NYC Trip

September 8-13th, 2008: Aaron invited me on a business trip to NYC. He had a conference that he had to go to Tuesday through Thursday and so it was a great excuse for him to invite me. Of course, I was super excited to go. Also, when we were explaining to Aaron's parents that we were going to NYC, they mentioned that they would love to go. So we were able to work it out and they came with us. They checked Kylee out of school for the week and she came along too. It worked out well because while Aaron was in conference meetings, I had someone to hang out with.
We ended up leaving Jade with my parents for most of the time. However, my mom couldn't watch Jade on Monday, so Bobbi Loosli, our next door neighbor to the west of us watched Jade all Monday and into Tuesday. Austin came and picked her up after work and took her down to my parents house on Tuesday night. Jade then spent the remainder of the week there until we got home on Saturday. According to my mom, she did really well and my parents made sure to post pictures of the cute thing so that we could be super homesick.
When we got to NYC, we ended up staying in the Affinia Hotel, just west of the Empire State Building. You could see the Tower from Claire and Roanne's room. It was a perfect location for everyone. It was one block away from Madison Square Gardens, Macey's, the Garment District, the Empire State Building and about a 10 minute walk from Times Square. We got to NYC around dinner time and we decided to do dinner and the Empire State Building. As we were walking the the ESB we say a little dive called Dan's BBQ. I remembered going to a similiar dive when I went to NYC with my family. It's cheap and great BBQ all smoothered in butter. I convinced everyone to go there but it wasn't as cheap as I remembered. The food was good though and just as greasy as I remembered. We then headed over to the ESB and took it to the top observatory. It was $20 a person just to get to the top. That was my first indication that this trip wasn't going to be cheap. We took some great pictures from the top observatory and had a great time just walking around. You could see the twin lights were the Twin Towers used to be. It was beautiful with the lights shining throught the clouds. After the ESB we decided to walk to Times Square to see all the lights. It was a pretty good walk, about 15 minutes and by the time we got there Roanne was pretty tired. She has feet problems and to walk so much was killing her. We stayed and walked around for a while, just people watching and taking pictures. Then we headed back to the hotel and called it a night. For the prices we were playing for the room you think we were staying in the Shangrala but it was an old hotel with a new coat of paint. It was pretty pathetic but I wasn't going to complain. At least I was in NYC.
On Tuesday, Aaron had his conference meeting early and the rest of us slept in until 9am. We got together and picked up brunch at a small cafe that served eggs and pancakes for $5. It ended up being were we had breakfast every morning of our trip we loved it so much. The weather was super rainy and so we decided to stay in doors and see the Museum of Natural History. We had bought these NYC passes that gave us a deal on several tourist attractions. Part of this deal was choosing between the Natural History Museum or the Museum of Art. We took the subway for the first time and that was an adventure making sure we got off on the right stop. The Museum of Natural History was fun but a little disappointing. I guess that is the problem with TV. If you have seen the Discovery Channel it kind of ruins the wonderment of the Museum. But I think everyone had a good time. The rain had stopped by the time we were done with the museum and so we decided to walk through Central Park on our way to a subway station. However by the time we got to the end of Central Park, we were all super tired of walking. We got back to the hotel and took a little nap waiting for Aaron to get back from the conference. We met up and went to a little cafe off of Broadway and 42nd were they are famous for the Reuben sandwich and cheesecake. Aaron and I decided to share on and we ar so glad that we did because the sandwich was a foot high of corned beef. The cheesecake slice that we shared was at least 6 inches high. It was the best cheesecake I have ever had and I ate most of it. :) After dinner we went to the Broadway play "Wicked". Aaron was given free tickets for the entire family by Ben and Jerry, bosses of the copacker that Xango works with. They were able to get us fantastic floor seats at $250 a ticket. It was the highlight of the trip for me. Even Aaron really liked the show. It was a perfect ending to a great, but exhausting day.
On Wednesday, we got a late start and almost missed breakfast at the little cafe. We decided to use our city passes and take a double decker tour bus of uptown Manhattan. It was a perfect day with sun and high 60's. After the tour we took the subway to Canal Street and did some much anticipated street shopping. It was really fun and I think Roanne had a blast buying a black market hand bag and gold "Rolex" watch. After Canal Street we met up with Aaron and went to dinner. We had dinner plans with the Quality Control Director of Victoria. Romi and his wife Hillary took us to a great BBQ restaurant off of Broadway and Times Square. It was really great and Aaron and I decided that if Romi and Hillary lived in Utah we would be good friends.
On Thursday, September 11, we decided to go down to Wall Street and see the Twin Towers. Aaron played hookie from his conference so he was able to go with us. They were having a large memorial service for the anniversary of the terrorist attacks. There wasn't much to see of Ground Zero because they had it fenced off for construction but we were able to get inside a building across from the site and were able to see down into the site...kind of. We did see Senator Obama and John McCain, the two canidates for the presidental campaign walk down to the memorial ceremony. It was neat to think that we were super close to the next president of the United States. That night we took a night tour of lower Manhattan and Brooklyn. We were able to take a photo op on the Brooklyn side of the river and take a photo of the two lights representing the twin towers. It was a neat experience and the weather was great.
On Friday, we took a tour of the Statue of Liberty. It rained all day, which was kind of a drag. Since September 11, they don't let anyone go up inside the Statue of Liberty but it was still fun to walk around her and see the island. Part of our tour inclued a tour of Ellis Island and so after the Statue of Liberty we went to the Museum at Ellis Island. By the time we were done with we were wet and tired but unfortunately we didn't have any time for a nap today. We quickly went back to the hotel and packed our bags. We checked out of the hotel but kept our luggage there. The game plan was to take the train to the Yankee's stadium for a night game then come back, grab our luggage and head to the airport. However, because of the rain, the game was canceled. We had fantastic seats and were there for their last home game in the Yankee Stadium before they tear it down and it was rained out. We sat there for an hour waiting for them to make the official decision but the rain never stopped. It was so disappointing. The way back to the airport with all our luggage was a challenge and after a week of walking we were all pretty tired, especially Roanne. We got to the airport around 1 am but our plane didn't take off until 8am. We had originally decided to just stay in the airport and rough it waiting for our plane but Roanne had a different plan. She ended up convincing Clair that they needed to get a hotel. So we did and slept in a hotel room, all of us, for about 4 hours. It was a lot of money to spend on a 4 hour stay but it was so worth getting to sleep in a bed and shower before getting on a 4 hour flight.
It was a fun week and it was great to see all the sites of NYC but we sure were tired. I had Roanne, Clair and Kylee moving every minute.
Jade did really well at my parent's house. It was good to see her. I sure did miss her. We ended up coming home on Hudson's birthday, so we were able to celebrate it with him and my family.