The Rowe Crew: Christmas in New York

I typically don't blog about "Scott and I stuff", (because seriously, we're not that cool) but this was too fun not to document and I don't want to forget it. We decided during the fall that we would take a "7 year anniversary + we're turning 30" trip. We had talked about a few different options, but nothing could compare to New York at Christmas-time. And it was amazing!!!

*** Just realized I'm super wordy and it was getting OUT. OF. CONTROL,, so I'm just gonna bullet so we can remember. You should just scroll down for the pictures...you'll thank me :)!

SATURDAY

Met Scott's parents for lunch in Houston and they took the girls home. We were seriously SO thankful they were willing to keep the girls and not a bit worried about them...so nice!
During our drive down to Houston, learned that our flight to Philly (we were going to take a train from there) had been cancelled.
Went on to the airport anyway and FINALLY found an 8:00 flight to Cleveland that would then get us to Newark on Sunday.
Arrived in Cleveland at midnight and checked into some random hotel for all of 5 hours. Slept in our clothes because we didn't have our luggage. Nice.

SUNDAY

Woke up, tried to freshen up, and headed back to the airport for a 7:oo flight. SOOO wish we wouldn't have.
Ended up being delayed five times and didn't fly out until 2:00.
Arrived in Newark around 4:00, caught a train and FINALLY arrived at our hotel around 5:00. Woo-Hoo! We stayed at the New Yorker for our first two nights and it was great. Good location, cozy room and comfy bed.

Since we had missed almost a full day of our "plan", we rushed over the Times Square TKTS place to try to get tickets to really any show that night. Of course, all the good tickets were gone.
Instead walked a few blocks to Radio City Music Hall and got Monday tickets for the Christmas Spectacular. Not exactly what we had hoped for, but it worked out great.
Finally got cleaned up at the hotel and decided to look for an Irish pub. We were thrilled with the one we found. SUPER yummy food and fun atmosphere!

After walking around a bit, we hit up a diner for cheesecake and then to bed. Did I mention it was ridiculously COLD?

MONDAY

Got up a little late, but made our way over to Rockefeller Center for the Today Show.
Still crazy cold...saw the tree, watched ice-skaters and made it to show.

We weren't front row, but could still see pretty well. Watched a segment with Giada and Santa, Scott got some great pics of Ann Curry, and then when they all headed back inside, our section cleared out! I guess they thought the action was over. We made it to the front and stuck around for a few minutes. And they actually taped a bit of the crowd as they were coming back from commercials and guess who got some airtime...our 2 seconds of fame. Ha!

Still feeling cold, we stopped in for coffee and breakfast at Dean and Deluca.
Walked over to 3o Rockefeller and headed up to the view from the "Top of the Rock". It was really quite amazing! Scott got some great pictures while I tried to hide from the cold. Ha!

Time for our Rockettes Christmas Spectacular show. We almost missed the beginning because the doors had not been opened an hour early like they were supposed to, and the audience was wrapped around 7-8 blocks just 1o minutes before showtime! It was crazy. But my smarty husband got us back around to the front just as they were just shuffling people in every door they could. It was a good show and even better to be at the actual Music Hall. But we were most impressed with the AMAZING nativity scene they created at the end of the show. It was awesome!

On to Grand Central Station. This was something Scott really wanted to do (me - not so much) but it was actually pretty cool. Fun to watch the hustle and bustle and a good place to warm up (are you sensing a theme here!?!).
We had heard that Patsy's Pizzeria was a must do and it was!! Probably the best pizza I've ever had! Too bad we had to rush a bit to make it back to our NBC tour on time. But I did snap a picture of the store next door...this is for our ABF peeps ;).

The NBC studio tour was really fun! We got to see the SNL set, the "green screen" room and Football Night in America. We were both shocked at how small the SNL set looked. Apparently they use wide lens cameras that make it look MUCH bigger.
Next we wanted to visit St. Patrick's Cathedral and were so excited when we arrived just in time for mass. We heard a sweet message about Christmas and enjoyed worshipping in the beauty of the cathedral!

By now, it was dark out so we walked the few blocks back to Rockefeller Center to see it all lit up! Didn't disappoint!! So beautiful.

Thanks to Julie, we sought out the giant Snowflakes at Saks and thoroughly enjoyed the show!

We had planned to have dinner with Scott's Aunt and Uncle from New Jersey, but they weren't feeling well, so we got a little take-out sushi & watched a movie in bed.
Sweet dreams.

