OK OK OK... I am finally getting around to New York! I know that blog I posted from my cell phone was totally stellar, but I am going to make up for it by posting roughly 49 photos with lengthy descriptions about each one :) But seriously, I'd like to apologize for anyone's eyes I might have hurt with the bad grammar and sketchy photo.
So the reason I went to NYC was for the Blogher 2012 conference. Since I launched Dollar Store Deals I have been wanting to really push that blog to a new level, and with lots of encourgement from my sister, got myself together and headed to NYC. I found some truly awesome roommates in one of the groups on Facebook dedicated to the conference, and we stayed at the Hilton where the conference was hosted. It was good stuff. In true fashion, I waited til midnight the night before I left to pack so I didn't get to bed before 1am... and then I had to get up at 4:30 to catch a 6am flight. Ugh! But finally we got there. So, to get from the airport to the city, Tiff suggested taking the express shuttle. Which drops you off in Times Square. Where someone will tell you the Hilton is only a "short walk" from there. Um. Short walk wearing heels and hauling a suitcase to me is 3 blocks. Not like, 12. But by the time I realized that I was not a short distance, it was pointless to get a cab. I was facing the wrong way on a one way street in heavy traffic. So I walked.
But it worked out just fine. I got to the hotel and met up with Paul and Tiff. We hung out for a bit and tried to decide if we wanted to go on the sponsored cruise with some other bloggers or not, but it was threatening rain so we decided not to. But then it decided not to rain and there was a beautiful sunset. Nuts!
So we walked around Times Square and all over NYC instead. It's true what people say, there really is an energy in that city.
We grabbed some pizza for dinner and some cupcakes for dessert. Tiffany and I were watching this guy frost the cakes when he did the most appalling thing I have ever seen. He cut the top off the cake to level it.. and then THREW IT AWAY. He just tossed the delicious crusty top of the cake into the trash. We were horrified. He was workin on the second set when I ran through the door, hoping to catch him in time to get the top off the third cake but he was way too fast. Can you believe someone would do something that awful? Seriously.
We ended up getting a somethingsomething chocolate cupcake and a smores one. They were indeed, heavenly.
So then we had to head over to Time Square. Time's Square is best enjoyed at night when the lights are bright and the crowd weirder than normal. And most of the stores are still open. We ran into the naked chief. Should it be Naked Chief? Is that his name? Anyway, some naked Asian guy was trying to be all weird and hug him and stuff (barefoot, sketchy shorts) and some cop had to drag him away screaming.
The Naked Cowboy was pretty funny. He sang beautifully and I was glad to run into him and his chief friend-I earned 2 points for it ;) We walked around the Square, got on the big screen, people watched... and got excited when we saw a crowd gathering and cameras going off like crazy.
Turns out it was Snoop Dog Lion! He was taking pictures with everyone. As long as they donated. I said, "Donate to what?" And he said, "The boys and girls football club." ... that's when I knew he wasn't real. The boys and girls football club? And celebrities taking "donations" for photos? Um.. maybe if it was a gala that was $10,000 a plate and they had a real booth and a professional photographer. Either way, I "donated" and got a picture. He didn't smell good, for those of you who were wondering.
I was supposed to get up and go to a bootcamp, but when 6am rolled around I had only slept 4 hours, so I skipped it. I blame the chatty people on the airplane. It was like no matter who I sat next to they wanted to chat for hours. And hours. No seriously. It was an hour to Dallas, and the cute girl I sat next to chatted about her internship at Victoria's Secret. SHe was heading to Ohio. Then the guy on the way to NYC told me all about workin in the airline industry and the specs on the plane we were on. It was a 30 year old plane. And did you know every 7 years every commercial airplane gets completely taken apart and put back together? I didn't either, but the more you know the more you grow! I suppose I will sleep when I am dead. But, back to the next day... I pretty much owe my roommate for a fantastic breakfast every day. I checked in before her in our Diamond room and they gave me a stack of breakfast cards. Then she checked in and they gave her a stack of cards. Mmm. It was a good breakfast, too.
I also went to the Adoramo Blographer Event. There were a few open seats so I jumped on that chance. I also jumped into a taxi that took me for a ride. I knew he was going the wrong way when he made a random turn, and when I said, "Why are you turning here you should just go straight!" He said, "Oh! To avoid traffic." Which actually means, "To make you pay me and extra $5!" But I didn't know enough to call him out so I paid $15 for a $7 ride. Grrrrrr. Anyway, that cute camera? It's a new one by Samsung. I liked the color.
The speakers at Blographer were awesome-but I just had a chance to get one with Amanda Bottoms from KevinandAmanda.com. She was super cute and sweet and we chatted for a little bit. I also got a voucher for a BEAUTIFUL photo alblum I am going to use to finally make our wedding alblum, and I won a photo reflector. Pretty exciting... and that wasn't even what was in the swag bag! I'm really starting to like taking pictures, not professionally, but so my other blog looks nice. And so Tristan has a million photos to pick from for his wedding slide show. If we still do slide shows in 50 years when I let him grow up.
