Big Apple Day 3

I realized that Good Morning America was filming next door to where we were staying. It was pretty cool to see the test kitchen that they use. Their studio audience has to stand the entire time. That doesn't interest me in the least.
But I did get up early to try and get into The View studio audience (without success). There is a 2 year waiting period for tickets, so the best bet is to see if you can get in on stand by. I had to be outside the studio by 8 a.m. for tickets, and then they give you a pink paper with your number on it. (see below)
I was number 15. We had to go hang out at Starbucks until 9:30 when we would go back and find out if we were getting in. Around 10 a.m. they said that they already had a full studio audience with the regular ticket holders so absolutely NO stand by people got in. Bummer. But neat to see how it worked. Honestly, I don't think I'd bother doing it again.
Here's the intern in the blue coat that was responsible for getting people in and such. So, I walked over to Central Park and on the way I passed the building where Regis and Kelly are filmed (except they were in Vegas for the week). Then I hopped back on the subway and went to the hotel. I waited for Mark to get out so we could have lunch. Then I just took a nap and rested the rest of the afternoon. We were going to have a rather late night because we had tickets to a Broadway show: Jersey Boys.
We had dinner at Angus McIndoe, across from Phantom of the Opera. It was good. Our reservation was at 6 p.m. and we were all done by 6:35, LOL. We are rather fast eaters! We headed to a Starbucks and had some dessert and coffee and just hung out until 7:30 when we had to be at the theatre. Now, I know some of you reading this have seen Jersey Boys. Man, it was really good! Some profanity in it, but still REALLY good. We were on the way back to the hotel and I told Mark "Boy, I sure do feel sorry for Frankie Valli." Mark said "Yeah, I feel like he's just trying to pay his light bill." Hahaha. Of course, I had to go back and google how he's doing now. Apparently pretty good as he had a Manhattan apartment and a CA home. So, I stopped feeling so sorry for him.
I do remember about 15 years ago my parents taking me to see him at the Executive Inn in Paducah and he was REALLY good. I remember it well.

Big Apple Day 2

Day 2 started out with me sleeping in and Mark going to his CLE course. I just hung around the room and did some blogging. Completely unaware that Good Morning America was taping in their studio next door and I could have totally been on tv if I had gotten up at the crack of dawn to stand in line. (I wouldn't have done it even if I had known.) I kind of milled around the area walking down to Fifth Avenue and seeing all of the shops there. Then coming back in time for Mark to get out of class. We had a reservation at, get this: a bbq place in NY. We just had to try it as it got great reviews. And it was fantastic!! And our waiter was from Durham, NC.

When we got finished we did some walking and picture snapping. First we went to see Grand Central Station (below) and the Chrysler Building (above).
Then, of course, who could skip a visit to the Empire State Building?

And the original Macy's (their biggest store).
The ABC building behind me. And no, I can't not check my phone for email, FB updates, twitter, etc.
One of the things Mark LOVES in NY is the warm, honey roasted peanuts they sell on the street. And he got himself some.
Times Square, the center of the universe. (isn't that what they say?)

The Big Apple-Day 1

We have been in NYC this week but don't like to mention it on the blog while we're gone for security purposes. This has been a really really great trip.

We left Tuesday morning on Delta (no problems) and flew into Laguardia. Took a cab to Broadway where we were staying.....like 20 yards from the center of Times Square with all of the tvs etc. Very cool to be in the middle of it all. We did come to NYC a few years ago but were on a tight schedule and didn't get to see all we wanted to. We also stayed a good ways away from everything which meant a lot of time going to and from. So, I will recommend that if you do come, pay the extra money and stay in the heart of it all. You'll be glad you did.

So, once we got to the hotel we went back out immediately and bought a day pass on the subway. We ate lunch at Ruby Tuesdays and I must say their prices are quite inflated. We then went to the 9-1-1 memorial site. They are doing construction there and you really can't see much of anything. Our pictures aren't great either. There are fences everywhere with tarps covering the fences and police all over the place telling you to "move along". So, we did.

