New York City : Part V The Empire State Building, Central Park, Rockefeller Center, & Radio City.

Like I said in the post before...I would never go to the top of The Empire State Building again. Don't get me wrong. It was REALLY cool. There were just lots of lines. Short lines. But still lots of lines throughout the building that you had to go through in order to get to the top. The coat I was wearing is basically a straight jacket. I was pretty much sick & tired of having to take it off (for security checks & bathroom trips). It has zippers, buttons, & a tie.

The whole place was decorated for Christmas inside & I LOVED that. There were lights hanging down-that I wish I took a video of instead of just a picture-because they were twinkling lights.

New York City : Part IV The Intrepid & The Concorde

Our last day in New York was a very jam-packed day. It was the first day the sun was out & shining. Perfect-because we were going to do a lot of outside things that day.

We started out the day with coffee going to see the Intrepid. This was all for Alex. This was the number one thing he wanted to do in NY. Me? I was excited to see the huge buildings, times square, the empire state building...the usual tourist attractions. Alex? He was so excited to see fire trucks in Times Square & to see the intrepid. I had never heard of it.

It was a 20 minute walk, but it was nice to see a different part of the city. It was in an area where there aren't as many tourists...mainly people that actually live there in the tiny apartments. People were walking their tiny doggies that had sweaters on.

Once we made it to the intrepid, the first thing we did was go in the museum-which was actually INSIDE the ship itself. It took me a little while to even figure that out. I was able to figure out more about this whole ship & aircrafts around it...

The Intrepid is a gigantic ship (size of three football fields huge) that was used in World War 2, Cold War, & Vietnam War. Right now it sits on the Hudson River.

I wanted to have our picture taken by the Hudson River because I'm a huge Sleepy Hollow fan & if you know the story then you know they talk about the Hudson a lot :P.

Christmas 2014

Sierra & I came up with our 1st annual family Christmas Eve game of Rudolph Monopoly!

We had such a great time!

Sierra beat me by $100! I was sad :P Hahaha!

Christmas this year was one of the best Christmases I've ever had!

Of course I am like a little kid & up before the sun to open up presents. Unfortunately some of my family doesn't feel quite the same way-well...my sister isn't a morning person. I am.

We took over 200 pictures that day. I'll post just a few & let them do the talking.

New York City : Part III 9/11 Memorial

What turned out to be my favorite part of our whole trip to NYC was our trip to the 9/11 Memorial. I didn't expect it to be so...sad? Touching? I'm not sure of the exact word.

We started out the day with our trip to Good Morning America & then had breakfast at a little random place near Times Square. It was a delicious BLT & hash brown for breakfast... It was raining a decent amount that day so our plans to go to The Empire State Building were going to be postponed till the next day.

New York City : Part II Good Morning America

The next morning we were all up super early because this morning we were going to Good Morning America.

I'm obsessed with GMA & watch it every morning with my cup (maybe 2 or 3) of coffee. So when we first decided that we were going to NYC-visiting GMA was up towards the top of my "things to do" list.

Tony Bennet, Lady Gaga, Maks from DWTS, & Reese Witherspoon were the guests the morning we were there.

I kinda made my way to the front of the barrier. People that worked with GMA would come out & tell us what to do and when to do it. I don't know what I was expecting-but all of the crew were really nice.

Tony Bennet came out at one point to sign autographs. Although he only stuck around long enough for GMA to film him out there signing stuff & then he went back inside. So I only got to see him...But he is kinda old sooo...I understood that he went back inside. It was cold.

We were all expecting Lady Gaga to come out at some point but she never did so that was disappointing.

At one point one of the crew people had some people move to a certain area because they were going to be filming a quick scene outside. So I told Alex to stay where I was to save my spot..while I ran over to where they were calling people. I was standing there waiting and they came out...it was Robin Roberts...& some lady I have no idea who she was..but she was a guest. The camera guy ran all into me...so I was trying to backup-but there was no where for me to go-because there was a decent size crowd.  After the camera guy ran back inside-Robin Roberts stayed outside & was talking to some people. I was quick to try & get her attention (she was only a few feet away) - because I knew she would be going back inside soon & this was my only chance. I hollered out her name a few times -while she was talking to someone else (I was desperate.) & she came over to me. She was SO nice. I was so excited...I gave her a hug and asked for a "selfie"-which is a word that I absolutely hate & NEVER use. But it just spewed out of my mouth. She was more than happy to take a picture with me. I told her how much of an inspiration she was after everything she had been through & that she seemed like such a good person. She held on to my arm the whole time I was talking to her. She said I was so sweet & told me to give her another hug. Then she had to go back inside-but before she did she turned around & told me my hat was "rockin'". :D