{NEW YORK Days 3 & 4}

Oh man, looking at all of my pictures is making me want to go back so bad!! Seriously, so smitten with New York! Okay... I'm just going to dive right in... :)
Wednesday morning we headed to Times Square to see about getting tickets for Noah and LaShae for Wicked that night... and to get some good pictures, that weren't our lame self-portraits! {We were all dressed up again, since Michael had made reservations at another nice restaurant :)}
Awwwwww... PRESH! ;)This picture is funny! Noah ran to the top of the stairs and was taking pictures of the entire Times Square. He went to take a candid one of the 3 of us and of course, I had to smile big, because that's just what I do when there is a camera out!

We then headed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art!

It was pretty dang cool! We were only able to stay for about an hour and a half because of our lunch reservation - but I'm not going to lie, I wasn't too disappointed... I tend to get a little bit of A.D.D. when it comes to museums :). It was huge though, and there was SO much to see!

Then it was to my FAVORITE meal of the entire trip at Eleven Madison! {This place was recommended to Michael by one of the Chef's from his school} Seriously, this place was so chic! And the food was AMAZING!!!!! {I will definitely do a food post so you can see how beautifully all of the food was plated!}

As we were waiting for dessert, the Chef came out to say hello to the tables and thank them for coming! Michael told him that he just graduated from culinary school and they talked about that for a little bit... He was so dang nice and really excited for Michael!

A couple of minutes after the Chef walked away, one of the hostesses came to our table and asked if we wanted a tour of the kitchen!!! Of course we said yes! And it was amazing {Michael was seriously smiling from ear to ear!! I LOVED IT!!!!}

They had us stand at the head of the kitchen, while one of the chef's made us a delicious dessert drink to have while we watched!! We were able to take a few pictures, and ask some questions {During any given service their are 70 people working!! 35 front of the house and 35 in the kitchen! So crazy!}

Outside the restaurant {Seriously, just thinking about it makes my mouth water!!}

Right across the street was the beautiful Madison Square Park, it was such a beautiful day!

There is the coolest new sculpture in the park - it's called Echo... After that park, we went to another park on Manhattan's west side, called High Line! This park is awesome! It's an elevated park - that will be a mile and a half long when all of the sections are complete! The landscape was amazing! Such a cool place to visit!!

Such a hottie! Seriously, can't get enough of this guy in a suit! HOT!

That night was WICKED!!!! As we were walking to the theatre and to pick up LaShae & Noah's tickets, it started to DUMP rain!! Seriously, I've never seen so much rain in my life! Before we left for New York, I bought a cute little umbrella that would fit in my purse - yeah, it didn't really cover Michael AND myself! Especially when he was the one holding it, needless to say, I got DRENCHED!! You could honestly wring out my pants and jacket, I was soaking wet! And don't worry, it stopped raining after about 10 minutes! But that was just long enough to do the damage! Here we are waiting out the rain in the entrance of a random restaurant... Finally we made it to the theatre! WICKED IS INCREDIBLE!!!! Oh man, I cannot even express how much I loved this show!!! It had us laughing, and me crying! So dang entertaining! Everyone needs to see this show! SOOOOOOOOOOOO GOOD!!!!

After the show I got my first taste of a street vendor hot dog... and boy was it YUMMY!!! This is my "Oh yeah, that's good!" face :)

Then it was back to Times Square! Like I said in my previous post - I absolutely love the energy of Times Square! We went there in the 9:00am, 5:00pm and almost midnight - and no matter what time it was there were always SO many people there! Love it! Like they say, NYC really is the city that never sleeps!! Thursday was an extremely productive day! We checked so many of our items off our NYC bucket list that day! First, check out this successful candid shot Noah got of us on the Subway! See it can be done! HA! We look like regular New Yorker's right?!

Our first stop was Canal street!! {I'm sorry to say we didn't get any pictures while we were there! LAME!} BUT... I did get a cute bracelet, necklace, a new purse and wallet!! I had so much fun bargaining with the very pushy ladies that worked at all of the little shops! I actually talked them down about $40 all together!

Canal street is right in Chinatown, so we went there for lunch! {Another check on our bucket list!}

After Canal Street & Chinatown, we went to see Ground Zero! I can't believe that it has already been almost 10 years! I can still remember sitting in Math class in 11th grade when they turned on the TV's showing all of the footage! It was really awesome to see how far they have with the construction of building the new twin towers! Pretty cool!

Then it was to the Staten Island Ferry to see the Statue of Liberty!

We headed back to the hotel to shower and get cleaned up for our 10:00pm dinner reservation! {I told you I was such a freaking night owl on this trip!!} We played a fun little game of pool at the hotel before dinner! We were then off to WD-40 for dinner! Everyone, please mark Thursday, June 23rd 2011 in your diaries as the first time Laura Burtis tried CAVIAR!!! It was SO good!! I'm absolutely sold!

