New York City!!!

So I went to New York City for the first time over July 4th weekend with 6 friends and we had a blast!!!

So, first of all I have to say that I have been VERY BLESSED with some AWESOME friends.  We have known each other since 8th grade and have been cl

ose ever since.  Some of us have since moved away from Sandy, Utah and live in Las Vegas, St. George, San Francisco, and New York state.  But that has seemed to only make us closer!  I am so thankful for all my friends, thanks girls!  And to those friends who couldn't make it to New York, we missed you and hope you can join us for our next trip :) or just hang out (i.e. Alicia, Amanda, and Melissa).

Second - I have to thank my wonderful husban

d for letting me go for four days and leaving him with the kids.  He is such a great husband and father!  The kids had a blast with him, even though they were sick and threw up and had some diarrhea :( sorry honey!  This trip was something I really needed, a small break, so thanks!  It is always great to get away but also great to come back home :).  I was so thankful to come home to two happy kids and a clean house :).  I LOVE YOU CORY!

And last, but not least, some pictures and details ab

out my trip.  This is just a few of the 200 photos I took!  Yes, between the 7 of us I think we have about 1000 photos I am sure!!!  We went picture crazy!!!  It was so much fun.  I will post a small movie a little later, don't know when I will get around to that!

First, I had to be at the Amtrak (train) station

 at 4:30 am Thursday morning so that I could catch the 5:10 train and be in "the City" by 7:40 am.  Yes, that means Cory and the kids woke up at 4:15 to take me, what good sports :).  The ride was nice, the Amtrak station is only like 10 minutes from our house so it worked out great, and the ride was about 2 1/2 hours.  I studied for work and tried to get some shut eye, with little luck.

I was lucky to meet a woman who showed me w

here to go once we got to the city.  She helped me get a cab.  And what a ride that was!  I had a raunchy cab driver and felt like I was going to die in that car!  It was worse than a ride at Lagoon, seriously!  In and out of traffic and stop and go like nothing else, ahhh!  Then when we finally got to the apt, I swear he got lost and I still had to pay for that, and he got mad at me for not giving a good enough tip.  But whatever, I got there alive and safe!!!

One of my friends husbands hooked us up with a gr

eat deal because his work owns an apt. in Uptown Manhattan and rented it out to us for hardly anything!  It was a three bedroom, 6 bed apt, way nicer than the one I am sitting in right now, but I can't complain!  So I went up to the apt to meet up with my dear friends and start the party!!!  It was so good to get together with the

m again, I hadn't seen them for a year!!!

So this is a view of New York City from the Empire State Building, pretty awesome huh? 

 I guess it was worth the hour in line (may have been longer?).  Seriously, the time flew by because I was with my sistas (below).

These are the friends I went with, left to right: Aubrey Sessions, Jeni Romrell, Stefanie

 Rasmussen, Janessa Adams, Aubrey Howell, and Natalie Gibby.

on top of the Empire State Building, the view is behind us, sorry you can't see it.

I met my favorite Actress, Julia Roberts!  Even though she was wax, it was great to meet her. (we went to a wax museum)

Jeni, me, and Aub H. in Times Square

Walking through times square in the rain, we got pictures just before it started POURING!

right before leaving to go see the Broadway Musical "Wicked"

I highly recommend it to everyone!  We missed you Stefanie :), she had to leave that morning.  We thought of you though.

We also did a harbor cruise and saw the Statue of liberty and the City from the Hudson River, walked, road a double decker bus and limo, walked, shopped, walked, went to Serendipity (from the movie), walked past ground zero, did a virtual sky ride, went to a store called Natalie and Friends (which is us :), went to Dylan's Candy Bar (from the Oprah show :), took a tour of the NBC studios and saw where Conan films his show, and stayed up until 3-4 in the morning just talking!!!

So, as you can see, we had a blast and got to see quite a few things.  I can't tell you everything that went on ;), but I can tell you that I am so thankful to have friends to talk to about ANYTHING and EVERYTHING ;).  I LOVE MY FRIENDS!!!

That's all of NY at this time, there is more to come though so stay tuned!