ClayandJulieCochran: New York: Days 1 & 2

I realize this post (and the subsequent related posts) might not be of any interest to the general reader, but I always need my blog to help do our yearly family albums, and remember what in the world happened the year before. At least there will be lots of pictures!

New Year's Day was such an exciting day for us. As excited as we were to get to New York and get away together, we were pretty sad to leave this face behind.

After a hairy day of travel back to Birmingham last Sunday, Clay had to turn right back around and head to Charlotte, NC for the week for work. I feel like this past weekend really was the first weekend of 2014 for us- and now we're all back under the same roof!

New York was just so, so fun. My mom (and various other travelers) and I have been to New York several times before, but this was my first time planning a trip without her. And I've realized how much planning goes into a trip to the Big Apple, because, well, it's really big.

Going to New York with Clay was just the ultimate in fun for me. He just makes me laugh so hard, and after the year we've had, we really needed to laugh. Our trip up to New York was incredible- all our flights were on time, and our bag made it safe and sound to the airport in New York. We were checked in to our hotel pretty easily, and they upgraded us to a suite with an incredible city view(for NO reason...seriously, we just booked the absolute cheapest room possible, and I still talked them down a couple hundred dollars). Our hotel was one of the best parts of our trip- everyone was over the top friendly, welcoming, helpful, and just one of the best hotel experiences either Clay or I have had.

We were right around the corner from Central Park and The Plaza Hotel, so the first thing we did was, naturally, take a [freezing] carriage ride through the park! Clay was such a trooper with all the cheesy New York things I wanted to do.

From Central Park we walked down to Rockefeller Center...along with [seemingly] every other human being on the planet. It was sort of comical how many people were crammed into one square block.

In an effort to maintain our sanity, and a normal blood pressure level, we thought heading to Times Square might be a good move. By this point, we had just embraced the MASSIVE (I don't use those all-caps lightly) mobs of people taking pictures of every square inch of the city. So...we jumped on the bandwagon and got our big camera out and started taking pictures standing in the middle of the street, too.

Everything was still decorated for Christmas...it just made me SO happy!

After a while we realized how freezing (we had no idea what was in store for us in later days...) and ridiculously starving. What better cure to those ails?! Legit New York pizza. Oh this meal made us both so happy.

After dinner, we walked back through Times Square, Rockefeller Center, etc. and made it back to our hotel. We had reservations at Sarabeth's Central Park the next morning, and we did not want to miss those.

I'm still dreaming about this coffee, lemon ricotta pancakes, and the beautiful setting of Sarabeth's.

After breakfast, we spent the morning in the Museum of Natural History. That museum is just incredible! We really spent four hours there.

We couldn't pass up the opportunity to go to Shake Shack right across the street.

Yes. That is Clay waiting in the line outside (I only got out of line to take this picture). And yes. It was freezing. But the wait only made our lunch that much sweeter.

Now...the crowds inside were on a whole new level. The 'standing room' offered to people waiting for a table was really just hovering over people who already had a table. But I guess that's part of the New York ambiance?

$17 worth of pure delight.

After lunch Clay let me go to Saks and find some good rain/snow boots. When people in the south talk about a 'winter storm' I don't get too worried. When people in New York talk about a winter storm...I get scared.