Cookies in the City

NYC takes a lot out of me. Jackson loves it. I have more of a love/hate relationship with it so it was no surprise that by Saturday morning I wanted to hide from all of the people. Jackson wouldn't hear of it so he walked me to one of my favorite lunch spots, Cosi (we had one in my work building in Boston that I visited nearly daily). It was delicious and I was ready to take on the crowds again.


Jackson found a less crowded entry into Central Park (bless his heart) and we soaked it all in. I will say that there simply is no city park in the world that I've been to than can rival Central Park! It is just almost electric.

Views from the park

You know how I feel about trees!

Cute boy!

We wandered through to the Upper West Side to visit a bakery I'd seen a ton of social media postings about in recent weeks, Levain Bakery. We waited about 15 minutes (which I hardly noticed as we made friends with a college girl in line behind us) and then had the most delicious cookies ever. You cannot eat in the bakery so we walked the 3 blocks back to Central Park to enjoy them. These are 6 ounce, 1 inch tall monsters that go for $4 each. They only have four flavors: chocolate chip walnut (we bought 3!), chocolate with chocolate chunk (not our style), oatmeal raisin (too likely infested with cinnamon) and dark chocolate peanut butter chip (we bought 2!). That's right, we spent 15 minutes waiting on $20 worth of cookies. Only in NYC! You've just never had anything like these cookies before, though, and if you're ever in the area certainly stop on over.

The cookie line

Best. Cookie. Ever.

Once we'd finished the equivalent of one cookie each and proclaimed we would never need to eat a sweet again, we headed back to our part of town. We stopped at the Columbus Circle shopping area for a bit before heading back to our room to escape the predicted afternoon rainstorm that never happened. Oh well, I was cool with recharging my batteries for a bit before a night out. 

Date night

We wanted to do a nice dinner to celebrate my birthday a bit early so we headed to an Italian place recommended by the concierge. It was a cozy little restaurant and the salads we had were quite good. The entrees turned out to be less than stellar and I sent mine back unable to eat it because it was just so salty. The restaurant agreed that the dish was subpar and refused to let us pay for a thing! Now that's service. We were so impressed. Again, we left a fair tip because we aren't animals. While I don't think I'd go back to the restaurant, I certainly will not leave a poor TripAdvisor review since they so quickly addressed the letdown.

I have a crush on him!!!

Since I didn't actually get dinner we walked down to a Chick-fil-a and I ordered nuggets for dinner. Ha!! :) This was the busiest restaurant ever and let's just say we were ready to head out so I ate my nuggets on the street. Who says romance doesn't live in marriage?! ;) We meandered around, sat in Bryant Park for a bit people watching and then called it a night. We seriously walked so much (over 10 miles) that I just couldn't keep my eyes open! It was a fun day, though.

Long Island

Friday morning I accidentally made us sleep late. By that I mean Jackson quietly played on his iPhone while I slept until 9:30! Hey- you explore an entire city and see if you've still got early mornings in you.

Jackson and Kyle

We were fortunate enough to be able to hook up with my dear friend Kyle Feller for lunch at the Bryant Park Cafe. I've known Kyle since my freshman year of high school so it is always nice to catch up with him now that he's 35 and working in the big city. That nice young man even bought lunch for Jackson and I at this cafe which was not inexpensive. What a guy! (Note: we left the tip. Even we are not that shameless! ha!)

Kyle gave us directions on the scenic way to get to the train station to catch the 2:29 train out to visit another dear high school friend, Joe Walker. You may recall that we visited Joe when we lived in Southern California during our Christmas 2014 trip. Back then he and his wife "only" had two little girls. Now they have FOUR little girls! Holy cats that's a ton of little ones but they make it look so easy. They really are rockstars like that. 

Batting practice

Rosalie is almost 6, Ivy is 4, Daisy is 20 months and Violet is 7 weeks! They're all little treasures, too. Oh my goodness are these little ladies polite. The entire visit they called me "Miss Jenna" and would ask if we'd please play with them. We, of course, obliged. We had such a good time. We pitched and they batted. (Ok, mainly just Rose and Ivy. Daisy just ran around having a good time and Violet is a newborn so we let her hang with Momma most of the time!)

They taught me a new game (Jackson was horrified that I had never played) called "red light, green light, 1, 2, 3" which proved to be quite fun for all four of us.

SNUGGLES!

