Foot Torture & The Phantom

Day 3

This was a rough day for me. I was up literally all night, running to the bathroom. This is where using shared facilities became a big ol' pain in the booty (*HAHA* Pun intended!).  Because every time I needed to go, I had to jump up, put my robe and slippers on, find my room key and get down the hall before it was too late. Not a fun night. By morning I just felt like curling up in bed and crying. BUT that certainly wasn't an option because we had stuff to do! *haha*

Even though I didn't feel the slightest bit like eating, we had already scheduled a place for breakfast so we went ahead as planned. Ellen's Stardust Diner is a restaurant with singing waiters and waitresses! It was a lot of fun. They sang mostly oldies but there were a few Broadway and Christmas tunes thrown in, too.

 

After breakfast we went to the Sony Wonderlab, which Jeremy had read about online. It was supposed to be an interactive museum where you could get a glimpse at their new technology and gadgets. Well it ended up being more of a children's museum where most of the exhibits were broken. Then we did some random shopping, including a trip to FAO Schwarz and the Disney store on 5th Ave. 

Eventually we headed back to the hotel so we could change for dinner and a night at the theater. Remember my little black dress find? Well this is the night I broke it out! And the heels...oh dear, the heels. I know that you ladies who wear them all the time will laugh at me, but those shoes about KILLED me. My feet already hurt due to the walking we'd done all day. Add the heels and by the end of the night I really could barely walk. It was horrendous.  Jeremy and I were just laughing as these women would power walk right by us wearing stilettos, and there I was wobbling on glorified pumps. But alas, I looked pretty...when standing still. ;)

We were originally going to eat right across from the theater at John's Pizzeria, which is set inside this old, ornate church and was supposed to be really stunning. But when we got there they were closed for a private party! How rude! So much to me chagrin, we ate at Junior's Famous Cheesecake instead. *tsk tsk* You all know how much I hate cheesecake. ;) Thank God my appetite had returned enough for me to down a piece of New York Style cherry cheesecake. DELISH! Oh, and check out my hubby in his adorable "Newsie" cap that I insisted he wear. Isn't he cute? 

 

So onto Phantom!! I was so excited I could have wet my pants. The theater was absolutely GORGEOUS! It is the exact theater that the show has been playing in since it opened. (Sidenote: We were both surprised at how intimate the theaters on Broadway are. They're really quite small...even a seat towards the back wouldn't have been that bad.)  Our seats were amazing! 

So, the show. First, it was unbelievable to see this story that I have memorized play out before me live on stage. The sets were just massive!! The costumes were beautiful!! It was just fascinating. The chandelier goes straight up above the audience (and crashes accordingly) which was impressive. HOWEVER....*sigh* We had the luck of being there on an unofficial  Understudy Night. We had like three little pamphlets inside our playbill saying "So&So will now be So&So and Such&Such will now be Such&Such and This Guy will now be That Guy."  I think the only "real" cast member on stage that night was Cristine. (And she was good!) But the Phantom...ooooooh the Phantom. He was just about as nasal and whiney as he could be. He was very disappointing to me. Of course, I'm used to Gerard Butler's portrayal which, from what I hear, is a bit gruffer than any Broadway Phantom has ever been. But that's what I'm used to, so this guy was a FAR CRY from that. All in all it was a wonderful experience, but I would have liked to replace the Phantom with just about anyone...hey, maybe the guy who was REALLY cast to play him! *haha*

NEW YAWK CITAY?!? (Like in the Pace Picante Sauce commercial!)

Day 2!

We tried to wake up as early as possible to get our day off and rockin'. After an iconic NY Diner breakfast (complete with waitresses in little dress/uniforms and aprons. Cute!) we headed to Bryant Park to go ice skating at "The Pond," a free rink set up by Citibank. Now, admission is free, but you do have to pay for skate rental which isn't cheap. But I guess in the end it's cheaper than any other rink in the city so we went with it. This was really fun! They had a beautiful tree set up right by the rink and were playing old fashioned music (think Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra).