The conference had a couple hours left when Tiffany called and said I had to hurry and get back to the hotel because I was missing an AWESOME party. And it totally was awesome. I picked up some DANG cute stuff, ate some amazing food and got a picture with Snoopy. Doesn't get much better than that. Until we are watching the entire Snoopy Charlie Brown Christmas DVD collection this Christmas while slurping hot cocoa.
After that party I ran upstairs to change and we went to the Expo Hall since it opened Thursday night. I also finally got a chance to meet my other roommates, who I loved. 3 of the 4 of us have similar blogs, similar but totally different, so we connected on that right away. And Sarah brought me Pop Tart Crisps. That's love right there.
So we ran up to the Expo Hall and then to one of the parties Blogher threw. Everyone was told that The Bloggess would be hosting it, but she actually wasn't. I was super bummed. I bought her book and could just die laughing reading it. Um. It will kind of burn your eyes a little with the language and some content (dead squirrel puppets) but it's still great (Remember how fun it as when you THOUGHT you were going to the movies!?). Regardless if she was there or not, the party was still fun. Sarah and I lost Jenn, and Amanda had to go out of town for work so the 2 of us just hung out and went bowling. We ran into a couple other frugal bloggers, who we're good friends with now.
Hence the duck face picture. BOOM! Anyway-the party ended when we decided it was not fun to get groped by drunk chics so we went back to Lacey and Christy's room to hang out for a bit. That's when I remembered I had VIP tickets to Good Morning America and needed a sign. So Lacey and I braved the hookers on the corner, the SUV full of very creepy guys, giant roaches that tried to drag us in the sewers, grabbed some food from the Halal guys and went to the drugstore.
Good Morning America isn't called that for nothing. We had to be there at 6:50am... which made another night of 4 hours of sleep! And I missed my 5k to go. But, I heard the 5k wasn't that great so I am glad I went there instead. So for everyone who recorded GMA for me, I don't think anyone actually saw me!? Bummer. But I was totally there, waving, without my sign because I was on the elevator already when I remembered it.
So after we watched the guy stutter through a taping about 3 times, they got a couple vans and took us to Central Park so we could watch the Concert in the Park. Neyo (Neo?) was the singer, and Jessica Biel was doing an interview of some sort.
When she sat down I had the girls next to me yell, "We love you, Jessica!" when the audience quit cheering... she totally waved at us. It was cute.
I had no idea who Knee-Oh was until the concert... but it was one of those moments when he started singing I was like, "Hey I actually know the words to that song!" So I did one of the cool moments where you sing... "ahammm... mmhha" until the chorus comes along, and then you belt out the 4 words you know.
By the time we got done with the concert it was time to head to the Expo Hall again. I attempted to get into some classes, but since they didn't cap the number of people attending the classes were FULL. I mean like 40 people sitting on floors and standing in every class full. Super lame. So I went to the expo hall instead and ran into Kate Gosselin. She had JUST got there when I arrived so I got to chat with her for 15 minutes since there wasn't a line to meet her. I told her Tiffany wants to have a coupon throw down to see who can save the most money since they both have a ton of kids. She thought that was funny. I don't care what you see on TV, she is just a very forward woman and I loved her. She was soooo nice. SEriously. So was her body guard/boyfriend guy. I talked to him for a few, too.
Lunch was delicious. Of course, I am not picky when it comes to food and I will eat anything. Martha Stewart was the keynote speaker. I thought it was neat she came, being her birthday and all. She is very articulate and knows how to handwash a wool sweater without shrinking it.
After lunch it was more Expo Hall stuff, meeting brands and hoping to network some. Until it got to be about 45 minutes before PW showed up. If you don't know what PW stands for, don't tell me. Just google it or something. Some other woman who looked like Paula Deen had waited for no joke, 2 hours and 45 minutes to be the first one to say hi to her. And the girl next to me changed her outfit to boots and a "Got Beef" shirt just to meet her. Our friend Nathan saw us there, I was actually sending that cryptic blog post when Nathan thought he'd be funny and say, "Well it was fun to see y'all, I am going to go because I don't like crowds and oh! There she is!" Tiff and I both got whiplash from looking so hard. Then he laughed and said, "Got ya!" and left. The crowds started to gather 20 minutes later so I told everyone who had been waiting with us that we were going to have to link arms and make sure we got front row seats. It worked, because Tiff and I were smack up front while she did her speel on butter. It was funny when she first came up, her girls were with her and were totally acting like teenagers... you could tell they were bored. But PW didn't disappoint, she was cute, when I reminded her that she and I were BFF's she was like, "Oh my gosh!" and totally remembered meeting me in Houston.
The Jimmy Dean booth was great-the Sun was totally there and they gave out sandwhiches. Um. Best ever.
My friend Sarah and I ran into each other at the Expo hall when she said she had an extra ticket to the premiere of "Won't Back Down" but we had to leave 10 minutes ago. So we ran up to our room, threw on different dresses and heels and met up with a few other girls. It wasn't that far, but traffic was so bad we couldn't get a cab so we opted for the subway. Um. It's hot down there. Apparently when NYC has 103 degree weather for 3 days in a row it's like Texas when it snows. AC units explode and the city shuts down. I don't blame them. It was HOT.