We moved along back onto the subway and over to Wall Street. Saw the NYSE (stock exchange) and other well known places there. We didn't go in because we hadn't researched how to do so, and the security was worse than going through the airport it seemed.Then back onto the subway and to Central Park. We had been to the southern part of Central Park before and it was really nice, but never to the northern part. So that's where we went. Yeah, we got off looked around and got right back on the subway. Not so nice. Made us a little nervous. So, we got off at 72nd street and walked through the park and over to Tavern on the Green, where I had wanted to eat. But hello! They went bankrupt and are closed down. Just my luck. Took a few pics and then kept walking. We decided to walk back to the hotel instead of ride, for the scenery.

We were walking by the Late Show with David Letterman and guess who walks out right at that time? Ben Stiller!!! He had finished taping and was leaving. The paparazzi clicked away at him and he waved a little and then got into his car. It was fast. So fast in fact that by the time I had realized it all we hadn't gotten our iPhones out to take pics. Ugh.

We walked to the Broadway area and found an excellent pizza place that served fantastic NY pizza. Yum, yum. And I'm not much of a pizza fan.

That pretty much ended our first day there.

All of these photos were taken on the iPhone so they're not the greatest quality.

Recipe Thursday: My Favorite Recipe Book

I have decided to make Thursdays a recipe day. This is motivation for me to try new recipes, my friends. I am getting tired of the same things over and over: meatloaf, spaghetti, hamburgers, blah bitty blah. Getting bored with what you cook can lead to more eating out right? And that leads to more calories consumed and more money spent. So, even though I'm not posting an actual recipe today, (I will reveal my reason tomorrow), I wanted to share my most favorite entertaining recipe book. My mom got this for me for Christmas. I was a little hesitant at first because I figured "Oh, it's just going to be another cookbook that wants you to pull out your almond paste and Israeli couscous from the cabinet which NOBODY has got in their cabinet." Stuff you can't even ask your neighbors to borrow. But my peeps, this cookbook gets an A plus from me. Just like my mom said, it's stuff you HAVE on hand or can easily acquire at any run of the mill grocery store. The only thing I have found that it talks about a lot in the bread section is using rapid rise yeast which I have never done. But I bought some and I'll show you step by step, photo by photo my trial with it--haven't done it yet, but will!

So, starting next Thursday, we'll start cooking/baking!

Wordless Wednesday

Our Babies. And they know it.

A little facelift for the house

We decided that it was high time to do something about the green shutters and door on our house. Nothing at all wrong with green, it just looked a little dated on the house. So, we chose black. Mark did it all himself!! I really really like it.
Finished Product:
The side of the house: We are going to put shutters on those two windows too. Not sure why that was never on there before, but since we live on a corner, it really does need to be done.

Yawn.....Monday has rolled around again.

Coffee. How does anybody make it without coffee?! I have been in a blogging slump lately for a few reasons: my computer died, so I finally got a new laptop. A MAC!! And I LUV it! It's totally different from using a PC, but in a good way. The other reason is that I have just been doing so much overtime at work. They finally have hired more practitioners and now I will just work 30-35 hours a week, hopefully though the summer. I was getting a tad burned out. To where when a patient began telling me their symptoms/problems I just felt like putting my head down on the desk. Yeah, that's not a good thing. The vacation/cruise helped a little but I worked right up until the day we left and went right back the morning after we got back so spending lots of time traveling on both ends....heck, you need like a day to recooperate! And most of the week all Mark and I felt like doing was just trying to catch up on sleep! By Friday on the trip we looked at each other and said "I FINALLY feel rested".

So, I am off again this week (thankfully) and have GOT to get this house back in shape today. And guess what else? I promise to have a blog post up every. single. day. this week!

Row, Row, Row your boat

See what we went and bought this morning? Two kayaks. That's right. Something I thought I'd never do, turned out to be pretty fun when we went sea kayaking in Haiti. Since we live about 10 mins from a good size lake, this would be something fun that Mark and I can do on the weekends---that sort of involves exercise. It took about 15 minutes to get them all strapped up on the car and maybe we'll get a little quicker with it.
Our neighbors are thinking of buying some kayaks as well and they came over right away to check them out. Little Simon especially liked the kayaks.....being pulled around the yard in them.