Plus, we got there early enough it wasn't very crowded. We managed to leave the ice without any blood stains, though Jeremy did take a dive as if he were stealing home base and I got a little too fancy and skidded across a wall. *haha* 

The neatest thing about this time of year (other than the over the top decorations) are the little Holiday shops and markets that are set up in many of the city parks. They have really unique items such as art, jewelry, ornaments, purses, scarves, etc. all from local artists and vendors. Such great places to browse! (And *ahem* buy. *hehe*) 

We found one booth selling these darling hand-painted clocks in the shapes of cats and dogs. They have the dangling wagging tail like those old fashioned black&white kitty clocks. We found one that looked so much like MoJo, it had to come home with us. If they'd had clocks that looked like Wrigs and Cubs (and if they hadn't been as pricey as they were) we probably would have three little doggy clocks lined up on our wall! :)

Bryant Park is directly behind the New York Public Library so that seemed like an obvious next stop. (Plus, by this time the "New York water" was kicking in and I desperately needed a ladies room. *groan*) It's an amazing building. I understand that times have changed and architecture has a different style now than it used to...but really, WHY can't they still build structures like this? They are just breathtaking in all of their detail. The ceilings were so massive that my pictures didn't come out but just take my word for it, ok? ;) Here's a picture of me with on of the Library Lions. 

From there it was onto Grand Central Station, another impressively GRAND building. They had a little indoor Holiday market of their own so we browsed through there, then ate lunch in their huge food court. 

So the plan then was to head to Rockefeller Center and browse around for a while before finding a spot near the tree to see the lighting ceremony later that night. This was at around 2:00 in the afternoon. When we got there, the place was absolutely JAMMED with people and cops. The NYPD were out in full-force, keeping people at bay. No one was allowed anywhere near the tree, stage, or skating rink. After eavesdropping on a few conversations we discovered that anyone wanting to watch the tree lighting had to go stand in the designated "pens" that were over a block away on either side of the tree. They were already full! And anything nearby (like the crowds you could see when watching it on TV) was set aside for V.I.P.'s. 

Talk about a disappointment. This was supposed to be one of the absolute highlights of the trip and now it wasn't going to happen. I admit, I pouted a little. Jeremy was very sweet, but neither one of us wanted to stand a mile away for upwards of 7 hours in the freezing cold and not be able to see or hear squat. So we left.

On our way through the crowd we passed a limo and all of these girls were screaming "Beyonce! Beyonce!" So we stopped and crowded around to see if we could spot her. Meanwhile this group of black guys go walking past, all dressed in black leather with glasses and hats. I figured they were Beyonce's entourage...then I focused in on one of them that looked awfully familiar. It was Jamie Foxx!! (At the time I didn't even know he was going to perform that night, so I'm even more impressed that I recognized him.) He was gone too quickly for me to get a picture of, darn it. 

(For the record, I watched the telecast when we got home since I had DVR'd it and I'm still glad we didn't stick around. Most of the performances were from the ROOF of one of the buildings so they wouldn't have even been visible to the poor crowd. The whole thing is pretty misleading.) 

So now we had a free evening on our hands with nothing planned. And because my hubby is so exceptionally sweet and wonderful and he knew I was kinda down in the dumps, he set out to make it up to me. We went to the TKTS booth in Times Square where you can get half-off tickets to same-day shows and we got tickets to see The Little Mermaid on Broadway that night! YAY! An extra Broadway show!!

For those of you who saw the snippet they performed before the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, you need to know that the actual show is leaps and bounds better than that. The costumes work much better in the environment they've created on stage...it's more convincing that they're swimming and not walking around with tails hanging off their rears. *haha* The sets were just spectacular! The colors couldn't have been more vibrant. And the gal who played Ariel was superb. Not just vocally, but she also really seemed like the cartoon had come to life. You know when Ariel gives her voice to Ursula, so then she can't speak to Prince Eric? Well this gal's mannerisms were fantastic! She was beautiful and adorable all at once. I really, really enjoyed it.

"Start Spreadin' the News..."