My roommate Jenn and I - she wore smart shoes. I wore dumb shoes. Cute, adorable shoes. But dumb when you are walking.
But the premiere was fun. They had cocktail hour where I downed a lot of water, someone won an Ipad and then we watched the movie. Should you go see it? Yes. It was good. It is an inspirational movie like "Radio" or "Remember the Titans" minus the football part. But I liked it. I could relate because that was kind of what I went through in Rexburg with the towing issues. Stupid tow trucks... but they were sorry they crossed me when I got done! Anyway, at the end of the premiere Viola Davis, Maggie Hard-Last-Name, the director and Rosie Perez did a question answer. Super sweet actors with a lot of neat stories.
That night was the much talked about Sparklecorn party. I was tired. And done. But Lacey gave me her flip flops and we all went and partied some more. I am bummed I didn't stay long enough to eat any of this cake, but I guess someone smashed it on the carpet before anyone got any, either. That sucks. It looked good.
I was wishing I had a sparkly dress, too! Aren't they just adorable? We had a lot of fun.
The next day was Saturday. I got up and went for a jog through Central Park, which was so nice. It's a BEAUTIFUL park. Seriously. Saturday morning I spent more time in the Expo Hall chatting, and then we had Katie Curic for the keynote speaker at lunch. She was interesting, but not as interesting as the girl I sat next to. She was actually from NYC and was living in a homeless shelter. She blogs from the public library when she has a chance and is trying to be an actress.
The conference officially ended Saturday at 5pm, then they had the Cheeseburgher party (which was super fun) and we all stayed up later than we should talking with some other sweet bloggers about SEO, taxes and readers. I probably learned more from things like that than I did from any attempt at getting into a classroom.
Since I was staying til Monday that left time to hang out and do stuff. So a group of us went back to Times Square where this freak scared the snot out of some little girl. Seriously, funniest thing I have ever seen. The girls eyes almost popped out of her head and she was screeching like a banshe went she saw him just standing there. Her Mom had to drag her away.
We finally decided on dinner at this super sweet pizza place. It was built in an old tabernacle so there are 2 floors and beautiful stain glass to enjoy while you wait for your pizza. With 3 pizza ovens you can also watch your pizza be made from most any table in the restaurant. Delish.
I was so excited when I saw this machine from across the square. Awesome!
Who randomly hands their baby to a fake Spiderman??? He's not web catching that baby when he awkwardly drops him! But at least this kid will have photographic evidence of where his emotional trauma started...
After dinner we went back to Cheeseburgher... took photos in the photo booth, ate more food and made cheesburger hats. Actually, I didn't. But as you can see everyone else did.
The next morning I caught sacrement meeting with some other Mormon bloggers. The church building is the same as the Manhatten temple. How neat is that?
It was a really pretty building, and since it was fast Sunday we got to hear some amazing testimonies. If you're not familiar with fast Sunday.. it's not fast as in like, we do everything fast, although I will admit that I slept in that dress since it was so late when I got in the night before and didn't wanna wake my roommates so I was super fast getting ready for church... but what it really means is the first Sunday of the month our church encourges you to fast (go without eating). You can pick whatever you need to fast for, and sometimes they will announce, "So and so is very sick, if you want you can fast for that person." If you don't have a prayer and a purpose to fasting, you are just going hungry, so it's important to have a purpose. Also, on the Sunday it's like open mike at church, the congregation is welcome to go up to the pulpit and share their feelings (testimony) of the church. Sometimes it's a REALLY good meeting where you leave feeling warm and fuzzy. Sometimes you wonder who let the woman tell the story of her ex-husband trying to kill her by poisoning her lemonade with rat poison. But overall, I usually enjoy these meetings because you get to hear how people really feel. That woman did NOT like being poisoned.
So before we went to NYC Tiffany kept saying, "Sunday afternoon is booked so make sure you keep it open." So I did. I thought we had a meeting or something with someone ... but no, in true Tiffany is the best sister ever fashion, she took me to see Wicked. I wanted to die. I was trying not to act super excited like a 4 year old at Christmas, but of all the things I wanted to do in NYC was to see a show. I am not huge into shows, but I really wanted to see one. And I have been DYING to see Wicked, of all the shows I wanted to see Wicked was at the top of the list.
And of course, she took me to see it. I left the show knowing why everyone goes, "Oooooh my goooooosh it's SOOOOOOo good!" Because it was. Really, it totally was. Seriously... I talk all the time about how sweet Tiffany is to me and this is just the icing on the cake. And Paul even bought me a shirt. I have worn it like 3 times already. After the show we went and checked out a few cool places ... the Trump Tower, some art museum with a rooftop cafe, and then decided to have dinner in Little Italy.