After dinner we all snuggled on the couch for a bit to watch some strange cartoon before heading back outside to continue the fun. We even got the squirt guns out and had a heck of a time. Please note the fight was unfair as Joe is a Marine trained in combat and we're mere civilians!! Ha! The little ladies were naturally on daddy's side so we got SOAKED. We had an awesome time. I taught the girls how to make themselves into burritos with the beach towels and they loved it. So funny. They all had baths while we caught up with Joe before heading back to the train station to head back to our hotel. Would you believe that with 4 kids those kind folks also made us dinner?! Seriously. I told you there were amazing. 

Wild girls!!

Oldest, youngest

This picture is priceless.
Ivy is faking, she was having an awesome time.
That lip, though!!

Our trip back to the city was a pretty quick one. I've become quite a train fan! We roamed around the city for a bit before admitting that it was like 9:30 and we were exhausted. We returned to the hotel and caught "The Martian" on HBO before calling it a night. (Good movie, by the way!) I know, guys, we are truly exciting. ;)

City explorers

I slept so well in this hotel room that it was 9:30 a.m. before I was awake. Whoops! I got up and at it quickly after that and we headed out for a day of exploring parts of the city that we'd not seen in previous trips. We wanted to see NYU's campus so we started the 3 mile walk that way.

Lunch and some emails 

A pretty church near NYU's campus

We grabbed some lunch at a hummus spot (yum!) near campus. We stopped in the bookstore but the school's color is purple which is my least favorite so I did not buy a shirt. Also, the bookstore wouldn't let me pee (I hate having to pee in big cities) so I opted not to do business with them. So there, NYU! Ha! :) (Note: we ended up having to buy a Starbucks drink to use the bathroom there. Sigh.)

From NYU we walked down to One World Trade. We were going to go the 9/11 museum today, but the weather was just so lovely it seemed silly to spend hours inside so we kept moving.

One World Trade

The view from Battery Park

We walked down to Battery Park which is just lovely. We'd always heard that riding the Staten Island ferry was worth doing because it was free and offered awesome views of the city so we did that. It was great and I cannot believe it is free! The views promised did not disappoint.

Lower Manhattan from the Staten Island ferry

Lady Liberty

Jackson with Lady Liberty!

Once we finished with the ferry ride we decided to walk to Brooklyn to eat an early dinner at a pizza place we loved last time we were in town.

Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge

Ok, people romanticize crossing the Brooklyn Bridge. They should not. It sucks. It is so crowded and people just suck. They stop in the middle of the walkway and just hold up all progress to take selfies. There is a bike lane that the bikers take very seriously (read: the bikers are assholes). The whole thing has been ruined by selfie sticks.

Dinner spot in Brooklyn

Such a loving look at the pizza

Sadly, our pizza place was not as amazing as we remembered it being. We did still enjoy it, but it just was not life changing as it has been previously. After our early dinner we headed down to the waterside park. I had a famous Brooklyn Creamery ice cream cone (so good!).

"I'm going to pretend to photograph you, but
I'm really getting the monks!"

My handsome date

We hung out by the water for a bit before crossing the Brooklyn Bridge again. That was my last time walking across that darned bridge. Ever. It sucked. We got back to Manhattan and mapped that it was 3.6 miles to our hotel. We'd already logged over 11 miles so we opted for the subway. We took the 6 train to Grand Central station. It is always really fun to come into Grand Central. It is such a gorgeous place! We wandered back from there to our hotel to settle in the for the night. Jackson needed to catch up on some work stuff so I watched The Martian (really great!!). 

Adorable little worker bee

Tomorrow we are headed out to Long Island to visit some old friends from high school. It should be a great day!

New York, New York

This afternoon I caught a flight to LaGuardia at 3:10 p.m. while Jackson caught one at 5:00 p.m. due to the price difference when booking. Jackson had been coming out to New York for work, but at the last minute that trip was canceled. We decided to go ahead and keep our tickets and just spend all of our time in NYC instead of up in the suburbs where he was scheduled to work. My flight ended up being slightly delayed so I only waited for Jackson for about an hour. 

He has this silly thing about wanting to be greeted by a person holding a sign whenever we land at airport so I made him a little sign and held it up as he deplaned. :) It is the little things, people! 

The "sign" I held up for Jackson on my iPhone at the airport

We took our first uber ride from the airport to the hotel. We had a $30 coupon from our bank so the ride was only $1! Score!! It was such an easy process that we totally understand why people swear by the service. Basically you open the app, tell them where you'd like to go and then they dispatch a car for you. That is it! The fare is automatically charged to the card on your account so you don't have to worry about having cash or haggling with the taxi driver. Amazing. I cannot say enough about it!

