Arrived Safely in New York City

We're here and as you can tell - it's been very overcast and incredibly humid. We flew in above these gorgeous clouds, but I was really hoping to be able to see a neat view of New York City from overhead. We made it to the hotel without any trouble from JFK Airport and had some time to take a night walk over to Times Square and get some dinner on the way back. My nostrils are on high-alert as the smells here are so pungent. There has been no hint of a breeze so everything seems to sit and fester while we walk through one cloud and into the next. Horse drawn carriages line the sidewalk around Central Park giving us a strong manure smell, every other person is a smoker, and the subways emit a smog that is impossible not to notice. Then we have the hot dog vender cloud, the "Abercrombie & Fitch" cologne cloud, the fabulous Barbeque grill cloud, each with a smoker cloud in between. It's a veritable smorgasbord of overload for the senses.

I'm REALLY excited for tomorrow. I am not being sarcastic, I do not complain about how things are. I'm just attempting to notice.

Kathryn Playing Punk

New York City

Derek and I have our 5th Anniversary coming up in November. We are celebrating with a trip to New York City and our plane departs next week. We have a pretty good idea of which major sites to see (Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, Broadway shows, Rockefeller Center, etc.) We also have some fabulous food recommendations from LJ. I'm looking for any bits of advice that you are aware of. For instance, there is apparently a red booth somewhere that you can bid for cheap Broadway tickets. There is also a webcam where you can show up and have your picture online - if you are there at the "right" time then it will be archived. Do you know of a great place to eat that we just CANNOT miss? Should we avoid a certain place at a certain time of day? Any good info would be appreciated. Your deadline is Thursay, September 20th. GO!

Airport Fiasco

Katie and I flew out to Jodie's house in Indiana last week for a girls weekend. The plan was for Mom, Gina, and Jana to fly into Indianapolis Saturday early morning (1:00am). I was to meet them in the airport as my flight was scheduled to come in at 12:30am. Unfortunately, there was some mechanical problems with my plane and we ended up being 9 hours delayed. Yes, I was stuck in the John Wayne Airport for 9 hours with my 18 month old. Luckily she is pretty mellow because I really didn't bring anything to entertain her. We walked a while and she enjoyed standing up on the armrests of the chairs and then jumping off (over and over again). I'm glad I brought some lunch for her because all the airline offered us were those little cracker snack packs that you can buy on the plane. Pitiful. They did offer a travel voucher and told us that we would be put up in a hotel in Chicago before catching our connecting flight the next morning.

We were scheduled to leave at 1:23pm and finally taxied away from the gate at 9:30pm. Katie managed to sleep fitfully on the plane but I didn't get a wink of sleep. We arrived at 3:15am in Chicago and were told that the O'Hare Hilton (right on the premises) was not available to us since it was a holiday weekend. United was willing to give us hotel vouchers for a hotel 30 minutes away but wouldn't pay for the shuttle to get us there. Unfortunately, our flight from Chicago to Indianapolis was leaving at 7:30am so we only had 4 hours total to find Katie's carseat, get to a hotel, check-in, sleep for an hour, try and drag myself out of bed, get to the aiport in time to check-in, go through security, and make the flight on time. Fat chance. SO... Katie and I got to kill 4 hours of time during the most exhausting part of the night. She had already had a nap so she was wide-eyed and bushy tailed. I was just bushed.

I was disappointed that we weren't even offered meal vouchers since they weren't able to accomodate us in any way with the hotel. I will definitely be writing a letter to United Airlines. I'm not excited to use their travel voucher anytime soon.

(On a positive note: Our returning flights were ahead of schedule and we landed 30 minutes earlier than expected.)

Look at This Beautiful Baby

Here is our new niece Wendy. She's a pretty one - but then again, you can see for yourself.