a few days in the chilly north

I'm really starting to slack on posting timely blogs. For instance, I'm about to tell you about my weekend in New York with mama (um, last weekend) and my team retreat in DC (um, last week).

Let's start with New York, because I'm going to at least write about them in the order that they happened.

After the strangest flight delay, we were off to the Big Apple on Saturday morning! We checked into our hotel - after first waltzing into the wrong one and having to take a cab to the correct one - and chowed down on a ridiculously amazing Doubletree cookie. I had a few spots I wanted to check out while in town, but overall we didn't have a plan, which was so nice. We decided to we wanted to walk around Central Park (while it's freezing outside? of course!), so we headed to that part of town and met up with one of my best friends from high school, Christine. We grabbed a very New York brunch (since that's a thing, right?) at The Smith and then strolled through the park until we couldn't feel our limbs.

After a quick stop in FAO Schwarz and what used to be The Plaza, Christine headed home and mom and I walked down 5th Ave for a bit - we had to go to Tiffany & Co.

Mom and I headed back to the hotel to thaw out before grabbing dinner with Candace. Candace and I were instant BFFs at Western, and then she transferred back home to Univ of New Hampshire so I rarely get to see her. She conveniently moved to NYC last year, so we planned to spend Saturday night together. After a yummy dinner at the Atlantic Grill, mom headed back to the hotel and I went back to Candace's apartment before we headed out. Little did I know that New Yorkers (-ans? - ites?) don't go out until around 1 am... Silly me for being ready to go at 10pm! We were out in the Lower East Side until 5am (again... silly me), so needless to say I was exhausted on Sunday.

I woke up on Sunday and not only was I tired, but the cold that had been sneakily hanging out on the back burner decided to come front and center. Of course, I still pulled it together and mom, Christine and I headed to the 9/11 Memorial. It is such a beautiful remembrance of such a terrible day in our country's history. There are two pools that mark where the two towers stood, and they're in the process of building a museum. I highly recommend it for anyone visiting. (Insider Tip: You have to reserve tickets beforehand, but they're free.)

Like I said, we didn't have any solid plans all weekend, but mom decided she wanted to see The Newsies on Sunday and I very happily obliged. I went to high school with someone in the musical, but of course his understudy played the part when we went. (Typical!) It was seriously so good! I could have cried during the "Seize the Day" number - SO good!!

We met up with Christine (again, because we kind of like her) to watch the Super Bowl at Saloon. Turns out in New York you have to pay an upfront fee to get a seat. So we each paid $40 for an open bar - mom took full advantage. :)

I made mom pose for an obligatory, touristy Times Square picture.

It's hard not to have a good time in New York - the city really is magical. Even if it's against his will, I'm dragging Adam there one day. It's some place everyone needs to visit once.

Now I'm tired of typing and I still have to talk about DC. I'm going to round it up as fast as possible...

I took the train from NYC to DC on Monday morning for our Culinary Events team retreat and was there until Wednesday night. Tuesday night we had our team dinner at Farmers Fishers Bakers (yum! terrible service, though), and I was able to hang out to the other love of my life (Brent! Adam's best man) on Wednesday afternoon before he dropped me off at the airport. THE END.