New York For Jessica's Birthday!

NYC blog minus pictures. I will be getting pictures next week and will add them.

On April 22nd I flew to NYC and had the first of a long list of vacations over the next couple of months. Jessica Sue was having her 30th birthday on the 24th and my sisters Alicia and Laura and my Mom and I decided that that was a number that should get some special recognition. So...we all flew to her house in NYC where she is working as a teacher at an inner city school(her spanish really comes in handy for this job) and where she just graduated with a Masters in Education. She is one amazing women who has so many things going on. She always seems to be doing something to help someone else. She is awesome!

Anywho... so I got to NYC on Thursday night and we immediately hit the town. Jessica and I meet up with Alicia, Laura and Mom who had been touring all day in the city, and we went for a walk along the Brooklyn Bridge. It was a very cool walk especially at night, and a great opportunity for me to catch up with my family that I haven't seen in a while. Jessica gave us some pretty interesting facts about how the bridge was built and some of the tragedies that came from the building of it. After our walk we went out to dinner. I think it was about 10pm at this point. Only when I am on a childless vacation can I go out to dinner at 10pm. We went to a popular pizza place and had some of the best pizza any of us had ever tasted. MMmmm MMmmm! What a way to start the trip.

The next day we started out with a stroll through Columbia University campus. I loved the older feel of this school. You could tell the buildings were much older with a lot of history.
Then we walked through Central Park. This is one of the places that I didn't make it to last time I was in NYC when I turned 30. It was such an amazing park. Right there in the middle of the city of skyscraper after skyscraper you have this huge area where you get to enjoy nature. It was a brilliant plan from the city planners.
For dinner we went to Chinatown to one of Jessica's favorite restaurants and had real Chinese food. It was actually very good. I loved it and was happy we went. For dessert we went to a place called Rice to Riches. It was just like an ice cream shop but it had a bunch of flavors of rice pudding instead of ice cream. It was interesting. I didn't love the taste of it, but it seemed to be a very popular place. I shared a rocky road rice pudding with Jessica and just kept thinking that if I am going to eat this it might as well be ice cream. :-)

Saturday morning was Jess's birthday! And we started it off perfectly at the temple. She works at the temple every Saturday morning and decided to go even on her birthday. She left about 6am and we caught up with her for a 9am session. I love going to the temple, and loved being there with my sisters and Mom. It was wonderful. After that we headed to an Owl City concert that Jessica's good friend Christy had gotten her tickets for. Christy coming to town was a surprise for Jessica and I am so happy she decided to come for Jessica's birthday. The concert was strange, but it went by quickly. I just cleaned out my pictures on my camera while I waited for them to be done. And then for one of the highlights of the trip. We got to go see "Lion King" on Broadway! I love seeing shows on Broadway and this one was amazing. The scenery and costumes were awesome. I loved it and was so happy to be there. After the show we went out for dessert to Chocolate By the Bald Man. Wow! this was definitely my kind of restaurant. They had so many chocolate choices it was amazing. And I was hungry for real food so I got tacos, but my sisters let me have a bite of their chocolate. So I got the best of both worlds. I will definitely be repeating that experience next time I get the chance.

Sunday was our last day in NYC. We of course started it at church. It was fun to be in a singles ward for the day. Even if Jessica couldn't be with us. She had Stake assignments and had to go to the spanish ward that day. On our way home from church we got to ride in a yellow cab. Yahoo! and then went home for a short nap before we all went our separate ways to catch our flights back home. What an amazingly awesome trip that I can't wait to do again.

On my way home I missed my connecting flight from Atlanta to Augusta cause the plane from NYC took off late. So, I got one more day of vacation and spent the night in a hotel in Atlanta by myself. Then flew into Augusta wide awake instead of late at night and had to hit Target before heading back to Brooklet. :) Perfect ending.