**TRIP TO NEW YORK CITY**

Well, We got to New York City Thursday afternoon and decided to take the subway to our hotel. We got off and had no idea which direction it was to get there. We were dragging our suitcases for like 12 blocks in the streets of New York with a billioni people around uis, and my bag being old and crappy- kept tipping over. I think i carried it most of the way actually. Not fun! We were pretty flustered when we got about a block from the hotel and there was another Subway exit! Grrr!! Then we get to the hotel and the gal at the desk says that we didn't have it booked for Thursday night. I was freaking out inside! Where were we going to sleep and hotels were so dang expensive in Time Square! Luckily, our reservation got fixed and we were able to get our bags upstairs. Oh thank heaven! We were so grumpy from all the stress of dragging our luggage 12 blocks, and decided to get dinner across the street and call it a night. It was actually pretty fun and we just hung out that first night. The next morning we decided to go see Miss Liberty! It was sooo cool! We just went to Liberty Park and took pictures from there. It wasn't really close, but it was good enough for us. We also went over and saw the Empire State Building. That thing was HUGE! It was a very Ritsy part of town also, so that was fun to see all the nice cars and dressed up people walking around. The whole time we were there we rode the subway whenever possible. We got these week passes that helped a lot. Unlimited for 7 days. We definitely ot our use out of those things! One night after eating lots of junk (and very yummy cheesecake) Kristi and I did Turbo Jam on Carli's laptop. Ha ha! It was so fun! New York is really expensive though. We went to Applebees one night and for us three to eat it was almost $60! YOWSA! It was yummy though of course. With our hotel we got a complementary breakfast each morning so that saved monies! For lunches we mostly had snacks from breakfast or got hot dogs. My very first NY hotdog had relish on it. That was the first time i'd even had relish! It was pretty dang good! Kristi and her hot dogs though.. man. I think her and Carli ate like 10! I couldn't eat too many.. blech. Time Square was only about a block away so we walked around there a few times. It was an amazing sight!Lots of bright lights and signs, with a billion people walking around. We went to the M&M store, the Hershey's store, oh man. We saw planet hollywood and just TONS of places. It was crazy how busy the area was. We were loving it though. We went over to FAO Schwartz (toy store) and holy crow! It was so much fun! We took lots of pictures in there. It rained on us a few times while we were there, but we didn't care! We just wanted to see everything we could in the little time we had. The Disney store was huge too. We got some stuff there and that was pretty fun! I loved that store a lot! We got pictures by Tiffany's and we even went down to China Town for some knock off handbags. =) I got two fendi's for myself. So much fun!! They had tiffany jewelry, perfumes, watches- pretty much everything you can think of. I even got Tyler a little Budha statue that i thought was hilarious. We went to Central Park and let me just tell you how ginormous that place is! They have a lake in the middle and an ice rink, and so so so much land. There were bridges and so many things! They have a zoo and even a carousel! Oh you know we rode the carousel! We even walked through the little zoo! SO MUCH FUN!! We stopped to see the Museum of Natural History and that was pretty fun too. I was so dang confused when we got in and asked how much it was and the guy behind the counter klept saying however much you want to pay. I was like WHAAAAA? Carli got it figured out though so whatever! haha. I just wanted to go inside. (i think it was just a donation type thing for the basic areas we wanted to see) Anyway that was really fun. We spent a long time walking in there and seeing all these crazy things. They had a 'statue' of a Blue Whale in the aquatic room, and that thing is so big. I don't think it is possible for it to be that big! No freaking way! My mind can't even comprehend that! I couldn't even get a picture of the dang thing because it was so big! Out of control! It was neat to see really how big those animals are though. Boggles my mind, but it was awesome. Sunday morning we all went to church in this singles ward and that was pretty fun. They had a linger longer so we got free lunch. Yay! It was kind of silly because when I said we were from Utah- not one person didn't look over to stare at the Utah mormons! AWKWARD! it was funny though. There Relief Society was bigger than my entire Singles ward! I thought that was pretty cool.

This is the manhattan temple where we did baptisms!! SO much fun! it was pouring hard core Tuesday morning, but it was definitely worth it! They were so nice and it was beautiful inside! I love going to the temple, and i love that we go when we are on vacation! The Subways were kind of scary at first, because we never knew when to get off. Once you understand a bit though- it became a piece of cake piece of pie! Aww... yes. The infamous NY pizza. The slices were HUGE!!

They weren't half bad actually but they were way too big to eat all the time. It was bigger than my face!

Krist, Carli, and I on the subway for the very first time!! AHHHH! :)

Oh man. Our hotel had free coffee and hot chocolate 24-7 so we were drinking hot chocolate like it was going out of style. It kept us warm, and it was sooooo yummy!!! We had it down exactly to how many creamers and everything. Delicious!

Ha ha I don't have any idea what I am doing in this picture, but I was getting on the horse for the Central Park Carousel. LOL. It was so high up maybe I was scared???

There were so many souvenir shops all around because we were so close to all the Broadway theaters in Time Square, and this sign was so fun. I wanted it so bad! I was being her for Halloween and I think i may have developed a slight obsession for the Wizard of Oz and Wicked...

OOOOH yeah!! FAO SCHWARTZ baby! So much fun! We definitely had too much fun playing around in this store. If you ever go to NYC, visit this place!

Inside FAO they had Harry Potter, Hermoine, Ron, and Hagrid all made out of Leggos. It was the coolest thing and I was so dang excited! Good old harry... another one of my obsessions. They were seriously so cool though!!!

Our first NYC hot dogs from the street vendor! they were actually really good! For hot dogs.. ha

I tried to talk Kristi and Carli into seeing Equuis, with Daniel Radcliff (harry potter) but they weren't having it! Ha ha. If you don't know what that is, look it up. You will know exactly why they didn't want to see him in this particular play.... he he he. I told them we could just close our eyes in those parts.. LOL

Kristi and I decided to work out with my Turbo Jam while we were just chilling in the hotel!

Heading to the statue of Liberty...

The Empire State Building was HUGE

Leaving for Wicked!!! Yay!!!




Wicked Was so amazing! We were pretty much freaking out the entire time and I couldn't believe how great it was! I had pretty high expectations, and they were definitely exceeded! I would recommend Wicked to everyone. It makes you laugh, makes you sad, makes you happy, angry... it even has a few surprises in there that i was like WHOA!! It even made me cry because i loved it so much. We actually tried seeing it again but they were all sold out. Dang! We did get to see Phantom of the Opera though! That was pretty amazing too! Holy crow it was awesome! I LOVE BROADWAY! We even went and walked out onto the Brooklyn Bridge! It was so pretty looking out over the water!

Anyway- our trip was actually really really fun and i loved being in the big city! I could definitely live there, but I wouldn't really want to vacation again. Everything is too expensive and stressful when you don't know where you are going. All in all though i absolutely loved it and I can't wait to see some more Broadway musicals! that was my favorite part! It was so much fun! If anyone does go though, wear walking shoes! You will walk more on the vacation than you have your entire life! :)