Dinner was pretty dang good, and a lot of fun too!

WOW! What a busy and fun day Thursday was! Up next.... the final days: 5 & 6!!

{I SMILE WEDNESDAY}

Taking a quick break from posting about our NYC trip to do my....
{I promise days 3 & 4 will be posted tomorrow!! :)} But for now... why not incorporate a couple of our trip pictures into my 'I SMILES'! First of all, I SMILE {and giggle} looking at this picture below... Michael is always telling me that we need more "Candid" pictures - he says "there's too much posey-ness going on"... so this is me being candid: {Michael really had no clue LaShae was even taking pictures, he is legit w/ his candid-ness}

Yeah, my "candid-ness" barely lasted one picture before I cracked up and SMILED for the camera! {And still, Michael has no clue what is going on lol! :)}

I SMILE because Michael and I finally got our passports!!!!! YAY!!! I feel so grown up now! Watch out world, here L & M Burtis come!!! I SMILE looking at this absolutely gorgeous couple dancing their first dance as Husband & Wife!!! So happy for my cousin Ben and his BEAUTIFUL new wife, Jennifer!

Their wedding was an absolute blast! Everything was so perfect - the Country Club was amazing, and the weather was fabulous for a Summertime wedding!

We danced the night away!!! These "candid" pictures that Michael snapped of my sister, my cousin's, my Aunt and other wedding guests, definitely make me SMILE!! SO MUCH FUN!!!

And finally, snacking on fresh snap peas from OUR garden while reading in my hammock in the backyard... yeah, that absolutely make me SMILE!! YAY FOR SUMMER!!!!!

{NEW YORK!!! Days 1 & 2}

Oh man! What a trip!! Seriously, what an absolutely wonderful vacation!! We are madly, deeply in love with New York City!! Love the atmosphere, the food, and all that there is to do! {But I don't really love the rats in the subway or the cockroach or the fact that it smells like human urine every 20 feet,! Anywho... :)} We had such an amazing time! We did so much, and took so many pictures - there's no way I could fit it all in one post, so I will start with days 1 and 2:

We got into NYC Monday evening around 5, we got all checked into our hotel and then headed out to grab some dinner and do some exploring! Our hotel was so close to Times Square! Oh man, I cannot even tell you how giddy Times Square made me - there was an absolutely fantastic energy, and I was loving every minute of it!!We were pretty exhausted from traveling all day, so we headed back to the hotel - but when we looked outside, we realized how close the Empire State Building was! This is the beautiful view from our hotel room! We decided to walk on the wild side and go see it at night! {10pm to be exact! We were such night owls on this trip! So not our norm!} We were hoping to miss some of the crazy crowds by going at night, I had heard some horror stories of people waiting in line for half of the day just to get to the top! Luckily, we only had to wait in line for about an hour! {I fit in some fantastic people watching during this hour - one of my favorite things about this trip!!} We walked around all 4 sides... man, what an absolutely magnificent city! We were smitten! Tuesday we slept in a bit {Since we were exhausted from traveling and staying up so late the night before!} Michael made a lunch reservation at a nice restaurant, thus our "dressier" attire :). This was THE cutest thing - Michael haling a Taxi for the first time! Man, isn't he a HOTTIE?!?! The restaurant was right by Central Park, so we did a little exploring before our reservations! Central Park is my FAVORITE!! The park is beautiful! And I love that in the middle of this crazy-busy city - there is this place of perfect refuge! LOVED IT!!Lunch was AMAZING!! {We ate at some of the most posh places while on our trip, this was what Michael was looking forward to the most, he made reservations at 4 different extremely nice restaurants, and they did not disappoint! He took pictures of all of the plated dishes, and sent them to his school pals - hmmm... maybe I will do a post on just the food! YUM!} After lunch, we headed to TIFFANY's!!!!!! Can I just say wow?! We went to the first floor, and I didn't see anything that I loved {well, loved in my price range ;)} But then I realized there were like 6 floors!!! I found the perfect necklace - a simple chain with the Tiffany's heart pendant, I love it so much!! I was so excited to get my little blue bag! On the way back to the hotel, we stopped by Rockefeller Center... That night some our best friends, Noah & LaShae arrived!! {They are in North Carolina for Noah's school, so it was just a hop, skip & jump away :)} We were so excited to have them with us for the majority of our amazing vacation!! Anyway... on to that night... This was LaShae's 5th trip to NYC so she is the Subway expert! {We were so grateful, it was a little intimidating!!} Our very first ride on the Subway: We went to a delish little noodle bar, Momofuku for dinner!! It was great catching up with them - it's been 6 months since we've seen them last!! Then it was to Rice to Riches pudding bar for dessert!! {Pretty good, but I think I would rather have ice cream rather than rice pudding :)} HAHA!!! Love this sign on the door outside Rice to Riches! LOL! {Ps - this is my STANK face :)}

Days 3 & 4 coming soon!!!