TUESDAY

Big Day Today!!! Scott Rowe's 30 birthday!!! It was so fun to be there on his actual birthday. Since his b-day is so close to Christmas, I always feel bad that we don't do more celebrating just for him. But this year we definitely did!!! Thanks to some help from our sweet friends and family, Scott was blessed by the power of PRAYER all throughout the day. It was awesome.
We packed up, said good-bye to our cozy little room and took a taxi to our new hotel...that's right, we changed for the last night. We decided to splurge for one night and stayed at the Waldorf Astoria. Beautiful! I never did convince him to do the whole elevator scene from the movie, Serendipity, but it was fun anyway. And we took a picture of snow for the girls ;).

Should mention that when I woke up on Tuesday, I was feeling B.A.D. We're talking yucky. And I was SO sad because I wanted so much to make Scott's birthday so fun and special. Sweet guy...no matter how hard I was trying to be brave, he knew I was not doing well and let us rest a bit before we headed out for the day. I finally just got up and made myself hit the town. And after I got *sick* in the subway terminal, I felt MUCH better ;). Purge and rally, as Scott would say. Ha!
Even though I was feeling better, Scott was totally freaked out about the whole thing. So he wanted me to sit. I wasn't in the mood to eat, but we found a little local deli where he had a yummy lunch.
Next, we headed down to Chinatown and Little Italy. We had hoped to do this our first night there because he had heard Little Italy was beautiful at night....lights strung across the streets, etc. And I'm not much for shopping in those types of situations, so we didn't stick around too long. Still, fun to experience.
Headed over to the World Trade Center site/Ground Zero. We couldn't see a whole lot because of all the construction going on, but it was definitely something we had wanted to do.
While we were there, we hit up Century 21, a giant T.J.Max kind-of place we had heard about and both bought some new clothes. It was fun to be able to take our time and not rush around like we do when the girls are in tow ;).
Starbucks. Self-explanatory.
After a short nap, we went to Tao for Scott's birthday dinner. It was really quite amazing...very "New York-y" and we ate incredible food. Loved it.
Probably my favorite thing we did...Carriage Ride through Central Park. It was beautiful at night and our driver was full of lots of fun trivia. I just loved the clompity, clomp of the hooves.

Second best...Serendipity III. We split a frozen hot chocolate (their signature) and Scott's fave, a Strawberry Shortcake. So yummy, such a cute place, loved it!!

WEDNESDAY

I had really wanted to eat a "real N.Y. bagel" while we were there, so this was our last opportunity. And we found the perfect place...a little Jewish-owned deli with the. best. bagels. ever!! So yummy!
Okay, this was another one of my favorites for sure...needs a little background. Scott's sister, Sarah, and I both love to watch Project Runway. And lucky for me, she drew my name for Christmas. Would you believe that she got me a gift certificate to the one and only, MOOD!?!? Because she did. Can you say awesome SIL, or what?? It was so fun to be in the same fabric store where the cast shops. I had so much fun browsing through all THREE floors until I finally found an adorable upholstery fabric that I plan to make pillows out of. Thank you, Sarah, SUCH a fun gift!!
Next we hit up the Museum of Natural History. We are not the most "museum-y" people, so we didn't think we would appreciate the MET, but had heard this one was good. And it really was. We did enjoy it very much. Now, as far as the planetarium show we went to...SO wish I had realized what we were getting in to. Let's just say that I spent my time praying that everyone else wouldn't believe all the "Big Bang" crud they were hearing.
A stop for the girls...FAO Schwartz!! But really, it was just as much fun for us ;). It was CRAZY busy since it was just before Christmas, but we managed to find them each a little surprise and had fun too!
Since it had been SO cold the entire time, we spent much more time on the subway than walking the streets, which wasn't exactly what we had planned. But we knew we needed to brave the cold to take a walk down 5th Avenue to see all the beautiful window displays. And I'm so glad we did...they truly were amazing. Even if we are so fashionably-challenged that we didn't know how to pronounce 1/2 of the stores, it was really fun!
We had planned to do the famous Carnegie Deli for lunch, but we absolutely could eat NO. MORE. We were stuffed and just couldn't do it.
Not too mention, we were CRAZY missing our girls and were just ready to get home. So we headed back to the hotel, gathered our things and took a CRAZY taxi ride to the airport...Scott almost lost his lunch ;).
Caught our 6:00 flight, arrived in Houston at 11:00ish and were back to our little ladies by midnight!!! I couldn't have been more excited to see those two sleeping beauties than I was that moment ;).