How amazing that was to stumble upon this iconic spot!

After jumping on the tour bus.....we enjoyed the trip to Grant's Tomb and the Apollo Theater in Harlem (I had pictures of both, but can't locate them at the moment).  We were getting hungry and trying to figure out where we were going to jump off the bus at this point.

We ended up getting of at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  The building was huge and magnificent.  I seriously couldn't get the whole building in one picture.

We spent a couple of hours here and barely scratched the surface of all that there was to see. 

Magnificent paintings from famous, famous painters

I enjoyed taking pictures of my husband taking pictures of pictures......(what a mouthful)

Here's the picture he was snapping:

 

 

We saw unusual sculptures.

 

 

The highlight was going to the top floor garden and capturing magnificent pictures of the city. 

We tried taking a selfie......but wasn't too successful at capturing the city in the background!

We ended up having to do the bartering system of "will you take a picture of us.  We'll take one of you".  It works pretty much most of the time.   Here's the pic they took of us!

 

 

We left the museum and the next destination was lunch.  We hopped back on the tour bus and Paul scrutinized the bus route to find the best place to get off and enjoy lunch

As he studied the map, I amused myself taking practice selfies

Yes, my husband does know that I am a weirdo.......but a fun one!

We got off the bus and spent the next hour trying to find the perfect place for lunch.  As we walked around.......we spied a rat and it looked like a good place to take a picture.

Unfortunately for us......we ended up eating at this place:

 

The hamburger was undercooked and the hot dog they gave me was plain with nothing on it.  But it was hot and we just needed to rest our feet for awhile.

 

After lunch.......we once again pulled out the tour bus map and plotted our journey to get hooked up with the tour bus again.

 

But the rest of the day will have to be detailed later........................

 

 

We interrupt the trip to NYC to bring you this announcement:

I sat down briefly last night and started writing NYC Day 3, but there was so many pictures and my time was so limited, that I didn't get very far with it.

So......because I don't have the time right now to finish it.....I'll just interrupt it with the awful pictures of my feet.

4 days before we left for Santa Fe, I unfortunately partied a little too hard and was confined to the bathroom all night long.  Well this left me dehydrated and my body didn't react too well to that....so the next afternoon my legs just cramped up like straight sticks and my feet cramped into weird positions and wouldn't let me walk.

We had to call an ambulance because I couldn't walk, Paul couldn't hardly lift me because my legs wouldn't bed, and I had no clue how I was going to sit in a car so he could drive me to the emergency room.

The diagnosis was dehydration and I just had to lay in a bed for 5 hours and enjoy 3 bags of IV fluids.  Slowly my legs returned to normal and my feet finally straightened out.

It sure does suck to be old.  This will serve as a reminder that I'm not in my 20's anymore and I need to cut back on the partying a little.

Luckily, by the time we left on Saturday, I felt much better and was pretty much back to 100%

Thursday night before we left, one of our driver's got in an accident.  This is one of those things you hate to get the phone call......that one of you driver's has been in an accident.

This guy was taking a left and someone ran a red light and he hit them.....and caused her van to roll over.

This was his vehicle.  Luckily no one had any serious injuries in this accident.  However, the other car really took a beating from that crash.

Tomorrow we have our pizza party for the shelter and we have a fundraiser for another restaurant this week.  They are closed due to a fire iin their building.  Just too many things happening this week.

I need to start getting some of these pictures off of my camera......it's starting to get too full.

I need 42 hours in a day in order to get on top of everything.......boo

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!