New York Weekend

This weekend was our much-anticipated trip to NYC to celebrate Joel's 40th birthday - a trip that I planned back in March and managed to keep as a surprise for all of about 24 hours ;)

 We arrived Friday night and immediately began trying to eat our way through New York City in 48 hours, beginning at Sparks Steakhouse which is a famous and longstanding establishment and the place where (Joel did not tell me this until after we were seated) the Gambino family crime boss was killed in a mob hit ordered by John Gotti in 1985. While the ambience was great, we didn't think the food lived up to expectations and, also the food put Joel in the bathroom all night long so it earned a resounding thumbs down from him ;)

Saturday morning we took a 3 mile walk from our hotel near Times Square to the Upper East Side, ending up at William Greenburg's Desserts where we got some black and white cookies, hamentaschen, etc, and then took a cab ride back to the hotel and got ready to see the 2pm show of The Book of Mormon, which tickets cost an arm and a leg, but were SO WORTH IT! Best show ever! Awesome, awesome, awesome. Very excited also that The Book of Mormon is coming here to Charlotte next year, and we will very most definitely see it again then. (Hopefully the tickets will be cheaper, LOL... the tickets to the NY show cost more than our flight. It was a cheap flight but still).

After the show we headed to Tribeca for dinner to Nobu, a Japanese restaurant Joel wanted to go to because it is Howard Stern's favorite restaurant and he always talks about it on his show. We did not see Howard there. But, we had an AWESOME three hour dinner, where you order a bunch of small plates off the menu and they bring them to you one at a time so you have time to relax and enjoy each thing before they bring you the next. We were not terrifically adventurous (did not order the live octopus), but the food we did have was all totally delicious, and so were the martinis, especially the pink grapefruit one. Dinner at Nobu, also, coincidentally, more expensive than our flight. But again, SO WORTH IT! I am still salivating over the food in my head.

Sunday morning we found Magnolia bakery and bought half a dozen cupcakes, most of which made it home to the kids ;) Then we met one of Joel's high school friends, Brian, and his wife and daughter for breakfast at the Brooklyn Diner, where I had wonderfully delicious strawberry pancakes. After that we headed to Citi Field where the Mets, happily, were playing the Phillies, and the Phillies, happily, won ;) We had great seats and it was a beautiful afternoon for a baseball game!

We did have to leave early to get back to our hotel, collect our bags, and head to the airport. Having misjudged how much time that would take (I hate NY traffic) there were a few moments there where we really thought we might miss our flight home. Happily we got our boarding passes in the nick of time, scooted to the front of the security line, and made it to our gate with 10 minutes to spare before boarding even started. Phew.

We got home a little after 9:30 last night. The kids, by the way, had an awesome weekend of their own with awesome babysitter Sharon, who took them out to dinner, to Discovery Place, to the Nature Museum, to the pet store, etc. They had loads more fun than they usually have with mom and dad on a weekend ;)

And now... a rainy Monday morning in Charlotte ;)