Philly

Hey check it out!  I am finally getting around to posting about the final two days of the trip I took way the heck back in April.  Go me!!

Sunday afternoon we said goodbye to New York and headed to Philadelphia.  We had the whole rest of the day to ourselves so after checking in at our hotel we set out to explore the city.  Hubby has been there many times but this was my first time in Philly.

Aren't we cute in our matching shoes? 

Behind me is the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  Do you recognize those steps leading up to the museum?

Those were the steps that Rocky ran up when he was training.  Sidenote:: I swear one of the Rocky movies is always on t.v. and hubs is always trying to make me watch it.  Last year when I mentioned that I wanted some new music for working out Hubs took the liberty of downloading some music from the Rocky movies for me.  Gee, thanks that's exactly what I was wanting.  :)

If you can't tell from the pictures it was an absolutely gorgeous sunny day. Yeah, not so much!

That night we walked around the corner from our hotel to The Melting Pot.  I wanted to have a nice slow relaxing dinner since we were kid free.  I can't think of a slower dinner than fondue.  It was so tasty and the best part was of course the dessert.  Here's some photos I found on my phone of the yummy-ness we ate.

The next day we headed out in the rainy weather to see more of the city, this time with the international students. 

That guy behind us would NOT move. at. all.   The lady taking our picture was trying to hint for him to move but he would not budge one bit.

Here I am in the room where the Declaration of Independence was signed and I am eyeing the chandy!!  Isn't it a beauty?

My second day in Philly went by way too fast and before I knew it I had to leave Hubby and catch my flight back to Atlanta.  Or rather I had to go sit at the Philly airport for a while since my flight home got delayed.

 Remember how a few months back Hubby had his first celebrity sighting and I was saying I wanted mine to be Jack Bauer?  Well as I was getting off the plane the guy that was walking next to me mentioned how he heard that Queen Latifah was on our plane.  Since neither of us saw her I didn't really know if this was true or not.  So fast forward a few minutes and I am going down the escalator and talking on the phone to hubby telling him that maybe Queen Latifah was on my flight.  I hang up and look in front of me and there was a person wearing a black hoodie with the hood pulled up over their head.  The person turned around to talk to the person behind them and low and behold it was Queen Latifah!  At this point we were stepping off the escalator and boarding the trains to get to the baggage area.  Of course I totally jumped on the same train as Ms. Latifah {it also happened to be the closest train to us}  Anyways, I was literally standing right next to her.  Some dude was totally pulling a "I'm your biggest fan" and chatting her up but good.  I thought about asking to take my picture with her but it was about 10:30 p.m. at this point and I was tired and didn't want to bug her.  The girl next to me totally turned to me and mouthed, "OMG, I think that's Queen Latifah!!!!!!!!!!!!"  I think she is so pretty in her movies but in person she is seriously drop dead gorgeous.  I wish I looked that haute without make-up on. 

Sorry Jack that you weren't my first but I still think it would be cool to run into you sometime.  Until then.....

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everything but the kitchen sink!

Lately all of our time and energy has been going into prepping the house to sale.  Ben is doing some final touch-ups around the house on top of his job and his last semester of school {thank goodness only  four more months of that}. There are so many unknowns right now that it makes my head hurt: Will our house sell?  Should we try to rent it? If it sells should we rent another house until we move to R.I.?  Should the littles and I move home to OK for a few months? AND will we get our orders soon so we can actually have the Navy pack out our household goods should our house sell.  AHHHHHH.  I'm trying not to get too stressed out and really trust that God is in control and remind myself daily that I am indeed not.  If you have a second a prayer would be greatly appreciated.  

Now on to some more fun and interesting happenings...........

Last Wednesday we went to Lake Harwell with Hubby's department and his international students.  Every once in a while families or couples in the community invite the international students to their homes.  Often it is for dinner or BBQ but sometimes it is to their lake homes in the area.  I always try to go to these event if I can especially to the lake ones!

We went on several different types of boat including a paddle boat just the four of us.  Went to this same lake house last year when Noah was just shy of 2 and Graham was only 4 months old.  It was fun experiencing the lake through their eyes this year.

