The BIG Apple

Colin and I just snuck away on our first vacation sans Hudson!  It was pretty wonderful.  I had a lot of anxiety leading up to the trip, not just leaving my boy but dropping him off in an airport (Steve and Cindy picked him up on our lay-over in Minneapolis) and flying thousands of miles away.  It ended up being way easier than I thought it would be.  On day three I was actually feeling guilty that I didn't miss him more! Here is a quick re-cap of our time in the big city!

For those of you who didn't know BACKSTREETS back (alright), and I have the evidence to prove it.  We started our trip off with a very lazy morning, no roosters or children waking us before 6, which was AMAZING!!! We loved every minute of just lounging around.  After a late breakfast of banana crepes we headed to the CITY.  We ended up just walking around taking in the sights, sounds and cultural, fashion, linguistic and culinary diversity of the city.  City living is definitely different.  We saw some of the iconic sights -Grand Central Station (AMAZING) Empire State building, New York Public Library (beautiful) Bryant Park and Times Square (over stimulating). We finished the evening off with drinks on a rooftop while being serenaded by the one and only-ies - Nick, Brian, Howie, Kevin and A.J. (I did have to google those, I don't really know their names).   So this is city living - A free BackStreet Boy concert at Bryant park!   Don't believe me? - Look closely at the picture above, courtesy of Natalie's roommate, Stacy, we weren't quite as aggressive as her in getting center stage position. But we still enjoyed the show.  They sort of ended up being the theme song of the weekend, their songs are still as catchy as they were 20 years ago (Yes, they were kicking off their 20 year reunion tour!) but their dance moves aren't quite as cool.  They seemed a little too old to be rocking the boy band moves, which made me feel like I was probably too old to rock them as well.

The next day we did a bike tour of the city, lovely Lili joined the fun!

 
After a perfect day of bike touring, we headed to the New York Red Bulls game, tickets curtesy of Colin's old intern, who left the Land Trust for the Red Bulls.

Some sister love - cause really that is what the weekend was all about!

We had another very relaxing Sunday morning with Natalie and her roommates, and then headed off to walk the high line and eat of course. I am actually surprised that Colin didn't take more pictures of the food...It was amazing. So much good food, so little time.

Natalie and Chris on the high line.

 It was so fun to get to see and share in Natalie and Chris's lives! Big City living sure is living!  We ate about 6 meals a day, we were so enthralled by the culinary diversity! Thai, Japanese, Italian, Mexican all on one block!!! We have to drive 200+ miles for just a taste of ethnicity!

Monday night we hit up BROADWAY!!!! No pictures in the theater...ops we had to sneak one! We went to Phantom of the Opera - what a treat to see the longest running show on broadway in a beautiful theater and have a night on the town.  I probably should have thought more about which show to see, we were ready for some serious singing and dancing.  There was plenty of singing but  not too much dancing. I was sort of hoping for a few new dance moves to bring to Sheridan.

Our last two days we pretty much crammed in every tourist attraction possible. The trip to the Statue of Liberty might not have been that fun for Colin.  He had several one way conversations as I was very busy doing some professional development -  ease dropping on every Spanish conversation I could hear. So refreshing to hear real Spanish instead of first year students butchering the language (j.k. students- i love you and you're not butchering it, you're practicing until you get it right!)

 Freedom tower from a distance, 9/11 memorial at its base. 

After that we walked through the city, tasting our way to mid-town where we caught a taxi and headed out to get our boy!

 Hudson had the time of his life, it appears he did not miss us at all and is actually hoping we go on more vacations without him...

 Grandpas and Grandmas and Great Grandmas are so much more fun than Moms!!!

 Thank you so much for an amazing week Natatlie and Chris, you are great hosts and tour guides! And THANK YOU Betzler clan for loving our boy while we were away!