Just Another Monday . . .

. . . in New York City. So this post is documenting LAST Monday. It was our last day in NY. We packed it nice and full. We started with Central Park. We again did not wake up early for a morning stroll through the park, but ended up starting through the park around 10am. We took the subway up to 86th Street and went in on the West side since we didn't think we had been to that section before. I'm pretty sure we hadn't because we happened upon this reservoir. It was so beautiful.
The trouble (or awesomeness, depending on how you look at it) with Central Park is that it's giant and it's very easy to get lost. This is great when you just want to wander, but we spent about half our time in the park looking for a bathroom. If you have ever looked for a bathroom in Manhattan you know it's practically impossible to find a public restroom when you need one. We thought we were set when we had wandered all the way over to the east side of the park and found the Met. Unfortunately the Met is closed on Mondays, as are most museums, we discovered. Finally, we decided to go back into the park and found a public restroom by the boathouse in front of the Conservatory where the model sailboats normally sail. There were no mini boats out when we were there though. Not sure why.

Here is a pretty bridge near the reservoir lake. I love the canopy of trees. It always amazes me how green Central Park is right there in the middle of the city.
The animals in Central Park are not shy. We saw tons of squirrels and birds would hop around inches away from us. I snapped this shot for Weston, but I think Ian looks cute and who doesn't love squirrels?
We walked all the way down to the bottom of Central park at 59th St. and 5th Ave. after stopping at another (cleaner) public restroom in the office building at the entrance to the zoo. I am detailing the bathroom locations for you in the off-chance that you will be in NYC looking for a bathroom and remember reading about where there was one.

At the bottom of the park we hopped the subway again and headed to Soho for some shopping. Ian wanted a cool new t-shirt, so we were hunting. We looked at tons of shops and passed by some awesome designer shops too. Ian ended up finding his shirt at a street fair booth. They had all these shirts to choose from then all these designs and they would make your shirt right there. He got a gray American Apparel shirt with a design of a white cassette tape. I love it. He does too. Success.

After some more window shopping we decided to grab some lunch. We busted out the trusty iphone and decided to try this little place we happened to be right by. It was not as good as I had hoped, but pretty cheap, so that was good. Also it had this awesome red wall with the restaurant name on it. I was disappointed that they did not, in fact, serve Mooncake.
After a little more Soho wandering we were tired and headed back to the hotel for a little rest before getting ready for the Stevies. It felt so good to lay down for a little bit. We got cleaned up and dressed in our fancy "business" attire for the American Business Awards (aka The Stevies). I did the best I could with my hair and makeup after being out in the city all day. Then I made the ultimate beauty sacrifice and put on 3 inch heels even though my feet were killing me from 3 days of essentially non-stop walking.

The awards were in the 6th floor Broadway Ballroom in our hotel. I still felt weird, like we weren't really adults that should be attending a fancy awards ceremony, but here's our ticket to prove it.
Here we are in the half empty ballroom during the earlier awards where they presented Ian's category. These were mostly the creative categories.
The ballroom was actually pretty impressive. This is the stage from our table. We were pretty much right in the middle of the room. There were 56 tables.
Ian's company's pieces earned two runner's up certificates and one actual Stevie Award for his Ore to More animation piece. Ian got up and gave a quick acceptance speech. He looked so handsome and successful up there. :)
After the earlier awards ceremony there was a cocktail reception. We went back up to the room for a little bit since the reception wasn't starting for about 20 more minutes. Also that statue was freaking heavy. We went back down and visited with some other people from the earlier awards and noshed on all the fun food. Finally it was time for the actual dinner. It was kind of a letdown. Not bad, but certainly not the best food I have ever eaten, and definitely not $375 worth. Oh well. We ate and then ditched out as soon as the rest of the awards were about to start. Here we are being a little silly at dinner.
We realized that we had forgotten to have our picture taken with the award, so we set up my phone's timer and took one of ourselves in our room with Ian's big award!
Even though we were pretty bushed we decided to go out since it was our last night in New York. We headed down to the Hudson River Park, which is basically a 50 foot wide strip of sidewalk and grass along the Western border of Manhattan, right by the river. We had to walk and walk and walk. It started raining and was really windy. We didn't even end up sitting at the end of the pier like we planned, so that was kind of a bust, but the skyline was still beautiful at night.

The night ended on a good note with some delicious dessert at Ruby Tuesday in Times Square, where we sat by the window and talked and talked until way too late. Finally we bid New York farewell and went up to our room to pack and catch a few hours of sleep before our early plane home.

We ended up accidentally getting to the airport an hour earlier than we needed to because we thought our plane left at 5:45, but it wasn't actually scheduled until 6:45. Oops. Oh well. Then we sat on tarmac in the plane for an entire hour. Blah. Eventually we did leave and made it home safe and sound and only about half an hour later than planned. The kids were happy to see us and they liked the presents we brought for them. THANKS again to my mom for staying with the kids while we were gone even though she had a sinus infection AND an ear infection.

I am so glad that we decided to go on this trip to NY. It was so much fun and so great to spend some time just with Ian. I loved every minute and look forward already to our next trip back.