I love this shot of Grammy sitting with his daddy. Check out his new mini Sperry's!

The boys swim hats always remind me of Will Smith on Fresh Prince.  Did he have a baseball cap similar to these with the flap flipped up or did I just make that up?

This is what the Georgia humidity does to our hair!  Myself included of course.

On Friday night we left Graham with my friend and Ben and I took Noah out to eat and then to see his first ever movie at the "eater" {that's theatre for all of you not verse in toddler lingo}  We saw Toy Story 3 in 3D which he loved even though the glasses were giant for his face and wouldn't stay on.  

On Saturday evening we went to a minor league baseball game with our good friends.  They have two little girls almost the same age as our boys. Actually our little guys are going to marry their little girls.  I have already pre-arranged their marriages! just kidding. sort of.

We bought tickets for the lawn area as we thought that would be best for two families with four kiddos under the age of three.  As you can see they had oodles of bouncy things but only one of them appropriate for our toddlers. Talk about a tease!

Graham's future wife!

What's funny is that I couldn't even tell you who won the game or who the Braves played!  Actually I know it was the chiefs but I couldn't tell you what city or state they were from.  I really don't think I actually watched one single play. How sad is that?  Going to a baseball game with little ones is definitely not relaxing but I still thought it was fun and I'm glad that we went.

  I think this might have been the only time Graham actually sat down on our blanket.  The rest of the night either hubby or myself had to walk with him around the stadium.  That child is definitely always on the go!

We ended the week on Sunday with a lazy Father's day.  We got hubs a few small presents one of which was a gallon of his favorite sweet tea from a local eatery.  We don't get it very often {actually we never have before} because it is almost $5.50 a galloon.  Maybe I should go into the sweet tea business?

Happy Wednesday everyone!!

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New York:: Days Two and Three

If you missed Day One of my trip to NY you can read about that here.

On Saturday morning we weren't able to sleep in very well so we got up and wandered about the city a little.  We hit up the Jamba Juice across the street from our hotel for a quick breakfast.  I love Jamba's smoothies and unfortunately haven't lived near one for a few years now. :(

With our smoothies in hand we set off towards NBC studios.

I sure hope it's just the way I was standing but for some reason I look three months pregnant in this picture. I don't know about you but I don't think it's fun to look pregnant when I am in fact NOT expecting a baby!!  

Anyways, across the street folks were lining up to get into the NFL draft.  I know it's way past the point now but I have to mention that our home team had the number one and fourth draft picks. :)

We stopped by the NBC store briefly hoping to pick up a little mini "That's what she said shirt."  Unfortunately they were fresh out of the size we needed. 

After that we met up with Ben's students to rondevu on yet another bus tour.  If you are counting yes that would be bus tour number three.  I was seriously about to loose it if I had to sit on another bus for two more hours.  I wanted to get out and experience more of the city by foot so we hopped off after ten minutes and landed in SOHO.  

The one place I wanted to go to during my NY trip was to So Good Jewelry.  My friend Cronan always has the BEST jewelry and every time i ask here where she got something her reply is usually the same. "This jewelry store I always go to each time I am in NY."

So we finally tracked down the So Good store and Ben let me take my sweet time looking at all of the jewelry.  In case you can't tell from the picture the entire left wall is nothing but necklaces and bracelets.  The tables in the middle have rings, hair clips, and headbands.  And the entire right wall of the store was filled with earrings.  And the great part? A lot of the jewelry was really cute and the best part was that it was all $20 or less per piece.  I walked out with two necklaces I love and spent a little under $35.  

After leaving SOHO we headed toward South Street in Seaport to the TKTS booth to get our half price broadway tickets.  On the way there we passed by ground zero and as you can from these pictures there is lots of construction going on.  

We also passed Wall Street and the New York Stock Exchange.

And around the corner was a fancy little sports car.  We stopped to take a quick picture of it so Ben could send it to his sister.  They had some game they played growing up similar to the slug bug game but with Ferrari's.

