Oh – and the best part? Our luggage had already made a flight to Minneapolis early AM on the 20th. Next time I fly I am cramming myself into my luggage. :-)

Saturday we woke up and grabbed some breakfast at a small cafe down the street from our Hotel. We walked back to the Hotel changed and headed out to our planned adventure.

First stop was the subway system and learning how to use it (thanks to the Hotel Concierge). Once we figured that out we hopped on the Subway to Ground Zero and saw the new WTC being built. They had about 1/4 of the frame for the new building up and had pictures everywhere as to what it would look like. I thought by now I would be o.k. seeing the site again (hubby and I went in 2002) but I was still emotional at seeing the location. It was such a large thing to have happen to our Country and I will never forget it.

The Concierge also told us about this wonderful store located near the WTC site. He described it as T.J. Max on Steroids. It’s called Century 21. How TRUE it was! The store was packed with people and packed with merchandise. It was 5 floors! Discounted brand name clothing and accessories! I purchased 3 purses and I couldn’t of been more happy with them! We left the store and heading to get some water – it was super hot on Saturday. Terri had realized she set the map for the Subway in the Century 21 store and couldn’t remember where. We rolled the dice, jumped back on the Subway and headed to Chinatown to eat lunch. We ended up walking quite a bit because we got off the Subway to early! It was o.k. though because there was plenty of shopping to do before we got to the restaurant. After we ate we walked through Little Italy where there was more shopping and more eating! I actually found the wonderful restaurant my Hubby and I ate at 8 years ago while we were there. It had a wonderful atmosphere and really tasty Alfredo! I suggest you try to get there if you visit NY!

We walked through SoHo and while we were there I stopped and picked up some water for all of us to drink and had a huge DUH moment. I could download the map of the Subway system and we can find our way home! Once I did that we were only a few blocks from the nearest Subway so we continued to walk through SoHo. We saw a lot of street vendors and one of them was selling old photo’s taken with a old time camera. I turned to my Girl Friend Terri and told her “I have an app for that!” LOL! Cuz I do! :-)

Once we got to the Subway we found out that it wasn’t running and hailed a cab back to the Hotel. That night we were heading to In the Heights! The show was fabulous! I highly recommend you see it while there. The set is fantastic!

We headed back to the Hotel to pack and sleep as we were leaving the next day! :-)

I have the last leg of our wonderful trip left which I will tell you about tomorrow! :-)

I got back from NY on Monday AM when I supposed to get home on Sunday at around noon. I will detail that at the end of this 3 parter.

We arrived on Thursday AM and lugged our bags to the Hilton Hotel right in Times Square. We gave the hotel our bags so that we could walk to Times Square. We had a blast people watching and shopping. When our other girlfriend arrived we headed back to the Hotel so we could check in and take a small nap to get ready to hang out in the evening. My sister and Teri had massage appointments at 3:00 so they headed off to those and Pao and I hung out in the Hotel room and relaxed.

Once the returned to the hotel we were all hungry and heading to John’s Pizza. Which is located in a beautiful building. It was totally packed in there for a Thursday night and the smells were intoxicating!

John’s Pizza was yummy! We had an Appetizer of Sausage pizza rolls and a Salad of some sort,that I can’t seem to remember right now. Then we had a Marghertia (spelling??) pizza. It was so delish!

We headed back to Times Square and people watched and shopped in a few stores before heading back to the Hotel for the night.

Friday we got up and grabbed breakfast on the street corner. If you ever go to NY I suggest you try the street vendors! The food is great and the prices are even better! We then stood in line to try to get Jimmy Fallon tickets for Friday night. We ended up only getting Stand-By and figured it wasn’t worth trying to get in. We figured a lot of the people that were standing in line before us would get in first. Mainly because they went by the # on your ticket. We were 25-27 and Teri (who didn’t come with us) was 45 due to me having to stand in line again to get her a ticket. So she may not have gotten in at all.

After that we took the Subway to Central park and hung out there for a few hours. Terri ended up following us later and we just couldn’t connect so we ended up heading back to the Hotel to get some dinner before the Comedy Club in the evening. The comedy club was put on by Comedy Central for the Premium Blend section of their channel. It was very funny and I am so glad that we went to it!

Those are the first few days of my NY Girls Weekend! We had a blast and I will continue the story in a blog post tomorrow.

There are more exciting things to come – especially the time spent in the airport on Sunday! :-)

I did take pictures to – so I will post those as well!

Wed:

We have always wanted to grow our own veggies. Not sure if we can do it but we made the first step and planted a garden – Here is the are some photos of our lovely garden.

Grass gone:

Completed Garden:

I can’t wait to plant veggies! Any good ones you can suggest?

We  fixed a loose board on the stairwell, got the water set up for the summer (turned on and hoses in place). We also get all the lawn furniture out of the shed.  The Garden took up a bulk of the day so the rest of the things needed to get done on Thursday.Then we headed off for a drink and some live trivia! Much needed fun after a day of building!

Thursday:  I suggest you take a big breath – this is going to take awhile. ;-)

We washed all the windows inside and outside then added the screens to them for the summer. Then I opened up all the windows so that we can finally get some fresh air in the house.

We moved onto the garage next. We completely cleaned out the garage – dump pile and all.

We then headed to the shed. We cleaned out the shed completely reorganized and move some extra things from the garage to the shed.

Then we went and got an Aerator and we aerated the lawn. This pops out little bits of grass that free up some much needed space for our grass to grow.

I returned the aerator then ran to the Gertens Dump to get rid of the sod we picked up doing the garden bed, ran to the library, got my nails done and then shopped for our quests tomorrow.

Now Hubby and I are going to walk to the mailstop to get our mail and come home and crash on the couch.

Whew I am tired just writing all this!

BTW- dinner tomorrow night is going to be Chicken Pot Pie (completely allergy free) and chocolate covered strawberries for desert!

I will take pictures!

OH – I have a blood draw on Saturday!

I am finally over all my birthday glutoney and ready to return to the world of sweaty people at the gym. Starting today I will be hitting the gym twice a day til the end of the month. During the weekends I will do an extended workout that won’t require me to get sweaty twice in one day. I am on a mission to be ready for a trip to NY with friends in June. That is if I still intend to go. Not sure on that one yet. Flight prices are looking expensive. But we have a hotel right in Times Square which would make it a ton of fun!

Psyching myself up for my afternoon workout.

TTFN!

Cleveland, OH – saw the Rock N Roll hall of fame

Niagara Falls – TOTALLY AWESOME! We did Maid of the Mist and Cave of the Winds. Sooo cool.

Philadelphia, PA – learned a ton while there. It was more interesting to go there during an election year I think. We got to see Paddy’s pub which was cool.

Chicago, IL – Sears Tower, Navy Pier and Magnificent Mile (for some reason I always call it the Miracle Mile).

All in all we spent approx. 40 hours driving last week. Almost a full work week. I had a good time and will post pictures soon.

It has been awhile since I got back but I just realized tonight I still had the photos on the camera. Once they finish downloading I will place them on here for viewing. I went to Wisconsin Dells with a few friend and my sister. It was a nice relaxing 4 day weekend and I was sad to head back on a Monday knowing working a full day was just right around the corner. Here are a few pictures from that trip:

Friends

Lake Delton

Infinity pool into Lake Delton!

Our trip was fun and we are planning a girl’s trip to Sturgis next year. Not too sure yet if I can afford to go our not. I am about to take another vacation – this one driving the east coast. I leave in 2 days! I can’t wait.

My Wisonsin trip looked fun no?