Day 2 NYC

Day 2, as stated in the earlier post was on the tour bus. But later that day we walked around a little at Rockerfeller Center with the plan to go to the Top of the Rock. We ended up deciding to wait on getting tickets and then unfortunately didn't go up. But this first picture was a cool chandelier that was hanging in the lobby. Then we hunted down a place to get risotto, and found Risotteria, that served mostly risotto dishes. So we took a taxi down to I think the Lower East Side. Taking a taxi ride is quite an experience too!!! Boy, do they know where their horns are!

I had a 3 mushroom risotto, and Jery had a risotto with Italian sausage and something else. Both were very good but very rich and we couldn't eat the whole plate!

The Risotteria menu.
The area of town the restaurant was in.
A little park nearby where we caught the tour bus to take us back uptown to the location of the Night Tour.
The niight tour was pretty cool. We got see many different places than we saw during the daytime tour, including a bus ride over the bridge to Brooklyn. We found out that Brooklyn has 3 million people in it alone and if it was it's own city, it would be one of the biggest cities in the States. The view of Manhattan was beautiful was there and we got to see the big waterfalls that the city has built.

We enjoyed the tour very much. It was a beautiful night, and if we weren't on the tour bus, we probably could have hung out down there for a while. There's a supposedly excellent pizzeria over there too, that had a line going down the sidewalk to get into. Would have been fun to try it!

New York City Day 1 and 2

Our first night in NYC....we went down to Times Square...oh my heavens, there were a kabillion people there! It was hilarious. It was literally like you see on movies about nyc. People everywhere. What I think it amazing is that pedestrians don't get run over by cars more often than they do. They start on the edge of the sidewalk but by the time the walk light turns white, most of them are halfway out in the street! They just scoot out a little bit by little bit and before you know it they're in the middle of the street! So this is a picture of the crowds...it really doesn't show what it was really like. I wish I could have gotten up higher above them and take a picture!
The last time we were in NYC, we loved John's Pizzeria. So because we were STARVING...you know, no food on the airplanes, and no time AT ALL between flights to get food in the airports....we decided that we would just go there again because we knew it was good and we knew where it was. It was still fantastic pizza!


Here's our hotel. And below is a picture of the resident cat and her award she's won. It's a beautiful cat, very well cared for, and VERY mellow. She loves to be pet, but the rest of the time she just lays on her couch right next to the front doors and relaxes and sleeps. If BayLea had been here, I could just imagine how much she would have loved that cat!

The next day we bought double decker tour bus tickets. It was cloudy on this day, so my pics don't have a lot of contrast. We headed DOWNtown....toward ground zero and the Statue of Liberty the first day.

So here we are at the church, St. Paul's, across from Ground Zero. This is a place that still carries a lot of emotion for many people, me included. It's a place I could break down and cry. In fact the last time we visited, I did. This time I managed to get out without too many tears. These headstones are just OLD OLD stones, that even the words have been worn off. This church is where George Washington worshipped.
This tree stump is all that is left of a tree that was knocked over by a flying beam when the towers went down. It was the only damage at the church. No windows were even broken here, directly across the street from the towers.

I thought these were beautiful...they are origami done by children from Japan, peace cranes...they were beautiful and there were thousands of them all connected together in long chains.

A picture of a photograph taken on Sept. 11, or shortly thereafter that hangs in the church.
A little park down by Ground Zero. New York City has beautiful parks. Central Park is stunning ( more to come from there!)

One of the four waterfalls the New York City Art Commission built in the East River. Just amazing...15 million dollars to built. They pump water up from the river through pipes and it pours over the top creating a waterfall.

More to come...come back soon! :)

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Tomorrow is Jery's birthday, and so we celebrated tonight. We started out by making an EXCELLENT chocolate cake. Yummy, yummy. Then after a little shopping the kids decorated the cakes.
Check out the look of concentration on Breccan's face!

Tasty tasty!
Mom, Dad, Jason, Ethan and Leah came over. Jason wanted some family pics of him and the kids. They're aren't the best family photos, because we wanted to do them nearby and so we went across the street to the neighbor's house.

And here's a big surprise! While Jery was being sung to and opening presents, Pa....
slept. Uh huh, that's right, he slept right through it. Someday I'll scrapbook a page of him sleeping at my house!
Time to blow out the candles! Hopefully Jery is just getting ready to blow...
I love this picture of Jery and BayLea. She's so funny, she tells him it's 'a little machine for his truck!" and he hadn't even begun to open it.

And then I got some great pictures of Ethan. He loved my hat I bought on ebay. He wanted to keep it and I said "ABSOLUTELY NOT!" Mean ol' Auntie!