I HEART NYC

This is Wendi. Wendi's been my best friend since elementary school. I met her on a school camping trip and we felt bad that she was all alone and asked her to hang out with our little group. Little did we know that she would be the life of the party and she has been ever since. So naturally I couldn't resist when she asked if I wanted to go to NYC for a weekend to see Little Mermaid. One of my favorite people and one of my favorite cities. Couldn't ask for more.

I've seen a bajillion Broadway shows before this trip, but Little Mermaid was my first Disney Broadway show. It was so awesome that it became the theme for our trip.

I love that NYC is alive so late at night. After our show we hit all the fun shops around Times Square that suck tourists in to blow all their money. I have never seen so many M&M's in my life. This shop is new since we moved from there and I couldn't resist bringing my kids home candy in their favorite colors. This is only part of one wall. There were four more with more colors.

When we finally woke up the next morning after our late night out we headed down to see the progress at the World Trade Center sites. It is going to be a pretty cool memorial. It was nice to be there with Wendi and see it again with fresh eyes and remember what happened to all those families and to America on 9/11.

We had so much fun shopping on this trip. We found great bargains at Century 21, H&M and of course one of my favorites...purses in Chinatown! This trip made me so homesick for New York. I wish I could go more often.

(Lourdes, Desiree, Wendi, Carol)

Our second night we met up with some friends of mine that came in from Long Island to shop, eat and see a show with us. Carol and Lourdes are two of the reasons that I love New York so much and it was good to see them again. We ate at Cafe Napoli in Little Italy, so delicious, and stopped by Ferraro's to get some of my favorite treats for dessert. It was hard to find a show that between the four of us no one had seen, so we kept with our Disney theme and saw Shrek. Cute show, probably one that you see last on your list, but still funny. The donkey stole the show just like in the movie.

For our last afternoon before we headed to the airport we went to see a little off-Broadway show called Alter Boyz. It was a parody of all the boy bands over the past few years. It was so funny, we literally laughed for 90 minutes straight! One of Wendi's heros from So You Think You Can Dance the TV show a few seasons ago was in the cast. I'm sad I didn't see that season, because he was hilarious. He happened to be the one right outside our exit door after the show and it was so fun to watch Wendi get a little star struck. It was a fabulous way to end a fabulous trip.

But our trip didn't actually end there. We got to the airport and found out that they had cancelled our flight because of weather (despite the fact that every other airline flying to the same place was still heading out). Our fits and pleas for help were ignored so we grabbed a cab back into the city, booked one of the last two rooms still available in our hotel, literally threw our suitcases into the room and ran down the street to the Lion King theatre minutes before the 8:00 show. There were cancellations and we got the best seats in the house. Plus no one for two rows was sitting in front of us. It really made missing our flight easier to swallow and almost made up for having to wait another day to see my family! The next flight wasn't until the following night so we hit another matinee show and enjoyed the fabulous Mary Poppins. The actress playing Mary Poppins was comparable to Julie Andrews. She did a wonderful job.

We did more shopping, playing and eating than sleeping on this trip. I forgot what a night owl Wendi is, always ready for action. Our husbands and children were so nice to let us enjoy the show and to squeeze in phone calls with us between all the playing. I love Broadway shows and can't believe we were able to squeeze in so many. It was awesome.

Wendi is a year older than me so I've spent my life copying everything she does just a step behind. We did cheerleading together in junior high and drill team together in high school. When I was engaged to Nate I was a little embarassed that he was a dentist, because Wendi was already married and to a dentist. We love so many of the same things that it's just fun. To this day we still find that we like the same things right down to driving the exact same car in the exact same color....and wouldn't you know it when we pulled out our cameras to start documenting our trip I laughed so hard because we pulled out identical blue cannon elphs. Wendi is such a great person and a great friend, I guess its okay to copy sometimes! I can't wait to do this again next year.