We cashed in some more free nights with IHG here at the Intercontinental Barclays on 48th & Park Avenue. This is a pretty fancy place that reopened after an 18 month remodel. The rooms are now supposed to look like Park Avenue residences do and, based on the movies, I think they succeeded!

The entryway

The bedroom complete with a real fireplace

The shower

Bathroom

We are quite pleased with the size of the room and how clean it is. We settled in quickly and then headed out to grab a late dinner. We have an Italian place that we have always really enjoyed so we strolled about 1.5 miles and tucked in for a meal.

Pazza Notte for dinner- Jackson's
dish was delivered just after I snapped this photo

The menu had changed a bit since our last visit, but our dinners were still really great. It was a busy place and the noise was really something. The City sure has a different buzz to it than any other place I've ever been. I like it! After our dinner we did a little sightseeing before returning to the hotel for the evening.

The MetLife (Grand Central) all lit up

One of my very favorite things is being able to walk to dinner and then stroll home afterwards. It was a lovely, chilly evening and we look forward to exploring tomorrow!

Weekend at home

We spent the week adjusting back to life in America. Jackson worked some and then his Eurocold flared up again and he was down for the count. We all know men aren't great at dealing with being sick and he was the biggest baby on the planet. I was SO ready for him to feel better so I made him go to the medcheck. He got some meds and was quickly on the mend. Whew. 

At the doctor then with his nurse 

I was lucky enough to get to have lunch with Shaya and her kiddos.

Serious cuteness.

Adorable lunchers

Square Donuts opened in downtown Fishers so we walked down there on Sunday morning. 

Goodies!!

Let's just say they are a welcome addition to the neighborhood! YUM!

We got together with my dad and step-mom for an early birthday dinner at Logan's. It was delicious and always nice to catch up with them.

We also hosted Susie for a late Memorial Day cookout after which we walked with MacKenzie down to Handel's for ice cream.

Begging

Pup cone!

I see now that it appears we did a lot of eating in our adjustment week- ha! :)

Happy Friday!

I'm obsessed with this video of Sir Liam. How cute is this kid?! 

Happy Friday! :)

We're home (for now!)

Whew! We left our hotel in Vienna at 12:30 a.m. EST and crawled into bed in Fishers at 9:30 p.m. EST the same day. It was a long day, but it is still amazing that you can wake up across the world and still sleep in your own bed that evening! 

The flight from Vienna to Newark was 9.5 hours and we were seating in the middle of a 2-3-2 plane setup. I was in the middle of the 3 section even. Yep. It didn't turn out too bad, though. The seats were actually pretty roomy and the inflight entertainment had such new movies that the time passed rather quickly and painlessly.

Throughout our air travels on this trip we watched a ton of movies. The listing is below:

The Big Short (very interesting film that we both watched and enjoyed), 

Steve Jobs (Jackson finished that one, I got bored), 

How to be Single (HILARIOUS! We both loved this one!), 

Entourage (Jackson watched and called it lame), 

Star Wars (the new one! Jackson watched this. Not me. I want to die without ever seeing a Star Wars film.) 

Safe House (a CIA-based thriller that I really enjoyed and Jackson found an odd choice for me)

Concussion (SO GOOD!! Jackson refused to watch it for whatever reason.)

The Intern (really, really good film that made me hate Anne Hathaway a little less)

Yep. We watched a ton of movies! That is what happens when you're trapped in a tube in the sky! The best part about United and their affiliates is that movies are free so if they're not good (looking at you Steve Jobs) you can turn them off with no guilt! 

I also recently got a United credit card to get some free flight points which made us get an upgrade on the short flight from Newark to Indianapolis. We just got Economy Plus (not first class!), but the extra leg room was nice even for this short girl! All of our flights went really smoothly and we were home right on time.

Reunited with this little fur-ball! 

We got Jackson's rental car and headed for home! We were able to unpack, start laundry, shower and go get MacKenzie before hitting a wall and needing to go to bed finally. A 21+ hour day did us in! 

American breakfast!!!

I was up early this morning (5 a.m.!) without an alarm because I am a little screwed up on time so we got around and went to Cracker Barrel for a yummy American breakfast. (Read: we had ZERO food in our house and were starving since we had not eaten since yesterday afternoon in Newark's airport!) It did not disappoint. The drinks were cold and icy with free refills and all. Amazing! ;)

Jackson is back to work this afternoon and I'm catching up on errands and laundry. It feels good to be home. For now. We leave again on the 8th for 5 days in NYC. Woot. :)