"...I'm leavin' today! I want to be apart of it - New York, New York!" - Frank Sinatra

Hello Wichita!! I am back in town and I'm almost 50% recovered.  Remember when Jeremy and I went camping last Fall and I told him I wanted to go to New York City for our next vacation so we could *ahem* relax a little more? WHEW! What was I thinking? The mileage we covered in these 7.5 days more than surpassed what we hiked in Rocky Mountain National Park. We were both absolutely exhausted by the time we boarded that plane Tuesday evening. You know how some trips go by and you think, "Oh no! We're leaving already? Seems like we just got here!" No, not in this case. We FELT like we'd been walking New York for a week. *hehe*

The absolute worst part of the trip was that I got sick.  I'd been poppin' vitamin c and Airborn in the weeks before to make sure I didn't come down with a cold or fever and that did work. I didn't get THAT kind of sick. I was sick in the "oh my gosh we need to find a bathroom RIGHT NOW!!!!"-cold-sweat & pale-in-the-face kind of sick. Yeah, and it took a week for me to take the idea seriously that it might have been the water that was making me sick.  You know me, I'm a guzzler and I love me some water, so I was drinking a lot of it.  I was talking to my Mom and sis on Facebook early in the week about my problem and they were taking turns diagnosing me. *haha* Mom DID say that sometimes a different city's water can upset your stomach. Then we saw a sign that said "New York City is proud to serve tap water" and I thought, hmmmm, maybe there's something to this. So on the second to last day of our trip, I switched to ONLY bottled water and almost immediately I was feeling a lot better. Oh well. Just think of how many New York City bathrooms I WOULDN'T have seen had I figured it out sooner? ;) And the silver lining of that nasty cloud was that I didn't gain a single pound. *haha*

Other than the exhaustion and bathroom panic, we had a really great time! AND, my vision has improved 100%! I am so relieved! I'm not even going to pretend that I can fit all of the trip into one post, so I think I'll break it up by days, if that's OK with all of you. :)

Our hotel was about what I'd expected, but the room was actually a bit larger than I'd pictured!  It did start to feel a little cramped as the week went on. Jeremy and I had to dodge each other and shuffle our stuff around since there wasn't enough counter space. But all in all it was definitely worth the money we saved.

Plus the decor was really hip and cool, exactly the kind of style Jeremy and I like so much. It definitely made us feel like we were visiting somewhere exciting. 

Our first evening was spent trekking around New York on a tour of the city's department store Christmas window displays. They were phenomenal! Everything I'd ever pictured! I felt just like I was in a children's book. My favorites were at Lord & Taylor:

And Bloomingdale's (even though they had me on the naughty list - first AND middle name!):

Macy's was also an extremely fun experience. We traveled to the top floor (#7) to see Santaland in the children's department and it really was magical. Originally we just planned on wandering through the line to see all of the decorations then hopping out before an actual visit with Santa, but the Macy's "elves" are amazingly enthusiastic and jolly and before we knew it we were being escorted into a room for pictures with the big guy himself! He was the most amazing Santa I have ever seen, with a real beard, a sweet little accent and the most sparkly eyes. He asked me what my Christmas wish was and I told him, "I've already gotten my Christmas wish! I'm in New York City with the real Santa at Macy's!" He chuckled, patted my hand and said, "Well you've just made my day, dear." What a wonderful experience. He gave us some "I Believe" buttons and of course we got suckered into buying some overpriced copies of the pictures. :) 

Our last stop for the evening was the famous Serendipity's.  We got there several hours before our reservation but they let us sit down almost right away. 

Now, the dinner we ordered was unbelievably blah and a waste of stomach space. BUT...for dessert we ordered the Frrrozen Hot Chocolate they're known for and we were not disappointed. While it's a fairly simple concoction...almost just a slushy chocolatey milk, it is DELICIOUS!! Jeremy got a peanut butter one and I had the original and WOWEE!! My mouth is watering right now. :) 

Dun du du dun! <-- Trumpet Fanfare!

Well this is it! No more waiting! No more planning! The clock has very little time left before we board a plane to the Big Ol' Apple!  Our flight leaves at 7:30 tomorrow morning. My Dad is also going to the airport tomorrow to go to Arizona on business, so he's going to swing by our house and take us with him. Isn't that nice? His company will pay for his parking, so it's a win-win. 

Today is all about packing, cleaning and laundry. And I want to watch Elf tonight at some point. (Remember my must-watch movie list? Well we didn't make it completely through the whole thing...but we absolutely HAVE to watch Elf! I will be mucho disappointed if we run out of time.)  