It was raining, but we sat outside anyway and enjoyed a fantastic dinner and people watching. And paid too much for an umbrella. After dinner we walked around and eventually headed home. But it was fun to walk around in the drizzle.
We all flew out Monday afternoon and I still hadn't done my Bus Tour or my bike ride through the park. Ah! But we squeezed it in somehow. The double decker tour was actually super fun. We (Tiff, Paul and I) did the hop-on, hop-off downtown tour. I wish we would have had the whole day because that tour pretty much took you everywhere that was a big site to see.
My favorite was the World Trade Center memorial. I will never forget that day, it hit me so hard even as a teenager, and I didn't even know anyone who had been directly involved. We were in line waiting to get tickets and all I could picture was the footage from the wreckage, people covered in dust and blood walking the streets. Our bus driver told us it took her sister 14 hours to walk home to Brooklyn that day... and Brooklyn is only 2 miles or so from where the towers were.
The memorial itself was beautiful. The whole time I was there it didn't seem real that that was where it all happened. That right where we were walking, where the fountains were, is roughly where 2,500 people are buried. I met a man on the plane home who's father in law was one of the firefighters who died when the buildings collapsed that day. His story was heartbreaking... the last photo they have of him was pretty famous-it's black and white, the tower is burning and the fireman is looking up at the building, counting the floors. The only thing they recovered was the car he drove over there that day, his shoes and his wallet are in the museum. I wonder how many people he was able to save-something we won't know in this life, but he left a strong legacy for his daughter to follow.
After the memorial Tiffany and Paul had to run to a meeting so I was on my own. I really wanted to see the Brooklyn bridge, so I hurriedly walked to the center. It was neat to see the city from outside the city... like, a far away view.
And this picture is sideways. Bummer. The bridge was cool, but I was in a hurry to get back to the bus because I had to be out of the hotel at 2pm and catch a 5pm flight. So, I actually jogged all the way down the bridge back to the stop. I mapped it later and it was about 2 miles. One way. Glad I have been working out.
So I jumped back on the bus... and saw this sign. It says, "NYC: Where people have more to talk about than their kids." It's an ad for a storage unit, so I don't get the diss on kids... but it kind of made me sad. The whole time I was in NYC and saw a little kid I just thought, "I should have brought Tristan.. he'd have loved this!" I dunno, the sign just bugged me a little that someone would think kids aren't great. Maybe theirs just suck and that's why they feel like that.
So I got back on the bus, right? The tour guide was SO bad. She sat there and TEXTED the whole time ... occasionally sharing gems like this with us, "Here is the famous beautiful Radio City Hall, where many beautiful famous performances take place." Oh, honey. I was glad to finally get off the bus and grab a $5 bike rental. I was short on time so instead of walking my bike on the sidewalk I ventured into traffic. It made me wish I had had a bike all week. I got around SO much faster! The bike ride through Central Park was so fun... I wished I had had more time to spend there. Next time, right!?
I had seen this sign outside my hotel room the whole time and finally got a picture with it. It was 1:47pm and I had 13 minutes to check out. Somehow I made it into the room, showered, packed up, blow dried my bangs and was out of the hotel on the elevator at 2:07. Not too shabby. I grabbed some lunch and then took a cab to the bus stop.
The guy on the bus next to me was flying out to France to propose to his girlfriend. He was in the military (graduating from West Point) and had his wrist broken in some torture training exercise. Or so he claims. Either way, he held my bags while I took this picture of NYC as we drove off. Then I got to sit in Dallas again for 2 hours... at the CREEPIEST gate ever. It was allll the way in the back and was a dead end. There were only 4 of us back there, and I sat in the way back by the only outlet I could find. Well, I guess this chick was not liking the news she got because she went NUTS. She was screaming and cursing, and was banging, and when I say banging she must have been 200lbs and was BANGING on the windows, the doors, the counters to try and get the attention of the people on the tarmac. Um. Seriously? Anyway, everyone else slowly got up and left and it was just me with the crazy woman. Nice. I was actually sitting there wondering where I was going to run to when someone finally came out to talk to her. Then I packed up and left. They moved my gate anyway and that's probably the only time I have ever been relieved to have to walk across the airport for a last minute gate change.
And that was it. That was my trip to NYC. I had a lot of fun, but I missed my boys. I was so excited to get home and see them waitin for me at the little airport in Lubbock. I gave Jeff the biggest hug and kiss ever. He was SO good to take care of Tristan while I was gone (with some help from my sweet friends). Tristan was cute-he had been woken up for the 10:35pm arrival so he wasn't doing cartwheels when he saw me, but he was definitely happy. He didn't take his eyes off me the whole ride home... it was cute. And Chunky didn't disappoint-he was wagging so hard I thought his butt was going to take off. It feels good to be home, I am excited to take what I have learned and hopefully send my blog in the direction I want it to go... looking forward to more conferences in the future and hopefully next time I can drag my family along!
(If you actually made it all the way to the end of this post, please give yourself a pat on the back!)
