I love New York!

Hi everyone!

(click on any of the pictures to see them larger)

We are back home from a wonderful trip to New Jersey and New York city and thought I would share some pictures with you all!  We went for 4 days to celebrate my annual company Christmas party held in  New Jersey and boy did we have a blast. This was my first visit to the east coast  and wasn't sure what to expect seeing we had never been there before. I knew it was going to be mind blowing- and it sure was. NYC is just huge.......everything there is so fantasically BIG!

We stayed at a beautiful hotel called "The Madison" in Morriston New Jersey, that is where the company party and business meetings were held (my Co. headquarters is in Livingston, NJ).

 Here we are having a few cocktails, dinner, and enjoying dancing at the big party! The food, drink, and coversations were excellent and it was so nice to finally meet some of my fellow co-workers in person and get to know them a little. This year was a special year (overly extravagant)  as the owners of the company are retiring and had just sold the Co. to four of the vice presidents- so there were many long speeches and awards and such. It was a wonderful time and we met many people in my industry (elevators). My hubby works in the industry as well which was helpfull as he wasn't completely lost in all the conversations.

                                           
Come Saturday morning after the big party 12 of us hopped on the train into New York city for a day of exploring. We were the only newbies in the group and it was reassuring to be going into the city with experienced folks. The weather was perfect (low 40's) and we had quite the funny surprise once we got on the train. There were about 6 college kids all dressed up in assorted wild and crazy Santa suits.....and I kid you not- they all were drinking beers and other adult beverages right on the train! It was 10:00 AM and my husband and I just could not get over how funny it all was.....kind of shocking to see that first thing when you get on the train. The folks from NYC that we were with said it was a very common tradition for them to do this on that particular weekend.....a "Santa pub crawl" I guess.  I had to snap a quick picture so you all would believe me! That blue can he is holding is a big old Bud Light!!

We saw these Santa's everywhere!

 After arriving at Penn Station we walked all over feeling a bit lost and overwhelmed with it all- the streets and sidewalks were so packed with people- it was almost scary. We just tried to stick with our group and not get lost which was pretty hard as we were just mesmerized looking at all the huge buildings and just trying to soak it all in. All I could think was "I am actually walking on the streets of New York city"- amazing for a country bumpkin like me! My husband who was rather sceptical about the whole trip to the "city" was really having a blast which surprised me as well.

We all grabbed some lunch and then headed over the the "Lunt Fontaine" theater to catch the 2:00 showing of "The Addams Family". The theater was gorgeous and the show was SUPERB!! Nathan Lane and Bebe Nuewirth did and amazing job! The show was really funny and I was pleasantly surprised with the amount of wonderful dancing and singing. I highly recommend seeing it if you get to NYC sometime soon- it was absolutely fabulous!

After the show we decided to try to get over to see Rockefeller Center and see the famous Christmas tree.......but sad to say it was so jam packed with people we could only get as close as across the street.

                                              Yup- that's as close as we could get- EEK!!

We passed by Times Square- just so fun and beautiful with everything all lit up! It was smaller than I expected.......I was thinking it was huge but I guess not.

So we wandered over to Bryant Park which is behind the NYC library and saw the open ice skating rink and a huge blue Christmas tree. The park was full of the cutest little shops where you could wander around but we had to hurry and get to our dinner reservations at the resturant just down the street!

We came back over to Bryant Park after dinner for a bit of walking around and some quick shopping.

We couldn't resist eating one of these yummy cupcakes and enjoying some hot cocoa!

Then we had to hurry over to Penn Station to hop on our train back to New Jersey.

We had an amazing time in the big apple. It all zoomed by very quickly -no time to really get any serious shopping done-as we had to run from place to place. The excitiment in the air was palpable and everyone was extremely nice- not rude like we had been lead to believe. We really want to come back sometime in the future (maybe spring or summer) and explore some more as it felt like we only saw 2% of the city.

I love New york and will be back for sure!

Coming home to seb zero temperatures and over 20" of new fallen snow was really, really hard!  I wish we could have stayed much longer but so much yet to do for Christmas, it's that crazy busy time of year.

Thanks for coming along on my tiny tour of New York and hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Oh yeah, I came home with a really rotten cold too- so I'm staying in my pj's and being very lazy until I feel well enough to go back to work :(

Inky Hugs, Anne