New York City...

Out of the blue, Tim sends out an email, asking if anyone wanted to join him in NYC for a couple day visit. Well, there was only a week notice, but hey, that’s plenty! Grammom and Grandpa agreed to watch the kids; we used some frequent flyer miles for Shawna to fly (business class no less) and we went to the Big Apple!
We went and ate Reuben sandwiches at the same restaurant where they filmed “When Harry Met Sally.” The sandwiches were huge! Seriously, one shouldn’t eat that much meat at one setting. We also had NYC bagels, hot peanuts, pizza, and hot chocolate too! All the food in NYC was very expensive. Oddly, however, most of the other touristy stuff (toys, clothes, knick-knacks) were the same price as anywhere else.

Tim’s hotel was right on Times Square. They already had the “New Years ball” (the one you see fall every year) up in position. We were surprised to see the pole holding the ball was so short. Turns out it doesn’t fall very far… It would be fun to be there for New Years Eve, but looking down from the hotel room – not on the streets; too crowded. It was a perfect time to be there; everything was decorated for Christmas and it was purely magical.

We went to the Empire State Building, and it was really windy up there. It was however, a good view of the city. It must have been very exciting to be able to go to the top 80 years ago. We happened to ride up the elevator with a couple actors that we recognized, but didn’t know their names… We also went to ground zero, where the Twin Towers stood. Very sad. They’re building a set of inverted pools/waterfalls where the water descends and eventually disappears into the middle void.

We went to The Today Show, and saw Bette Middler (who was tiny – much smaller than what we thought). We were all able to get on TV in the background, but Tim and Sterling positioned themselves for close-ups. Their faces covered the whole foreground of the camera shot. One of Sterling’s friends even called to say that he saw him on TV (even though he didn’t know we were there.) We also saw the Radio City Rockettes for our final night!

We also went to the Statue of Liberty. While we were there it started snowing huge snowflakes! They were almost the size of a silver dollar - very pretty. We also went to Staten Island, but didn’t go in. Instead we went to Grand Central Station, Macy’s (where they shoot the parade) and the NYC library. Both very grand, but rather small for the amount of people they serve.

We had a wonderful time in New York! Thanks Tim for inviting us.