So the reason I went to NYC was for the Blogher 2012 conference. Since I launched Dollar Store Deals I have been wanting to really push that blog to a new level, and with lots of encourgement from my sister, got myself together and headed to NYC. I found some truly awesome roommates in one of the groups on Facebook dedicated to the conference, and we stayed at the Hilton where the conference was hosted. It was good stuff. In true fashion, I waited til midnight the night before I left to pack so I didn't get to bed before 1am... and then I had to get up at 4:30 to catch a 6am flight. Ugh! But finally we got there. So, to get from the airport to the city, Tiff suggested taking the express shuttle. Which drops you off in Times Square. Where someone will tell you the Hilton is only a "short walk" from there. Um. Short walk wearing heels and hauling a suitcase to me is 3 blocks. Not like, 12. But by the time I realized that I was not a short distance, it was pointless to get a cab. I was facing the wrong way on a one way street in heavy traffic. So I walked.
But it worked out just fine. I got to the hotel and met up with Paul and Tiff. We hung out for a bit and tried to decide if we wanted to go on the sponsored cruise with some other bloggers or not, but it was threatening rain so we decided not to. But then it decided not to rain and there was a beautiful sunset. Nuts!
So we walked around Times Square and all over NYC instead. It's true what people say, there really is an energy in that city.
We grabbed some pizza for dinner and some cupcakes for dessert. Tiffany and I were watching this guy frost the cakes when he did the most appalling thing I have ever seen. He cut the top off the cake to level it.. and then THREW IT AWAY. He just tossed the delicious crusty top of the cake into the trash. We were horrified. He was workin on the second set when I ran through the door, hoping to catch him in time to get the top off the third cake but he was way too fast. Can you believe someone would do something that awful? Seriously.
We ended up getting a somethingsomething chocolate cupcake and a smores one. They were indeed, heavenly.
So then we had to head over to Time Square. Time's Square is best enjoyed at night when the lights are bright and the crowd weirder than normal. And most of the stores are still open. We ran into the naked chief. Should it be Naked Chief? Is that his name? Anyway, some naked Asian guy was trying to be all weird and hug him and stuff (barefoot, sketchy shorts) and some cop had to drag him away screaming.
The Naked Cowboy was pretty funny. He sang beautifully and I was glad to run into him and his chief friend-I earned 2 points for it ;) We walked around the Square, got on the big screen, people watched... and got excited when we saw a crowd gathering and cameras going off like crazy.
Turns out it was Snoop Dog Lion! He was taking pictures with everyone. As long as they donated. I said, "Donate to what?" And he said, "The boys and girls football club." ... that's when I knew he wasn't real. The boys and girls football club? And celebrities taking "donations" for photos? Um.. maybe if it was a gala that was $10,000 a plate and they had a real booth and a professional photographer. Either way, I "donated" and got a picture. He didn't smell good, for those of you who were wondering.
I was supposed to get up and go to a bootcamp, but when 6am rolled around I had only slept 4 hours, so I skipped it. I blame the chatty people on the airplane. It was like no matter who I sat next to they wanted to chat for hours. And hours. No seriously. It was an hour to Dallas, and the cute girl I sat next to chatted about her internship at Victoria's Secret. SHe was heading to Ohio. Then the guy on the way to NYC told me all about workin in the airline industry and the specs on the plane we were on. It was a 30 year old plane. And did you know every 7 years every commercial airplane gets completely taken apart and put back together? I didn't either, but the more you know the more you grow! I suppose I will sleep when I am dead. But, back to the next day... I pretty much owe my roommate for a fantastic breakfast every day. I checked in before her in our Diamond room and they gave me a stack of breakfast cards. Then she checked in and they gave her a stack of cards. Mmm. It was a good breakfast, too.
I also went to the Adoramo Blographer Event. There were a few open seats so I jumped on that chance. I also jumped into a taxi that took me for a ride. I knew he was going the wrong way when he made a random turn, and when I said, "Why are you turning here you should just go straight!" He said, "Oh! To avoid traffic." Which actually means, "To make you pay me and extra $5!" But I didn't know enough to call him out so I paid $15 for a $7 ride. Grrrrrr. Anyway, that cute camera? It's a new one by Samsung. I liked the color.
The speakers at Blographer were awesome-but I just had a chance to get one with Amanda Bottoms from KevinandAmanda.com. She was super cute and sweet and we chatted for a little bit. I also got a voucher for a BEAUTIFUL photo alblum I am going to use to finally make our wedding alblum, and I won a photo reflector. Pretty exciting... and that wasn't even what was in the swag bag! I'm really starting to like taking pictures, not professionally, but so my other blog looks nice. And so Tristan has a million photos to pick from for his wedding slide show. If we still do slide shows in 50 years when I let him grow up.
The conference had a couple hours left when Tiffany called and said I had to hurry and get back to the hotel because I was missing an AWESOME party. And it totally was awesome. I picked up some DANG cute stuff, ate some amazing food and got a picture with Snoopy. Doesn't get much better than that. Until we are watching the entire Snoopy Charlie Brown Christmas DVD collection this Christmas while slurping hot cocoa.
