Celebrating Jessica's 30th Birthday . . . in NYC!

(Finally, here is my New York trip!)

My sister Jessica turned 30 on April 24. She lives in New York City, so Laura had the great idea for us all to go celebrate Jessica's birthday with her. We were all for that, so my mom, Teresa, Laura and I flew to New York for the weekend. What a total blast to be with just your sisters and mom for a whole weekend in New York!

I left Scott with Brie, Ava and Zach for 5 whole days. That was a hard thing to do. I was so nervous to leave little Zach who is still nursing all through the day and night. I had never left any of them for more than a few hours. I was just too excited for this trip though, so I had to do it. Once I said my good byes to them at the airport I realized just how good this was going to be. I went through airport security with no stroller, no diaper bag, no whining children. I sat on an airplane and just sat in silence. No one climbing on me, no one crying, no one to bribe through the whole thing, no one puking. Absolutely amazing.

I arrived to New Jersey and took several trains to Jessica's apartment in Harlem. She has THE BEST New York apartment. Seriously. It is huge and her room has a big bay window overlooking the Hudson river. So cool. I got there the same time as my mom and Laura and I was just so excited to be there with them. We headed out to Times Square right away. We ate at Juniors and tried their incredible cheesecake. Wow. We wandered Times Square and eventually made our way back to Jessica's apartment. I noticed that we never were aware of or concerned with what time it was when in NY. We just stayed out all day and all night.The next day was a big one. Jessica went to work, so Laura, Mom and I spent the day visiting the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. I love the ferry ride and the views you get of the city and the statue. I love that we had no time constraints, so we just relaxed and walked and talked on such a beautiful sunny day. What I love most is seeing Ellis Island. It is an emotional visit every time to see how people arrived to this country and what they did to build it. When we got back we walked straight uptown from Battery Park and saw The New York Stock Exchange, Ground Zero, the bull, St. Patrick's Cathedral, etc. What a cool city. It certainly has it all.We made our way over to Chinatown for the first go around of cheap souvenirs for the kids back home and then on to Little Italy for our first dinner. We sat outside, watched the people going by and ate the most delicious lobster ravioli filled with scallops, shrimp and asparagus. Another Wow!Jessica and Teresa met up with us then to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and then on to our second dinner. The Brooklyn Bridge is beautiful at night. You could see all of the lights of the city and the bridge itself has a very cool story. The pizza that awaited us in Brooklyn on the other side was by far the best pizza I've every tasted. I would by a plane ticket back to NY just for that pizza. Friday, we got to have our local tour guide, Jessica, join us and show us the city. She took us through Columbia University and then on to St. John's (?) cathedral and then to some more delicious eating, Crepes on Columbus.The day was gorgeous - sunny, clear blue skies and just the five of us wandering through Central Park on a spring day. The flowers were in bloom and the cherry blossoms were everywhere. This was my favorite. We talked, we laughed, some took a nap, others rolled in the cherry blossoms and we took pictures. We left the park to go over to Rockefeller Center and Radio City Music Hall. At Radio City Music Hall we saw what our husbands already knew . . . the NFL draft was happening there. We had no interest in the draft, but through some sweet talking from Laura one of the security guards let us come in to buy t-shirts for our poor husbands that we left at home with the kids. Sweet. Jessica took us to her favorite Chinese place in Chinatown to eat dumplings. They really were good, except the duck. Yikes. We are apparently not nearly as brave as Jessica when it comes to real Chinese food.

Saturday was the big day . . . . Jessica's 30th Birthday. She woke up so bright and early and slipped out to work at the temple. We met her at the end of her shift to do a session in the Manhattan LDS temple with her. I thought it was really neat to see the temple. It is so nice and felt so peaceful compared to all that is going on outside of it. I'm glad we got to see Jessica in one of the places in NY that means a lot to her and she has spent so much time.

Jessica with her birthday gift that Brielle wrapped and sent for her.
I bought the birthday girl a bunch of lilacs at a Farmer's Market outside the temple.
We ran home, changed, met up with Jessica's friend Christy and then ran again onto the subway to go to an Owl City concert. Crazy concert.The next few hours went a little downhill from all the fun we were having. Poor Jessica went back to her apartment to discover she couldn't find our tickets to Lion King (for that night) anywhere. She searched and searched and they were no where. Meanwhile, we went for more of that delicious NY pizza and I ate the worst slice of pizza I have ever or will ever encounter. Awful. Mom and I had a McDonald's hamburger to make up for it.

All was good again when Jess found out we could get into Lion King because she bought the tickets with her credit card. Yea! We shopped around Time Square and then went to see The Lion King. It was just as spectacular as I expected. The costumes, the music, the set design, the puppetry. Definitely the best show I have seen on Broadway. Loved it.
It was late, but you would never know it by the packed, busy streets of this city and it was still Jessica's birthday, so we got on the subway and went to Chocolate By The Bald Man to finish the celebration. Boy, was that the way to celebrate. Crazy amounts of chocolate! My heaven! Chocolate was a part of everything on that huge menu. Chocolate. Chocolate. Chocolate. Delicious! Here are Jessica and Christy taking birthday shots of straight milk chocolate. Mmmm. That is the way to go.We went to bed in the wee hours of the morning and woke up to rush to church. I got to go with Jessica to the Harlem wards, one in English and one in Spanish. It's always a very cool thing to visit other wards and this one was a far cry from my Sandy, Utah ward. I loved it. The diversity was amazing to see and the love and friendliness was something that brought on some tears. I even got to be in the class Jessica taught to the Young Women in the spanish branch. She is such a good teacher. The girls love her and she really loves them. I am overwhelmed with how much Jessica has done to influence for good the lives of so many young people.

After church we busted out some Martinellis and champagne glasses to sing a birthday song to Jessica and toast a fun, fun, birthday weekend. And then we were off, all of us to the airport and back home.I am so grateful for sisters and a mom that I love and love to be with. They are such good friends. I learn from each of them and admire them in so many ways. I will always be thrilled that I got to run around New York City with my mom and sisters laughing and talking and celebrating Jessica! Can't wait to do it again.