See that restaurant there in the background {The Capitol Grille}?  If you have never been there and you like steak then you should definitely go.  Their steaks are amazing.  The best I have ever had by far.  Hubs and I went there for our first anniversary many moons ago and I still dream of the steak I had for dinner.

Finally we arrived at the TKTS booth at South Street Seaport.  We stood line for 30 minutes or so to try to get some discounted broadway tickets.  Unfortunately they didn't have any tickets for Wicked or The Lion King, which were my top choices for shows to see.  They did have tickets for South Pacific which was hubby's top pick so we went for that.

With our tickets in hand we walked less than a block to the waterfront to grab some lunch.  While there we each had a slice of the best pizza either of us had every eaten.  It was SO good!!  If I remember {a month and half later!} it had mozzarella, fresh basil, and tomatoes on it. My all time fav. pizza.

That afternoon we were scheduled to meet back up with Ben's students for a tour of the UN. They met us at Seaport and we all made our way to the UN together.

The tour was definitely not anything to write home about but it was fun just to be able to go to the UN once.  After our tour we headed back to our hotel room for a little siesta.

That evening we set out to find a certain place for dinner. My sweet friend Caroline had emailed some places to check out if we had time so we decided to go to one of those for dinner.  She told us to go to the Parker Meridan and look for a hamburger sign.  We finally found this tiny little hallway with a neon hamburger sign at the end of it.  We got in line not really knowing what we were doing. 

We finally rounded the corner through the door and stepped foot into a teeny tiny hole in the wall hamburger joint. 

They had a very basic menu that consisted of just hamburgers, cheeseburgers, cokes, shakes, and fries.  All of the tables were full while we ordering and I was starting to wonder where in the heck were we going to sit when we got our food.  Finally at the last second a booth in the back {practically in the kitchen} opened up. 

It seemed like there were a lot of locals coming in after work and grabbing food to go.  It was so random that this place was in the lobby of a swanky hotel but the food was good! {Thanks Caroline!!}

Excuse the crappy phone picture but I wanted to capture our dinner.

Next up we went to FAO Swartz.  I wanted to just pop inside and check it out since we were near by.  We contemplated this batman made entirely of Legos but decided in the end to leave him in NY.  He cost $27,000 dollars if you can believe it!!

We still had a little bit of time to spare before our Broadway show so we wandered over to Central Park.  We set down on a bench and watched a baseball game that was in progress.  The weather was a little dreary but it was nice just to sit for a little while in the park and watch people coming and going. I could have hung out there all day!

I wish we would have had somebody take our picture together but nobody walked by right at that second.  So you are stuck with me and my windblown hair in front of the Lincoln Center.  That is one of the necklaces that I got at So Good by the way.

You weren't really supposed to take pictures in the theatre but I quickly took this picture with my phone before the show started.  We both really enjoyed going to a broadway show and I wished we could have gone to more than one.  I thought for sure people were going to be really dressed up but they weren't.  There were only two couples that I saw that were wearing black tie attire and everyone else was super casual to business casual.  I even saw one whole family decked out in sweatshirts and shorts.

Unfortunately it was raining as we excited the theatre which made for an interesting walk back to the hotel.  We had planned to go to the Empire State building after our show and decided to venture back out into the rain.

We didn't take very many pictures while we were at the top because it was so rainy and yucky.  At least we were able to get one picture in of the both of us.  

On the way back to the hotel we walked by the fashion district.  I know this next picture is crazy fuzzy so in case you can't read the words on the building it says, "Parsons. The New School for Design."  My bestie and I are BIG Project Runway fans so I had stop and take a picture.  It was shortly past midnight and raining so sorry for the worst picture ever. :)

The next morning {Sunday} we were scheduled to go on a harbor cruise to see the statue of liberty.  The weather was pretty crappy and rainy but I still wanted to go ahead with our plans.  Who knows if I will ever make it back to NY and I didn't want to miss the Statue of Liberty.

Ben's boss was on board with us so I asked him to take a few pics of us together.  It seems that once the boys came along we never ever have any pictures of just us anymore. 

Is anyone still reading this crazy long post?  :)  If so stay tuned for my post about Philly!!

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