NEW YORK, NEW YORK - so good they named it twice - Part 1

I seem to be coming on here every so often and apologies for not keeping  my blog upto date.  As some of you know I'm a school governor and over the past months things have hit the fan big style at one of the schools, and as the Acting Chair and Deputy Chair, I was on the front line trying to keep things going, thankfully that has all died down now and hopefully things are returning back to normal,  I;ve just about managed to keep up with the Hey Little Magpie blogpost, but now I can get on with what makes me happy - scrapping, blogging and definitely trying to sort my Project Life pages.

But before all that I need to tell you all about NEW YORK! yes I went to New York - brief history - when I turned 40 I decided that I wanted to go to New York when I turned 50 and the nearer I got to 50, I decided I really, really wanted no, needed to go.  So after a few discussion with Julie we decided to make it a joint celebration / trip, so 18 months ago we priced it up and decided we could afford to go.   After talking about it with my crafting friends, it ended up with 6 of us going and that what we did.

We booked, paid and went on 7th May for 6 nights, and boy what a holiday.

We set off on 6th and stayed overnight near the airport, before catching an early flight direct to New York.  I was so excited that even the thought of spending 7 hours on the plane didn't stop the excitement.

Whilst on the plane I was talking to the air-hostess and mentioned that we were going to New York for an holiday but that it was also me and Julie 50th birthday celebration, she went away and appeared back with two bottles of champagne for the 6 of us - to help get the celebrations started.

Julie doesn't drink - but had to pretend for the photos 

Then has we where leaving the same air hostess said to the Captain that it was our birthday, and he invited me and Julie into the cockpit - we were like giggling kids - and of course had to have our photos taken.

We had booked a private car to take us to the hotel from the airport and look what turned up …

A stretch Limo

again more screams, and us all having our photos taken by the side of it, whilst the driver tried to fit all our baggage in … which wouldn't go, so two of us went in a yellow taxi with the surplus cases and meet at the hotel.

Then it was onto Manhattan and our hotel - we had arrived early so our rooms weren't ready, so what do we do but walk the short distance to Micheal's - 

can you believe it - we haven't even checked in but we was out shopping for stash - lol.

After checking in and changing we went for our first night out in Manhattan, and it was to a roof top garden, I had contacted Sue son - who is working in New York to meet him there as a surprise for Sue,  so even though we couldn't get a seat we had a drink and I avoided the questions of why are we here, so that this could happen.

They hadn't seen each other, other than via FaceTime for 6 months, so it was lovely seeing this re-union and being able to capture this moment.

We then left the roof top garden and had a walk around the neighbour, our hotel was about 15 minutes from the Flatiron Building, even more stunning in real-life.

Then it was back to the hotel for some much needed sleep, has we had been awake for ages.  This was the view from outside our hotel, the Empire State Building, lit up.


I'll be back in a few days with more updates of my New York trip.