New York

Yes, oh yes the long awaited New York trip...are you on your toes?!  I know, I know you're NOT but I am able to get it written up...Finally!  I have no idea why this has taken me so long but I wanted to still do it for memory sake.  Marc and I were laughing the other day because we really couldn't remember what we did last NewYears Eve...so we went to the blog to check it out and you know what...I NEVER wrote what we did last New Years Eve.  What's the point of this blog if I don't write down both significant & insignificant details! HA HA! :)

Anyway, I have a couple of pictures of what we did for New Years Eve 2011 so I will be sure to fill you in on ALL the details in a couple of days (maybe tomorrow?)

Back to NY....

The main reason we went there was to enjoy Marc's 15 year West Point reunion.  Marc's parents and older brother , Jon (who also went to West Point) joined us.  Thanks for a fun time Shafer crew! :)

   

West Point is beautiful and we had a wonderful weekend!  You have already seen couple of pictures of us at the football game...that was a highlight because Army won but we had a great time walking around the installation and enjoying the history.  We also don't have pictures of them but after Chapel on Sunday we had lunch with Team Van Sickle ...some awesome friends that we know from our Italy days and then stayed the night with another set of friends, Team Francis (whose wedding we went to at West Point almost 4 years ago)!  It was awesome to hang out with both those awesome couples!

On Monday morning Marc and I headed into New York for about a whirlwind 24 hour tour.  It was so much fun!  We took a train from West Point to Grand Central Station.

The hotel really wasn't too crazy far from the station so we decided to walk....here we are going through Time Square.  After dropping off our stuff at the hotel we decided to just walk and browse the stores and go at our own pace.  It was great to have no schedule, no strollers and to be in American stores again. :)

As we were walking around (remember we had NO plan) we were passing in front of a building and these guys kept coming up to us asking if we wanted to go up in the building...we wondered what the deal was and then saw it was the Empire State Building.  We didn't go up but we did take a picture in front of the sign that said Empire State Building! :)

We love Mexican food so it was a no-brainer in our choice of restaurants.  We went on-line to searched for the "best" in NY (there are no good Mexican food places in the Netherlands that we have found so far).  It did not disappoint...It was AWESOME!  The drinks were awesome too!  The owner was also really nice and set us up with free drinks at the end of our meal. Go to Toloache if you are ever in NY.

Marc was enjoying the meal too!

One of the things I did want to do while we were there was go to Central Park.  I have started running again so Marc and I decided to do a 4 mile run in the park on Tues. morning and it was really fun.

Here we are after the run!

What Marc wanted to do was go to Ground Zero.  I am glad that we went although we had checked online about a month out and it was even impossible at that time to get tickets for the memorial.  We were told about a big building across from it that you could walk through and get pretty good views.

This is a picture from that building. You can see some of the garden inside the memorial.  After going to ground Zero it was time to head to the airport....

...and this is what we came home to...smiling faces!!! :)
all done!