After that party I ran upstairs to change and we went to the Expo Hall since it opened Thursday night. I also finally got a chance to meet my other roommates, who I loved. 3 of the 4 of us have similar blogs, similar but totally different, so we connected on that right away. And Sarah brought me Pop Tart Crisps. That's love right there.
So we ran up to the Expo Hall and then to one of the parties Blogher threw. Everyone was told that The Bloggess would be hosting it, but she actually wasn't. I was super bummed. I bought her book and could just die laughing reading it. Um. It will kind of burn your eyes a little with the language and some content (dead squirrel puppets) but it's still great (Remember how fun it as when you THOUGHT you were going to the movies!?). Regardless if she was there or not, the party was still fun. Sarah and I lost Jenn, and Amanda had to go out of town for work so the 2 of us just hung out and went bowling. We ran into a couple other frugal bloggers, who we're good friends with now.
Hence the duck face picture. BOOM! Anyway-the party ended when we decided it was not fun to get groped by drunk chics so we went back to Lacey and Christy's room to hang out for a bit. That's when I remembered I had VIP tickets to Good Morning America and needed a sign. So Lacey and I braved the hookers on the corner, the SUV full of very creepy guys, giant roaches that tried to drag us in the sewers, grabbed some food from the Halal guys and went to the drugstore.
Good Morning America isn't called that for nothing. We had to be there at 6:50am... which made another night of 4 hours of sleep! And I missed my 5k to go. But, I heard the 5k wasn't that great so I am glad I went there instead. So for everyone who recorded GMA for me, I don't think anyone actually saw me!? Bummer. But I was totally there, waving, without my sign because I was on the elevator already when I remembered it.
So after we watched the guy stutter through a taping about 3 times, they got a couple vans and took us to Central Park so we could watch the Concert in the Park. Neyo (Neo?) was the singer, and Jessica Biel was doing an interview of some sort.
When she sat down I had the girls next to me yell, "We love you, Jessica!" when the audience quit cheering... she totally waved at us. It was cute.
I had no idea who Knee-Oh was until the concert... but it was one of those moments when he started singing I was like, "Hey I actually know the words to that song!" So I did one of the cool moments where you sing... "ahammm... mmhha" until the chorus comes along, and then you belt out the 4 words you know.
By the time we got done with the concert it was time to head to the Expo Hall again. I attempted to get into some classes, but since they didn't cap the number of people attending the classes were FULL. I mean like 40 people sitting on floors and standing in every class full. Super lame. So I went to the expo hall instead and ran into Kate Gosselin. She had JUST got there when I arrived so I got to chat with her for 15 minutes since there wasn't a line to meet her. I told her Tiffany wants to have a coupon throw down to see who can save the most money since they both have a ton of kids. She thought that was funny. I don't care what you see on TV, she is just a very forward woman and I loved her. She was soooo nice. SEriously. So was her body guard/boyfriend guy. I talked to him for a few, too.
Lunch was delicious. Of course, I am not picky when it comes to food and I will eat anything. Martha Stewart was the keynote speaker. I thought it was neat she came, being her birthday and all. She is very articulate and knows how to handwash a wool sweater without shrinking it.
After lunch it was more Expo Hall stuff, meeting brands and hoping to network some. Until it got to be about 45 minutes before PW showed up. If you don't know what PW stands for, don't tell me. Just google it or something. Some other woman who looked like Paula Deen had waited for no joke, 2 hours and 45 minutes to be the first one to say hi to her. And the girl next to me changed her outfit to boots and a "Got Beef" shirt just to meet her. Our friend Nathan saw us there, I was actually sending that cryptic blog post when Nathan thought he'd be funny and say, "Well it was fun to see y'all, I am going to go because I don't like crowds and oh! There she is!" Tiff and I both got whiplash from looking so hard. Then he laughed and said, "Got ya!" and left. The crowds started to gather 20 minutes later so I told everyone who had been waiting with us that we were going to have to link arms and make sure we got front row seats. It worked, because Tiff and I were smack up front while she did her speel on butter. It was funny when she first came up, her girls were with her and were totally acting like teenagers... you could tell they were bored. But PW didn't disappoint, she was cute, when I reminded her that she and I were BFF's she was like, "Oh my gosh!" and totally remembered meeting me in Houston.
The Jimmy Dean booth was great-the Sun was totally there and they gave out sandwhiches. Um. Best ever.
My friend Sarah and I ran into each other at the Expo hall when she said she had an extra ticket to the premiere of "Won't Back Down" but we had to leave 10 minutes ago. So we ran up to our room, threw on different dresses and heels and met up with a few other girls. It wasn't that far, but traffic was so bad we couldn't get a cab so we opted for the subway. Um. It's hot down there. Apparently when NYC has 103 degree weather for 3 days in a row it's like Texas when it snows. AC units explode and the city shuts down. I don't blame them. It was HOT.
My roommate Jenn and I - she wore smart shoes. I wore dumb shoes. Cute, adorable shoes. But dumb when you are walking.
