From Sea To Shining Sea-Coast #1

The summer is almost over.  It is true.  Tonight we got our kids in bed by 8:20 and the sun wasn't still high in the sky.  Although it makes me a little sad, it also makes me a little glad.  And I'll tell you why, my little lad.  Because I'm exhausted.  Truly, I am.  We have only got our children in bed on time about 4 1/2 times the whole summer. And so, we are all a little tired.  But no more blabbing on!  This post is about something else exciting.  Dustin and I recently had our 10 year anniversary!  And we went to this little ol' town to celebrate:

I love New York.  Dustin does, too.  And our kids all have the t-shirts to prove it.  We had 4 days to explore and we packed everything in we possibly could (this is another reason why I am exhausted.  Dustin and I never vacation in a relaxing way).
A highlight of our trip was the Manhattan LDS Temple.  It was pretty amazing how quiet and peaceful it was, in the midst of one of the busiest cities in the world.

Later that night we went to Times Square.  This is at about midnight.

We also walked for hours around Central Park (and probably only saw about 1/6 of it).

We ate some seriously good food.  It was like being in Italy all over again.  These were some amazing Nutella crepes from the cafe at our hotel.

Speaking of our hotel, it was perfect!  I had been looking at places to stay for weeks before, and miraculously found this little gem just a week before we left.  It was the least expensive place we found, clean, quiet at night and the perfect location to see everything that we wanted to see.  It was a huge answer to prayers!  So if you are ever heading to New York, look up the Cosmopolitan Hotel.

We walked around the WTC site and Battery Park.

We rented bikes and rode over the Manhattan Bridge, ate "the best pizza in NY" at a quaint little park in Brooklyn and then rode back over the Brooklyn Bridge.  We LOVED this!  It was the most fun we have had in a long time!  It was also a great way to see the city faster.  And thankfully, neither of us were mowed over by any of the crazy traffic.

We saw this lovely lady, from multiple angles.

We went to "How to Succeed in Business...", and "The Importance of Being Earnest" and became paparazzi for a night.  At least Dustin did.  I was forced to wait, while some man helped him scale a tree, trying to get a shot of Mr. Potter, himself.

And somehow managed to get in to see this guy:

We literally just happened to walk up as they were getting ready to seat people.  So we jumped in line and we were the last two seated (it was a little more involved than that, but not much) .
We saw the city from multiple really tall buildings.

Where's Waldo?

      We had such a great time!  A million thank-you's to my sister and her hubby, who watched our kids.  And here's what we got a couple of weeks later as pay-backs: