New York City get-away...

 For my birthday (back in July) Neil gave me a trip for just the two of us, to New York City for 4 days (to go in October).  He had booked the hotel, the flights, and even arranged for some friends to come stay with our kids!  It was a huge surprise!  We had talked about going for a while, since we are so close & figured we should take advantage of that & see all the places we'd like to see on this end of the country, so we were both excited for our little get-away.  We had a GREAT time seeing all the places such as Rockefeller Center, Times Square, the 9/11 Memorial & the New World Trade Center, the cruise through the harbor, to see the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island, as well as going to all the other big sites, like the Empire State Building, Central Park, some museums, some beautiful cathedrals, and we had a 3-day "hop-on, hop-off" double decker bus tour that took us all over--uptown, downtown, midtown, and Chinatown.  :)  We had a great time!

Getting ready for our tour the first day.

Central Park -- Beautiful!  If we ever lived in NYC, I'd have to come here every day!

Times Square

The Empire State Building

View from the top of the Empire State Building.  Beautiful!  You can see the new World Trade Center as well as the Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island from here.  

One of the tour busses that we used.  It was the BEST way to see the city!  We were able to go all over the first day & figure out where everything was & then we did a LOT of walking & hop-on, hop-off the busses to get from one place to another.  Lots of fun!

The lobby inside our hotel.  It was close to everything, so we were able to walk to Times Square, the Theater where we saw The Lion King, Central Park, the Manhattan LDS Temple, etc.

Getting ready to enjoy our harbor cruise that went to Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty,  past the Brooklyn Bridge, etc., and included tickets to the 9/11 Memorial. 

Ellis Island

Neil in front of the NYC Skyline

As the harbor cruise came up to the Statue of Liberty, they started playing "Coming to America" by Neil Diamond.   We had to laugh just a little.  All we could picture was Neil Diamond in his fancy bedazzled jumpsuit.  

It was cool to see The Statue of Liberty up close.

A statue for the fallen soldiers.

The New World Trade Center (the 4th tallest building in the world)

One of the Memorial Pools, where the Twin Towers once stood.  All around the outside of the pools, they had engraved   names of all the victims of 9/11.  It was beautiful, but so heartbreaking.

The "Survivor Tree" that was planted in the 1970's on the original World Trade Center plaza.  After 9/11, workers found the damaged tree (reduced to an 8-foot stump) and nursed it back to health in a NYC park.  Then in 2010, the tree was uprooted again in a severe storm, but it still survived.  So they recently replanted it in the new World Trade Center plaza.

The Brooklyn Bridge

The Manhattan LDS Temple

The Temple, right in the middle of the city with lots of people, lots of traffic, and even a hot dog stand on the corner.  It seemed kind of strange.

The left doors lead to the temple, and the doors on the right lead to an elevator that takes people the the 3rd floor where the 3 wards meet for church each Sunday.  

One of many beautiful cathedrals.

More of beautiful Central Park.  That place was HUGE!

Ice skating at Rockefeller Center

Watching some street dancers.

Enjoying a Sunday morning walk.

Times Square 

We went to see The Lion King on Broadway.  (We weren't allowed to take any pictures inside the theater, so these posters are the best I could do).  The costumes were amazing, and we enjoyed the music & the performance.

If you ever need some M&M's of any kind, with anything written on them...this is the place to go!

One last walk through Central Park before heading to the airport to fly home.