Oh you're probably wondering about the flooring fiasco? Well much to my joy and amazement, it's finished!! Strictly speaking, the FLOOR is finished. (It looks really good. I would post pictures, but I think I'll just wait for the "finished product" moment so you can see it in all of it's glory.) We still need to buy and install new trim and until that's done I don't see the point in moving the furniture back where it goes, or the decorations either for that matter.  But that will have to wait until we get back. I insisted that today include NO more projects so we could concentrate on getting ready for tomorrow. I can only think in so many directions without getting confused, y'know?  I am a little worried about when on earth we're going to decorate for Christmas...but I figure we're going to be surrounded by the most decorated city on earth this next week, so if we don't end up going all out in our house, at least we're getting a very big helping of holly, jolly, merry & brightness. :) We'll just see what happens.

I leave you with this picture of me, holding up our NYC itinerary. Yes it's a hand-written little chart and I should have sucked it up and figured out a way to do it properly on the computer with columns and all that jazz. But it turns out my "skillz" don't stretch that far, so this is what I've got. :) 

Yes, I also realize the picture is backwards since I took it with my Mac cam and it's a mirror-image. But you get the idea. There's really only two spaces where we don't have something planned. As I mentioned a while back, this is completely unusual for Jeremy and I to plan in such detail. We did want to leave a LITTLE bit of "winging it" room, but those two spots are the only ones we really had left. 

I'm FLOORED!

I'm typing this from my living room staircase, which is the only real sittable (is that a word?) surface in my house. Everything else is piled with stuff that used to be somewhere on the main floor. My Dad, Jeremy and our friend Steve Ludlow (remember the turkey & pilgrim pictures he took?) are slaving away in front of me, installing our new laminate "wood" floor. It looks AWESOME! It does amazing things to this room. It looks so much more contemporary and bright. I'll post pictures as soon as I have time...whiiiiiich could be like a month from now. But bear with me. *haha* 

We started yesterday afternoon after Jeremy got up and with Dad's help we'd ripped up the carpet in about an hour and a half. As today draws to a close, they've finished the living room, entry and most of the dining room. All we have left to do is the kitchen. That being said, I'm still not confident that we'll be done with this lovely project before we leave on Tuesday. Dad can't help much tomorrow because of church commitments and I'm not sure how much help I'LL be.  Plus we have to go buy all new trim for all of the walls (our old trim wasn't wide enough and really wasn't worth saving) and install that. And the kitchen will be time consuming just from the standpoint of moving all the appliances. Yuck. So we'll see. I'm still a little overwhelmed at the thought of needing to continue this when we come back from NYC, but I'm a little less begrudging about since I've now seen how nice it looks. *sigh*

On another note, I feel like my vision is much better today! It's still a little blurry, but not nearly as terrible as it has been. So that's exciting! Thank you Lord! :)

Tick tick tick...the clock is rapidly counting down to the trip I've been anticipating for over a year! Our itinerary is chalk-full!  Looking at it makes me a bit tired. *haha* I'm bringing my laptop because I want to upload all of my photos and videos to it each night when we get back to the hotel (that way I don't have to buy more memory cards) and originally I thought it would be cool to blog each night FROM New York City. (Our hotel, as most do in that city, has free Wi-Fi.) Now I'm wondering when I'm even going to SLEEP! *haha* So I won't make any promises about how much you'll get to see until after we get back...but there's a chance I'll at least peek in here or on Facebook to let everyone know we're safe and sound.

Speaking of safe and sound, have you heard about the increased security on New York trains and subways. Yeah, apparently there was some information leaked to the FBI about a "desire" for terrorist attacks on the NYC transit system, specifically the trains going from Long Island into the city. While we won't be on those trains at all, we will be doing a lot of subway travel. So please keep us in your prayers while we are there, and the rest of the city too for that matter. I'm hoping that since the security has been increased it will erase any possibilities of danger. *yikes*

Well my booty has fallen asleep and that is NOT a pleasant feeling, so I'm going to sign off for now. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! It seems like a big blur to me since we've had so much to do, but we did have a really nice day with my family and delicious food! What more can you ask for? :)

Turkey Day Eve

STOMP is in town for a performance tonight and this afternoon they had a free show at Exploration Place which Lauren brought the kiddos to and I got to tag along. It was fun but way too short. They only did two songs and I could have watched them for a lot longer. I guess that was probably the point...to wet peoples appetites and leave them wanting more so they would go buy concert tickets.  After the little show was over, we went inside and played in the museum for a while. I hadn't been there in a long time, and never with a kid, so it was fun to see through Livvie's eyes. She really likes all the interactive play areas. And Jack just likes any opportunity to get in on the action. 

Isn't Liv's outfit the CUTEST?!? It was soft and cozy...and that HAT! I could have just squeezed her to death.  

I am really looking forward to tomorrow's food, family and festivities! Mom is putting together quite a feast as always. I'm in charge of very important items such as cherry Jello (which is Jeremy's personal must-have) and rolls. Notice I'm doing the can't-screw-it-up-if-you-tried dishes? Yeah, that's me! :) My Aunt Sharon and cousin Jessica will be there too, with Jessica's kids Jovan and Juliana. They have so much fun with Livvie and Jack. They're such a great age range to be able to play together!

I can't wait to watch the Macy's Parade this year. I love it every year, but this year will be particularly thrilling, knowing that in just a few days I'll be walking down those same streets! AAAH! I'm so excited! In case you're not paying attention to my countdown, we're under 5 days till we leave! I almost have that sick-nervous-excited feeling whenever I think about it. You know, like a little spike in your adrenaline and your heart skips a beat? That's what I have. It could either be excitement or stress because now I have something particularly messy happening between now and then and I just don't know how it's going to get done.

Remember many months ago when I came back from IKEA with boxes of laminate flooring? Remember how we were going to rip out our entire main floor and put that stuff down? Yeah, well now that's scheduled to happen THIS WEEKEND!!! Aaaah! As in, we'll do it Friday, Saturday and probably Sunday, then Dear Lord PLEASE be done with it by Monday so we can clean up and pack! I'm a nervous wreck about it. I really don't wanna leave the house in shambles. If all goes well and we finish it, I'll be relieved to have it over with and be able to come home to the completed project and then begin to decorate for Christmas. But if we run out of time and leave the house in a big mess...well I won't be very happy. So here's hoping! Daddy's going to help us (he's actually the main reason we're doing it this weekend, since he's available) and we've had a couple of offers from friends from church too. So maybe if we get enough manpower behind it we can do it fast.

Here's a completely random, out of the blue product review. Have you seen those commercials for the dryer sheets Bounce now makes that supposedly have "beads of fragrance" or something in them that release all through the day, making your clothes practically BURST with freshness?? Well they don't work. I've been using them for almost a month and my clothes don't even smell straight from the dryer, let alone for a full day. So they get a big ol' BOO from this consumer! And I was so disappointed, because I really, really love the smell of dryer sheets and would love to smell like one all day long. *haha*

The Weight Update

I am down 13 pounds, thanks partially to a "miracle 3 day diet" I participated in last week and have started again this week. You basically stick to this fairly strict (but not torturous) plan for three days of the week, and they don't even have to be in consecutive order. Then the rest of the week you should eat sensibly, but my three pounds I lost last week included pigging out at Olive Garden (I told myself to leave more in that bowl...but DANG that pasta was yummy!) and Sunday night's early Thanksgiving feast.  I had "plateaued" at 10 pounds almost a month ago, so it was nice to see the scale move again.  I won't go into the diet's specifics (unless you want 'em) but my Mom did the diet with me last week and she lost TEN POUNDS in the first three days! Pretty impressive, I must say!

Honestly, in the back of my mind, I don't know why I'm bothering at all. When you look at our itinerary for New York City, about 60% of the places we're going involve FOOD! *haha* And not just food but an excessive amount of pancakes and desserts and chocolate and cheeeeeesecake...(New York style baby! I am drooling just thinking about it.) So the plan is this: I'm going to do this miracle 3 day diet right before we go and right after we get back, so I'm hoping that will stave off any ridiculous weight gain. I mean, seriously, the menus we have planned could rival any cruise ship, and don't people usually gain weight on cruises? So that's what I'm sayin! *haha* And not to mention the Food Eating Holiday of the year is in two days and I don't plan on holding back...so basically by the end of all this we'll see just how big of a miracle this diet really is?!? :)