But the premiere was fun. They had cocktail hour where I downed a lot of water, someone won an Ipad and then we watched the movie. Should you go see it? Yes. It was good. It is an inspirational movie like "Radio" or "Remember the Titans" minus the football part. But I liked it. I could relate because that was kind of what I went through in Rexburg with the towing issues. Stupid tow trucks... but they were sorry they crossed me when I got done! Anyway, at the end of the premiere Viola Davis, Maggie Hard-Last-Name, the director and Rosie Perez did a question answer. Super sweet actors with a lot of neat stories.
That night was the much talked about Sparklecorn party. I was tired. And done. But Lacey gave me her flip flops and we all went and partied some more. I am bummed I didn't stay long enough to eat any of this cake, but I guess someone smashed it on the carpet before anyone got any, either. That sucks. It looked good.
I was wishing I had a sparkly dress, too! Aren't they just adorable? We had a lot of fun.
The next day was Saturday. I got up and went for a jog through Central Park, which was so nice. It's a BEAUTIFUL park. Seriously. Saturday morning I spent more time in the Expo Hall chatting, and then we had Katie Curic for the keynote speaker at lunch. She was interesting, but not as interesting as the girl I sat next to. She was actually from NYC and was living in a homeless shelter. She blogs from the public library when she has a chance and is trying to be an actress.
The conference officially ended Saturday at 5pm, then they had the Cheeseburgher party (which was super fun) and we all stayed up later than we should talking with some other sweet bloggers about SEO, taxes and readers. I probably learned more from things like that than I did from any attempt at getting into a classroom.
Since I was staying til Monday that left time to hang out and do stuff. So a group of us went back to Times Square where this freak scared the snot out of some little girl. Seriously, funniest thing I have ever seen. The girls eyes almost popped out of her head and she was screeching like a banshe went she saw him just standing there. Her Mom had to drag her away.
We finally decided on dinner at this super sweet pizza place. It was built in an old tabernacle so there are 2 floors and beautiful stain glass to enjoy while you wait for your pizza. With 3 pizza ovens you can also watch your pizza be made from most any table in the restaurant. Delish.
I was so excited when I saw this machine from across the square. Awesome!
Who randomly hands their baby to a fake Spiderman??? He's not web catching that baby when he awkwardly drops him! But at least this kid will have photographic evidence of where his emotional trauma started...
After dinner we went back to Cheeseburgher... took photos in the photo booth, ate more food and made cheesburger hats. Actually, I didn't. But as you can see everyone else did.
The next morning I caught sacrement meeting with some other Mormon bloggers. The church building is the same as the Manhatten temple. How neat is that?
It was a really pretty building, and since it was fast Sunday we got to hear some amazing testimonies. If you're not familiar with fast Sunday.. it's not fast as in like, we do everything fast, although I will admit that I slept in that dress since it was so late when I got in the night before and didn't wanna wake my roommates so I was super fast getting ready for church... but what it really means is the first Sunday of the month our church encourges you to fast (go without eating). You can pick whatever you need to fast for, and sometimes they will announce, "So and so is very sick, if you want you can fast for that person." If you don't have a prayer and a purpose to fasting, you are just going hungry, so it's important to have a purpose. Also, on the Sunday it's like open mike at church, the congregation is welcome to go up to the pulpit and share their feelings (testimony) of the church. Sometimes it's a REALLY good meeting where you leave feeling warm and fuzzy. Sometimes you wonder who let the woman tell the story of her ex-husband trying to kill her by poisoning her lemonade with rat poison. But overall, I usually enjoy these meetings because you get to hear how people really feel. That woman did NOT like being poisoned.
So before we went to NYC Tiffany kept saying, "Sunday afternoon is booked so make sure you keep it open." So I did. I thought we had a meeting or something with someone ... but no, in true Tiffany is the best sister ever fashion, she took me to see Wicked. I wanted to die. I was trying not to act super excited like a 4 year old at Christmas, but of all the things I wanted to do in NYC was to see a show. I am not huge into shows, but I really wanted to see one. And I have been DYING to see Wicked, of all the shows I wanted to see Wicked was at the top of the list.
And of course, she took me to see it. I left the show knowing why everyone goes, "Oooooh my goooooosh it's SOOOOOOo good!" Because it was. Really, it totally was. Seriously... I talk all the time about how sweet Tiffany is to me and this is just the icing on the cake. And Paul even bought me a shirt. I have worn it like 3 times already. After the show we went and checked out a few cool places ... the Trump Tower, some art museum with a rooftop cafe, and then decided to have dinner in Little Italy.
It was raining, but we sat outside anyway and enjoyed a fantastic dinner and people watching. And paid too much for an umbrella. After dinner we walked around and eventually headed home. But it was fun to walk around in the drizzle.
We all flew out Monday afternoon and I still hadn't done my Bus Tour or my bike ride through the park. Ah! But we squeezed it in somehow. The double decker tour was actually super fun. We (Tiff, Paul and I) did the hop-on, hop-off downtown tour. I wish we would have had the whole day because that tour pretty much took you everywhere that was a big site to see.
