The Bells of New York City...

This past weekend Jennifer and I were able to head up to New York. This visit was so much better than the previous visit a couple of years ago. The previous one lasted about 10 hours and it involved us running through Central Park from Penn station to get to where we needed to be.

We flew into LaGuardia Saturday afternoon and headed to our hotel- Westin in Times Square. I had worked the previous night and was pretty tired so we didn't do much but we were able to get out of the hotel and walk up to Columbus Circle and the Time Warner Building where there is a huge Whole Foods that Jennifer loves!

View out of our hotel window looking to NJ:

Time Warner Building:

Sunday- We went down the street to get pizza and Jennifer had the brilliant idea to take the pizza and sit in Central Park to eat it. We then walked through the beautiful Central Park. The leaves are changing, the air had a crispness to it, families were hanging out and music getting played by someone. If nothing else it was so relaxing. While walking back we went by to see the temple as well. It still amazes me that it is right on a corner of 2 major streets in Manhattan. The gala was that night. Got all dressed up in my cocktail dress and platform heels. Lindy and Jack Groban (Josh's parents) were there and as we were eating there was a surprise guest!! That's right... Josh made an appearance. He wanted to thank us personally for all the work that we have done for his foundation (raised $1 million) and talked about what the foundation means to him and his family. He also said something about another event similar to this soon. His mom told us how we are all like family to her and that we are close to her heart. Then talked about how special this foundation is. She talked about how the arts rescue children and how the arts give children a voice.

Central Park:

Manhattan Temple:

Gala:

Monday- I wanted to do some touristy things so we headed down to the Empire State Building and went up to the 86th floor and saw the city. Went through Harold Square and Macy's which was huge and already decorated for Christmas. As we made our way back up to the hotel we stopped by Rockefeller Center where they are currently in the process of putting up the tree. We went to the concert that night at Madison Square Garden. (I've always wanted to go there ever since the HBO concert thing for *NSYNC) It was an amazing concert. You could feel the energy of all the concert-attendees and Josh just fed off of it and you could feel like he was having an amazing night. It was the last concert of the US leg. After the concert we ran into his parents and his mom said that it was one of his best concerts.

Macys:

View from Empire State Building:

Rockefeller Center:

Concert:

Tuesday- This was a bittersweet day. I can't describe the feeling that I got in New York but I fell in love with it over the weekend. But as usual vacations come to an end... and we headed to the airport to fly back to North Carolina.

... Tell me not to go.