Fireworks of our own

Grace brought some fireworks with her from home (I swear. I would never have purchased them for her, but obviously Kathi said it was OK so now she won't kill us!) and saved them until the 5th so Uncle Jack could light them off with her. You can barely see the little girl in the shadows above. Amazingly enough, no one was hurt in this firework display.
They really enjoyed their sparklers.
Jackson is such a little kid- look at his face! It cracks me up.
We're so glad to be Americans and be free to make noise in our neighborhoods at 10:45 on a random Tuesday night.
Our happy little lady. It was so nice that Grace's time with Grammy overlapped our coming home from NYC. We always love to see her pretty little face. :)

Independence Day!

It was a warm day here in NYC and this pup had the right idea- he went for a quick dip in the fountain! :)

We went out on a boat tour this morning to see the city from the water. We had a gorgeous day today. It was a lovely time to be out on the boat.

Jackson was pretty excited to be on the boat. :)

Some people get to come into the city in style- in helicopters! Awesome!

I love the city from the water! Gorgeous!

It was such a cool thing to see Lady Liberty on Independence Day!

After we got off of the boat we went for another bus tour. (This day was all about Jackson! He looooves this stuff.)

I thought this was such a cool photo! My iPhone impresses me.

I love clocks.

We loved this apartment building. Our tour guide claimed that a 2 bedroom apartment there goes for $15,000 a month.

This is the start of the new Freedom Tower (I think they are calling it something else now, but I like Freedom Tower so that is what I'm going to call it).

WALL STREET.

The Chrysler Building is Jackson's favorite. I like it, too. :)

A shot of Rockefeller Center from the tour bus.

We went back to my favorite Italian restaurant for lunch. YUM! :)

One of my former co-workers from Boston went to Columbia University Law so she was very familiar with Manhattan. She suggested stopping at Magnolia Bakery so we did. I had a cupcake. The icing was gross so I had to take it off, but the cake part was good. Jackson had a whoopie cookie that he loved.

This evening we walked about a mile from our hotel to watch the Macy's fireworks. We were there with about 1 billion other people, but who is counting?! ;) I used to get really nervous in crowds- not anymore. I was just right there gunning for a good viewing spot. We got one! It was amazing.

It was so crazy to see 5 or 6 sets of fireworks!

A rare photo of both of us. Obviously taken by me. Jackson liked this photo of himself so much that he wanted to cut me out and make it his Facebook profile picture. Rude! ;)

It was very worth the crowds to see the fireworks. NYC knows how to deal with crowds so it really was not bad at all. The fireworks were just amazing and seeing them in person should be on everyone's bucket list.

Tourism

Today we took a bus tour all around the city. This building is where "O magazine" is headquartered.

The Time Warner center, near Central Park. They're huge.

Hotel Empire! (Any Gossip Girl fans?! XoXo!)

I just really liked the looks of this building.

Jackson liked this building.

We hopped off the bus at St. John's Cathedral. It was the most gorgeous building that I have ever been in. Period.

I just love Gothic architecture.

It is shame that we do not build churches like this much anymore. What an act of worship these gorgeous buildings are.

These windows were just breath-takingly gorgeous.

We thought this restaurant looked like the one on Seinfield!

We also got to go to Columbia University. It was really pretty- like a little oasis in middle of the city.

Tonight we went to dinner at a little place we saw in the movies ("Something Borrowed") called the Shake Shack. It was really good. It was right near this famous Flat Iron building.

We liked the apartment building on the right. It was brand new and just really pretty.

The lines at the Shake Shack was pretty long, but it moved quickly and was well worth the wait. The food was really good and they had a mean Arnold Palmer (iced tea mixed with lemonade-my favorite).

Our walk home provided us with a great view of the Empire State Building. The clouds started rolling in and covering the top of the building. It was so pretty.

We certainly were tourists today, but it was fun! :)

A great day in the City

Today was a great day. We woke up sore and tired after a lack of sleep and too much work at the rental house (see my previous post), but we had a flight to catch- or so we thought. Susie was gracious enough to drop us at the airport (thanks again!) on her way to get Ms. Grace in Southern Indiana. We checked into our flight only to hear that it was sold out and they needed volunteers to go to a different flight. Jackson was able to get $400 Delta vouchers for each of us ($800! I almost passed out!) and meal vouchers and we took a flight that left 2 hours later. It was just not a big deal at all and we got such a great deal. Now we will be heading to Alaska much sooner than we expected. I love Delta for that! :) We got to NYC at about 1:00 and got some free lunch (with our vouchers) and then got in line, for the first time of the day.
Ah, I love a good line for a taxi. Jackson, of course, wanted to know where my Dad and Diana were with their VIP card (inside joke from Vegas). The line moved quickly and soon enough we were in the race car, I mean taxicab, and headed for Manhattan. I just HATE how taxi drivers chose to navigate the highways. We made it to the hotel safely. I consider that a real miracle. We got to our hotel and were shocked at how nice it was. Jackson sometimes leads us astray in an effort to save money. This time he got a great price and a great hotel. Our room is huge (especially for NYC) and clean. The bed is awesome. It is just great. I am so, so pleased. We were able to grab a quick nap (we were just beat!) before we headed out to explore the city for the evening.

I had always wanted to go to the Guggenheim because it was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, a famous architect who also designed a house in Marion, whom I learned about in middle school. I read online that Saturday evenings had "pay what you wish" entry fees so we headed on over to check it out. We were a little disappointed.

This was the kind of "art" that was on display. I am more of a Monet and Van Gogh fan and not so much this abstract stuff. Thankfully, there were some normal displays. There was even one exhibit that was just a room wallpapered in real $1 bills. There was $100,000 on display. We felt like the stars of Ducktails. It was so cool. We were in there for quite a bit just marveling.

We left the museum after being cultured enough for one evening and decided to walk back to our hotel. That sounds simple, but the museum was 3 miles from our hotel. We walked by the Met and made wishes in their fountains.

It was really cool to see the Met. We enjoyed a lot of people watching there.

We cut in and out of Central Park on our walk. I just loved this tree. I love everything about Central Park really. It is such a gorgeous place.

We watched the remote control boats in the Park, too. It was just relaxing to watch them sail around. I loved it.

We eventually made it to 54th & Avenue of the Americas to have dinner at my favorite Italian restaurant ever. That is right, ever. I love their food. Heavenly. We had a fantastic dinner together. It was so nice.

On our walk home we noticed that the Empire State Building was lit up for the good ol' U.S.A. It made my heart happy.

As you can tell, we had a wonderful day. It was honestly one of my best days ever. I just enjoyed my life today so very much. I feel quite blessed and look forward to the fun that tomorrow will bring.

5 reasons why...

I will never be a landlord again.

Oh the dirt. It almost killed me. A big thanks to my Mom for coming down to help me clean. Also, Jackson and his two friends from the golf course painted the whole house in just 6 hours. Everyone was so awesome! We had to shell out an additional $200 to fix the air conditioning unit. It was a yucky day at the rental. :(

I'm just not sure why people do not clean up after themselves.

Oh well. We will just keep her security deposit. ;):)