Will let you know as soon as we try them out!

Random trip photos

Labadee, Haiti

Tortola, British Virgin Islands

We went to an island I had never even heard of: Tortola. It was a very neat place. Very small, and there really wasn't much to do there. So, we didn't spend much time off the ship. Shopping in Tortola:
A man with his donkey wanting to charge for pictures with his donkey.
Mark with the ship in the background:
Next up: Labadee, Haiti

St. Maarten

St. Maarten was a repeat trip for us as well. But oh, how pretty the island is. It has excellent beaches, good shopping, friendly people and an awesome restaurant. The photos aren't coming up exactly in the order I wanted but I'll start with telling you that we were given a recommendation to eat at Chesterfield's last year and we did so. And boy was it good! So, we went back for lunch this year and ordered the exact same things we had last year: Hurricane Shrimp and Conch Fritters. Mmmm.....good. We found a couple of beach chairs and an umbrella to rent so we just hung out on the beach for a couple of hours.....and I got fried on half of my body. Made for a painful rest of the trip.
The water is such a beautiful shade of blue here. The beach got pretty crowded after a while and we left.
You cannot imagine all of the shopping here. It is insane! They have killer deals on jewelry too....but I did not buy any.
And just imagine my breaking heart to see a stray kitten on our walk to the beach. It was so thin. There was a Humane Society store and woman who we told about the cat and she said she'd send someone over to see about it. I hope she followed up on that.
Next stop: The island of Tortola.

Carribbean Cruise 2010

We're back! The past month has just been a blur as work has consumed us almost completely. But we did get a break and went on a week long cruise. A MUCH needed break. It sort of served as a combination cruise for my CMEs, Mark's birthday and our anniversary. Our first stop was San Juan, Puerto Rico. Which, if you remember, was a stop on our last cruise. While it really is beautiful, there's not much to do there because it's just simply a city in paradise.

When we toured the fort on our last trip, we could see a beautiful above ground cemetery in the distance with a lighthouse overlooking it right by the ocean. We vowed on our next trip there to walk over and see it. So we scampered off the boat and went on an up hill walk to the summit of the city to find it.After a bit of walking, we found it!! There's the lighthouse and the super cool cemetery. Apparently it was quite a tourist stop for lots of people.

Snow Fun!

Recently we got snowed in for a weekend. Which really, was quite fun. It started coming down right when we got back from Blockbuster--you can't be snowed in without movies! We made a caramel pie together and stayed up later than our bedtime Friday night. There was a huge blanket of snow the next morning, followed by some sleet. Now, this made the hill in front of our house that much better to sled down. We have the best hill in this section of the neighborhood so kids were coming from many streets over to sled.
I made some chicken enchiladas and took them next door to my neighbor who had just had her baby and held the baby for a while before the neighbors across the street came over with their baby for dinner. After dinner, and when the neighbors put their baby to bed, they called us and we all went out in front of our houses and sledded down the hill while it was dark....ya know, and nobody could tell it was a group of thirty somethings playing in it all. Ahem. And just so you know, they had the baby monitor with them.
The next morning, Mark had all he could stand with being housebound, so we took off on icy roads to Home Depot where looked at everything. in. the. store. Twice. I don't care to go back there for a while. We went back to the neighbors' house for dinner where they had a great tortellini/sausage/pea dish that I unsuccessfully tried to duplicate for dinner tonight.
Recipe:
-Bertolli tortellini (Hmm....I have some frozen tortellini. Not Bertolli, but Mama Geno's. )
-Applewood Smoked Sausage, cut in slices (I have Kielbasa sausage instead)
-Fresh Grated Parmesan Cheese (I used Grated Parmesan cheese)
-Frozen Peas (Yes! I have this exactly!)

Mix together and serve. Except mine tasted nothing like theirs. Ingredient substitution does not turn out well.

So, here's some photos of some kids sledding down the hill in front of our house. Taken form the inside of our warm house.

And then we got up and went to work the next day. The End.