New York! New York!

Lady Liberty from the Staten Island Ferry


Valentine's Carriage ride through Central Park


Who said there can't be preggo Rockettes?!?


View of Downtown Manhatten from the top of Rockafeller Center


Doug in front of the NY Stock Exchange

Doug and I had an amazing time in New York City this past weekend. We went to visit my college roommate, Tracy Elaine Bratten who lives in Brooklyn. It was a whirlwind weekend and I'm pretty sure I wore Doug out. He said the next vacation needs to be the beach (Aaron and Ryan - you in?!?)

The trip in a nutshell:
Friday: We had yummy NY Bagels for Breakfast, went to ground zero and St Paul's (that housed the volunteer's during 9/11 rescue efforts). We then went down to Wall Street and the financial district. We saw where George Washington took his oath of office. We then hopped on the subway up to Rockafeller Center. We saw the ice skating rink and Doug quickly told me that I couldn't ice skate in my condition - whatever. We peeked in to the studio where they film The Today Show, which was exciting. We then went to the "top of the rock" where we got a 360 degree view of Manhatten/central park/jersey/statue of liberty/etc. It was REALLY windy, but totally worth it. We then walked in front of Radio City Music Hall, where I did my impersonation of a rockette. Many folks on the street were gawking and they thought it was funny...Doug was embarrassed. Off we went to Times Square, grabbed a "slice", and then went to FAO Schwartz to buy a few things for the bean. We also spent some time in St Patrick's Cathedral - which is absolutely beautiful! By far the prettiest church in the US that we have seen. We then hopped on a carriage ride (our feet REALLY hurt at this point) through Central Park. Then we wandered through the Plaza Hotel and down to Broadway to meet Tracy for Wicked. We saw Wicked on Broadway and it was AMAZING! BTW - we did all of this in 1 day - I'm kind of a slave driver when it comes to site seeing vacations...

Saturday: We met my good friend from St Rita's (Kinder-3rd grade), Kate and her fiance for Brunch in Brooklyn. Tracy was excited to find a new place to brunch (as this is the THING to do in NYC). After some fun times at the NYC Post office, we hopped on the subway to Chinatown. I was VERY excited about going to Chinatown. For those of you that have never experienced chinatown in NYC, it is classic. From the moment you get off of the subway, people are yelling at you "gucci, prada, coach, louis vuitton, handbag, handbag handbag?!?" "rolex, tiffany" Every brand name you can imagine is yelled at you. Tracy and I had fun going "behind the wall" of a stall to look at some knock-off purses. I ended up finding a great Louis Vuitton and Tracy found a great new leather bag. I also found some GIANT Dolce and Gabbana sunglasses that are spectacular. Doug said there were "too many people" in chinatown, but it was entertaining! Doug and I then went to catch the Staten Island Ferry (the only FREE aspect of the entire trip) so that we could see the Statue of Liberty. It was really windy and cold, but we got some good shots of Lady Liberty and Ellis Island. We then headed to Grand Central Station. I found some gelato and was very excited! We then wandered around Manhatten and met Tracy at ESPN Zone to get some drinks and food and watch the NBA Allstar Dunk Contest. It was actually really fun and Tracy threw down some awesome chicken wings.

Sunday: Doug and I woke up and went to mass at St Patrick's in Manhatten. It was PACKED and a beautiful mass. We then found something to eat and wandered around Central Park for a while. We found a way to see some animals at the Central Park Zoo without actually paying to get in. We then headed back to Brooklyn to hang out with Tracy. Tracy showed us her cute and upcoming neighborhood Williamsburg. We went to a great lil shop and then I had to have another bagel. YUMMY. We then parted with Tracy (sadly) and headed to the airport.

It was a great weekend. We had so much fun seeing everything and getting to spend time with Tracy. We were both exhausted when we landed late Sunday night.

We had a dr. appointment for our 18 week check-up that I'll write about later...this has already been too long...

OH - I gave Doug a deep fryer for Valentine's Day (yes - very healthy) and we are going to put it to good use tonight! = )
Love,
Erin and the lil bean