More About New York...

I spent 10 days in New York City and I could have spent another month! The first 5 days were with Chris, and then I took him to the airport and picked up my sister, Jeanie ! Between the two of them, I got to see 6 Broadway plays! Chris and I saw The Lion King and Young Frankenstein. Then Jeanie and I saw Title of Show, The Jersey Boys (my favorite!), Gypsy Rose and South Pacific. They were awesome! Title of Show wasn't great, but it was interesting! Here are some pictures of other things we did. The first is a sneak preview of the new Yankee Stadium. Then one of me after the Yankee game on the street in Times Square. Next is the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. It is so amazing to me that on out of four Americans can trace their ancestry back to an immigrant that came through Ellis Island. The stories were heard while there were incredible. I can't even imagine the things our ancestors went through to be able to come to America! One day Lou (another name for my sis, Jeanie), and I went up to the Bronx to take pictures of the new Yankee Stadium, then took the subway through four of the five burroughs and ended up in Coney Island. We had always heard of this place, but had never been there, so we checked it out. It was mostly deserted because it's Fall, but we still went to the famous Nathan's for a Coney Island hot dog. We found out a Coney Island dog is just a hot dog with sauerkraut and onions. Truth is, Lou had a regular hot dog and I had a steak sandwich. But hey, we can say we've been to Coney Island!

New York, New York! We love New York!

So, Chris' birthday and Father's Day are always within a day or two of each other, which makes gift finding really hard. Well, this year, for Father's Day, I gave him a trip to New York. He'd been there for a few hours on the way home from his mission, but hadn't REALLY seen New York! I had gone with my sister, Jeanie, a few years ago, and absolutely fell in LOVE with the city...everything about it...the subways (yeah!), the people, the Broadway plays, the food, the landmarks, EVERYTHING! Chris has been an avid Yankee fan since the Mickey Mantle days, but has never been to a game in Yankee stadium. As most of you know, they are tearing it down even as I write. I was able to get some fantastic tickets to the second to the last game (or the last Saturday night game) before they tore the stadium down. Chris was excited when he opened them and I told him we were going, but NOTHING compared to what I witnessed when we got there. We arrived at the stadium a few hours prior to the game because we had special passes to get into the Stadium Club. This was supposed to give us an advantage and guarantee that we would be able to see Monument Park--where all the retired players numbers and plaques are--but when we got there, we found out that since it was the next to the last game, they were going to allow the first 200 people in line only to visit Monument Park. I was sick. We were about 600 people back. We talked to one of the police officers guarding the stadium and explained our situation and he saved us! He allowed us a five minute head start through the Stadium Club (which is on the opposite side of the stadium from Monument Park) and we literally ran through the stadium. We were almost to the entrance to Monument Park when they let the rest of the public into the stadium. What chaos! Luckily, another guy that worked at the stadium blocked the raging crowd off and let us in to Monument Park. I was so relieved! I knew that was one of Chris' "bucket list" items, so I am eternally grateful to Officer Manuela and the guy inside the stadium for letting a couple of Utah punks into the Park. When we got there, it was boiling hot outside, but I looked at Chris and he had goose bumps on his arms. He was SO excited to be there! His dream had come true! We took tons of pictures! The grin never left his face for the next 5 hours. He loved every minute of it. In 30 years of marriage, he has never thanked me so much for something. I think I did good on this one!