With all the layoffs and reductions many employers are forced to do this year, it was a welcome relief to my department that our New York office is transferring their payroll to us. Our work wasn't slow... but being given more responsability meant further job security and trust.
The new responsibilities enabled my coworker Jeri and I an opportunity to go to New York to train in their office. I was so excited! Brad and I decided to go up early and take advantage of only needing to purchase one plane ticket.
We left on Thursday, May 28th and headed for New York! The flight was good, but exhausting. We took a taxi to our Holiday Inn in Brooklyn, ordered in a delicious pizza, and hung out there for the night. First off I was amazed at the driving. The taxi's are crazy, jumping into a very limited opening in the next lane over.
On Friday we walked only a couple of blocks to a main subway hub. We took the subay in to Times Square. It was very flashy!
One thing I found interesting was that they had blocked off one side of the road and there were lawn chairs all spread out. People were just hanging out in the middle of the road.
After Times Square we headed up to Central Park. Man that is a beautiful, amazing park. Jeri and I visited it again on Monday after work. I really like it there.
We looked through a few stores, I got us very lost, then it was down to the Empire State Building.
The above picture is actually one we took on Sunday when we were passing by it again, but on Friday while we were there the sky wasn't very clear.
(The Brooklyn Bridge)
We had a lot more pictures on the Empire State Building, but they just don't look very good. Too bad the skies weren't a little more clear.
That night we hit a quick dinner at TGI Fridays before going to Mamma Mia!
The show was a lot of fun.
We took a quick picture in Times Square once more then headed back to our hotel.
On Saturday we started out at Liberty and Ellis Islands. Liberty Island was my absolute favorite!
She's a beautiful lady!
The trip definately renewed my love for my country and in turn my religion. We are so blessed to live in a place with so much freedom. What a welcoming sight our Lady Liberty must have been to the thousands pouring in to the United States. The men and women dreaming of the new life they were about to start. Were it not for our Father in Heaven, no such place could exist. I'm thankful to a loving Father for agency and a place to exercise it!
The buildings on Ellis Island were very beautiful, but it wasn't my favorite stop.
On Sunday we also visited Ground Zero. There is a lot of construction going on, so there wasn't much to see yet. But it seems they will have an amazing monument there in the future.
We also found Wall Street and the New York Stock Exchange.
Our old glory! What a beautiful flag!
On sunday we took a car service, on Leucadia, to The Hotel Giraffe. It was a very nice hotel. We just walked around that day and enjoyed ourselves. I must say those three days did a number on my feet. I wish it wasn't so time consuming to walk here in Utah. Things are much too far away.
Brad left on Monday and I headed in to work. It was really neat meeting people I had only spoke with on the phone. The training went well and Jeri and I did a little exploring of our own. We hit the Early Show at Rockefeller Center on Tuesday morning. Vice President Biden's wife was there. We didn't get very close, though.
On Wednesday our boss's boss there in New York took us to a very nice sushi restaurant. I tried some interesting things there. For the most part the food was excellent. She took us down to a farmer's market and some little shops. I bought Brad some imported Swiss cheese.
I slept one more night at the Hotel Giraffe and then headed home on Thursday. It was an amazing trip and I had a great time. The only hard part was that I missed my girls very much. A week was much too long to be gone. As for New York, it was a great place to visit. It is much too busy, loud, and expensive!
Miss Hailey, 3 years
Hailey absolutely loved the big blow up slides! These were the small blow up slides, etc.
We had a fun time on the little hay ride they had.
We loved the rare occasions we recieved VIP tickets. It actually ended up being at least once per season. As you can see from the picture, we were pretty close. Row 1 behind the visitors bench, which is about three rows back. (The phone takes decent pictures... a camera would have been better though) Hailey loved the games too! She always had a blast.
Sometimes we were even able to bring friends or family to a game. Rarely we would get all four tickets in a set. One time I brought Heather and Griffin with us. It was a fun girls/kids night out. Here is Heather and Grif.
