New York City!

Eight years goes by in a flash, in an instant. Eight years ago I married the love of my life and started the lifelong intertwining of our paths. God is so good to us in that he created us uniquely different yet, crafted little similarities to incline us closer to one another. He understood our desires, our hopes, and our dreams and was faithful in his unfailing patience with us while we struggled through life up to the point when our eyes first met. I am thankful for my husband.

Josh has never liked big cities so when he surprised me with an anniversary trip to NY to see Wicked on Broadway my heart was abounding with love for him. When I say surprised, I mean I begged him daily to tell me what was up his sleeve! I pulled out all of my resources to persuade him into sharing his secret and I conquered him. It's my power as a wife. These poor men have no chance when we beg like little girls;)

Here's a glimpse of the precariously silly and blissfully romantic fun we had;)

DAY 1-
We packed up our car, kissed our precious child Bella goodbye (leaving her in amazing hands with Nanny & Poppa Earls...we can never thank you enough) and headed north. The drive was gorgeous and we were excited. We arrived in NY and checked into our hotel that was literally one block from Times Square (nice job Mr. Earls)! The very first thing we did was get pizza. I was salivating like a dog at the vision of the large slices of thin crusted goodness... I should have been embarrassed as I downed the pizza before Josh had a few bites of his... I wasn't and I'd do it again, cheese and all. We grabbed Starbucks and headed to central park. This park was bigger and more beautiful than any movie could do it justice. It was stirring with children, roller bladers, models in bikini's (which made me look short and frumpy), homeless men, and business people....just a busy blend of culture and beauty. I was in love. We took a bunch of pictures and saw all sorts of familiar spots we'd seen in movies. We exited the park in front of The Plaza Hotel (as seen in Home Alone 2)...and yes, I did yell KEVIN! to Josh's embarrassment. We headed into FAO Schwarz to see the impressive toy collection. Of course, the first thing we found was the Harry Potter section and just had to put on various Hogwarts sorting hats ...like any two 14 year old tweens would do. Straight up nerds. Then it was off to shop. So many stores, so little time....so little money. Some of the names like Chanel, Tiffany's, Prada.... were right in front of me. I cannot believe people have the money to buy things from these stores....I'm pretty sure when I walked in they didn't acknowledge me (due to the Forever21 shirt I was wearing and my home done pedicure with flip-flops). It was dinner time so we searched for Serendipity, the restaurant seen in the movie Serendipity. It was small and really funky inside and located in a quaint part of town . The food was scrumptious and eclectic. The frozen hot chocolate was to DIE FOR! I'm glad we went out of our way to go there...

We were on our way back to the hotel when we actually experienced a bit of our own serendipity... We were on a random block crossing the street when Josh looked over and saw a familiar set of dreads. Yep, one of his college buddies (who was in our wedding) was walking on the other side of the street with his wife. Josh chased him down and we ended up hanging out with them the rest of the evening. They are a lovely couple and we cannot believe out of the millions of people in the state of NY, we were on the same street at the same time. :) Ok, it was time for bed.... for reals, my feet were bleeding, I actually HAD to by new shoes from Urban Outfitters due to the blood :)

DAY 2
We slept in (which was hilarious because we still were up before 8am--old farts). We grabbed some Starbucks (yes I have a problem) and headed to the place I've wanted to go for 10 years....ground zero. I'm going to write a post dedicated to seeing this because it was so moving inside my heart. In a nutshell, it is life changing seeing the spot. It makes you ache inside and wish time could be reversed for the souls lost on Sept. 11th. I will never forget my time there and the feelings I felt at that moment. After visiting ground zero, we grabbed lunch at a cafe and headed to SoHo. What a funky and fun place it was...tons of shopping and cute cafe's. I went to see the store DASH (the Kardashian's store) and had to wait in line to get in.... silly reality TV fans (oh wait, that's me....deep sigh of embarrassment). Josh gave me the BIGGEST eye roll of all time when I waited in line for that store. After SoHo we headed back to get cleaned up for our big night:) We had dinner at One if by Land, Two if by Sea (check it out). It was one of our favorite dinners EVER! It was not cheap but, well worth it for the experience and the four course meal of literal bliss. It was also terribly romatical;) We hitched cab and headed to the theater to see Wicked. I've seen a ton of Broadway and this was BY FAR my favorite. If you ever get the chance, please do yourself a favor and see it! This day was packed full so we were pooped. Off to bed.

DAY 3
We really only had a few hours to do stuff because we needed to get home in time for Josh's parents to make the trek back to CA. We grabbed breakfast with Josh's friend Ethan and his sweet wife and saw their cute studio apartment. Wow, places in NY are not large but they serve their purpose well....city life is worth the lack of space I think:)

Some of my favorite pics...