Wonderful Week in New York!!!

So I haven't blogged in a while I promise it's only because I've been insanely busy! I'm forgetting if I'm coming or going lately!! Shortly after we got back from Hawaii my wonderfuly fabulous friend Amanda called me up and said "Hey I'm going to New York do you guys want to come?" Well of coures I absloutly wanted to! But first thoughts were....Could we take off for a week again, could we afford it? Well she found an amazing deal on flights! I have seen flights that cheap in years! We rented an apartment which ended up being much more cost effictive then a hotel. And turns out Brent still had plenty of vacation time stored up so with in 30 min. of talking to her I was booking our flights! Just a little spontainous. It was only 3 weeks away! I was SO excited immedeatly! I had not been back to NY since I had left, well there was one time. It was my flight home from Puerto Rico and I had a long lay over so I jumped on the subway and did some shopping during my lay over (yes that was the best layover I've ever had :)! But I dont think that really counts! So it was my first trip back since 2003! I could hardly wait! So it seemed like we had barely gotten unpacked from Hawaii and we were packing for New York! It was a little crazy. But once we finally got there it was amazing! We stayed in a cute apartment in Brooklyn. Which I loved! It felt like we were living there for a week. It was a nice little apt. and even had a back yard! It was a wonderful place to stay!

While we were there we tried to do EVERYTHING! I realized one day that I was trying to give Brent a years worth of my New York experiences in a week! It was a little exhausting! By the third day our feet hurt so bad and our back were killing us! The first night we just got settled into our apt and then headed into the city for dinner in time square. We figured it was a good introduction to the city for the boys, both Brent and Azam (Amanda's boyfriend) had never been to New York before. I had so much fun showing Brent around. I was just a little worried about the subways, after all it had been 5 years since I had used them to get around. But it all came back to me very quickly! Infact by the end of the trip we didn't even need to use the map any more!

One night we met up with some friends for dinner. It was amazingly flawless how dinner plans were made. A few calls and we got 12 people together! The most amazing one was Morgan, she was on my flight from Phoenix to NY. Brent and I were standing at the baggage carosell and someone comes up and taps me on the shoulder and I turn around and she say "You're Terina right?" And I said "MORGAN!!!" It was so funny. She just happened to be going to NY for vacation as well. So I knew we were going to do dinner with some friends and invited her to join us! The whole dinner started out as Amanda wanting to get together with Ted, who had been in our singles ward, well I knew Ted too so he had no problem with Brent and I joining them, then through her blog Amanda found out another girl, Nicole and her husband were going to be in town. Turns out her sister and her husband, Amy and Lamar, still lived out there and they wanted to come too (also from the ward). I had kept in touch with Carol and Dan (you guess it from the ward) and they were both, despite busy schedules, able to make it. So dinner with Ted turned into a mini Stamford 3rd ward reunion! It was so great to see so many people, catch up and reminiss!!

We hit all the fun places, went to battery park and saw the statue of liberty, went to the top of the empire state building, walked over the Brooklyn bridge, went to the MET (metropolitan museum of art), took a nap in central park, did some amazing shopping in china town, had dinner AND lunch in Little Italy (yes it is that good), had a canollie, had a hot dog on the street, ate some new york pizza, went to the public library (you know the one in all the movies, with the lions) went to St. Patricks cathderal (amazingly beautiful), did some good new york shopping, went and saw a broadway, spamalot, it was hysterical! Went to the worlds biggest Toys R Us (it has a ferris wheel inside!), went to Wall St, visited ground zero (it really made me sad that it's STILL just a hole in the ground!), went to grand central, saw city hall (beautiful!), saw a break dancing crew on the streets, saw many street peformers both on the streets and in the subway, went to the manhatten temple, wandered the streets, and the experience that made it a true new york day, saw someone peeing in the subway! We even saw some celebraties and a movie being filmed one night, we all saw Clay Aiken outside of the theatre he was perfoming at and Brent saw John Lithgow walking down the streets by the ABC studios.

It was wonderful to roam the city! But one of the best days was the day we rented a car and drove to Connecticut! Sounds simple but it took us forever! We had to take 3 subways and a train to get to the car renal. It should only take about an hour to get from the city to where I used to live and we left the apt before 9 and didn't get there till 11:30! Yeah it took forever! I was very nervous about driving in New York again! By time I had left the super narrow roads and crazy drivers didn't even phase me. Big city driving was a pieace of cake, which was helpfull when I then moved to LA. But I've been living in AZ which has lovely wide straight streets! It was so funny to be reminded of how insane the roads are back there! You see they were not set up and planned out like streets here in the west. They followed the old roads the farmers used. The farmmers followed the old indian trails. The indians followed deer trails. So you see the roads back east are based on the intelligence of a deer! I swear no exageration both lanes, the WHOLE road were in places as wide as one lane here! It quickly came back to me how my heart would beat faster and palms would get sweaty when another car would come the opposite direction! Ok sorry I've gone on and on about the roads way too long.....ok CT was fablous! The fall colors were beautiful! We met up with my old nanny family at an apple orchard, and picked apples!The fall colors were so beautiful! It was wonderful to see them again! The boys are so big now! Yeah surprise they grow a lot in 5 years! It was so fun to hear about their lives and what they are doing now! It was fun to drive through my old town and neighborhood, to show Brent this place that is such a huge part of who I am!

It was so sad to leave. Being there felt like being home. I love the energy the city has. I love the endless possibilities of a day. I miss the culture and diversity. I miss never knowing what you day will end up being or what hilarious experance you will have or funny thing you will see! There is defentally no other place in the world like New York, and it will always have a special place in my heart!

***if you would like to see more pics from our trip go to our online photo album***