My favorite was the World Trade Center memorial. I will never forget that day, it hit me so hard even as a teenager, and I didn't even know anyone who had been directly involved. We were in line waiting to get tickets and all I could picture was the footage from the wreckage, people covered in dust and blood walking the streets. Our bus driver told us it took her sister 14 hours to walk home to Brooklyn that day... and Brooklyn is only 2 miles or so from where the towers were.
The memorial itself was beautiful. The whole time I was there it didn't seem real that that was where it all happened. That right where we were walking, where the fountains were, is roughly where 2,500 people are buried. I met a man on the plane home who's father in law was one of the firefighters who died when the buildings collapsed that day. His story was heartbreaking... the last photo they have of him was pretty famous-it's black and white, the tower is burning and the fireman is looking up at the building, counting the floors. The only thing they recovered was the car he drove over there that day, his shoes and his wallet are in the museum. I wonder how many people he was able to save-something we won't know in this life, but he left a strong legacy for his daughter to follow.
After the memorial Tiffany and Paul had to run to a meeting so I was on my own. I really wanted to see the Brooklyn bridge, so I hurriedly walked to the center. It was neat to see the city from outside the city... like, a far away view.
And this picture is sideways. Bummer. The bridge was cool, but I was in a hurry to get back to the bus because I had to be out of the hotel at 2pm and catch a 5pm flight. So, I actually jogged all the way down the bridge back to the stop. I mapped it later and it was about 2 miles. One way. Glad I have been working out.
So I jumped back on the bus... and saw this sign. It says, "NYC: Where people have more to talk about than their kids." It's an ad for a storage unit, so I don't get the diss on kids... but it kind of made me sad. The whole time I was in NYC and saw a little kid I just thought, "I should have brought Tristan.. he'd have loved this!" I dunno, the sign just bugged me a little that someone would think kids aren't great. Maybe theirs just suck and that's why they feel like that.
So I got back on the bus, right? The tour guide was SO bad. She sat there and TEXTED the whole time ... occasionally sharing gems like this with us, "Here is the famous beautiful Radio City Hall, where many beautiful famous performances take place." Oh, honey. I was glad to finally get off the bus and grab a $5 bike rental. I was short on time so instead of walking my bike on the sidewalk I ventured into traffic. It made me wish I had had a bike all week. I got around SO much faster! The bike ride through Central Park was so fun... I wished I had had more time to spend there. Next time, right!?
I had seen this sign outside my hotel room the whole time and finally got a picture with it. It was 1:47pm and I had 13 minutes to check out. Somehow I made it into the room, showered, packed up, blow dried my bangs and was out of the hotel on the elevator at 2:07. Not too shabby. I grabbed some lunch and then took a cab to the bus stop.
The guy on the bus next to me was flying out to France to propose to his girlfriend. He was in the military (graduating from West Point) and had his wrist broken in some torture training exercise. Or so he claims. Either way, he held my bags while I took this picture of NYC as we drove off. Then I got to sit in Dallas again for 2 hours... at the CREEPIEST gate ever. It was allll the way in the back and was a dead end. There were only 4 of us back there, and I sat in the way back by the only outlet I could find. Well, I guess this chick was not liking the news she got because she went NUTS. She was screaming and cursing, and was banging, and when I say banging she must have been 200lbs and was BANGING on the windows, the doors, the counters to try and get the attention of the people on the tarmac. Um. Seriously? Anyway, everyone else slowly got up and left and it was just me with the crazy woman. Nice. I was actually sitting there wondering where I was going to run to when someone finally came out to talk to her. Then I packed up and left. They moved my gate anyway and that's probably the only time I have ever been relieved to have to walk across the airport for a last minute gate change.
And that was it. That was my trip to NYC. I had a lot of fun, but I missed my boys. I was so excited to get home and see them waitin for me at the little airport in Lubbock. I gave Jeff the biggest hug and kiss ever. He was SO good to take care of Tristan while I was gone (with some help from my sweet friends). Tristan was cute-he had been woken up for the 10:35pm arrival so he wasn't doing cartwheels when he saw me, but he was definitely happy. He didn't take his eyes off me the whole ride home... it was cute. And Chunky didn't disappoint-he was wagging so hard I thought his butt was going to take off. It feels good to be home, I am excited to take what I have learned and hopefully send my blog in the direction I want it to go... looking forward to more conferences in the future and hopefully next time I can drag my family along!
(If you actually made it all the way to the end of this post, please give yourself a pat on the back!)
2 comments:
Oh my gosh what a fun trip!!!! Next time you go to NYC I wanna go too!!!!
I am so jealous of your picture with PW I only read her blog like everyday! Who knew Kate Gosselin was so tall?? Sheesh. Btw I have performed at the statue of liberty, the top of the empire state building, and in some amphitheater out there in the city...might have been in central park...can't remember. Seriously next time I HAVE to come with you.
In true Anna-fashion I got tired just reading this post. Honestly. I don't know how you do it. What a fun trip!!
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