And I Think to Myself.....What a Wonderful World: Travel East, Travel West....After All, Home is Best!

Washington DC monuments

I returned last week after a long, but wonderful vacation/work trip to Washington DC and NYC! It was the best of everything.....family time, work time and girl time! Julia, John and I flew to Washington two Saturdays ago and stayed at the Grand Hyatt. Julia was such a near perfect angel on the trip that I am still saying that I would take her to Paris next weekend if I could afford it! She was such a city girl and her favorite things were the airplanes, taxis, elevators, escalators, subways (oh, she LOVED getting on the train!), ice cream cones, and pigeons. We went to see the monuments, Arlington cemetery, Museum of Natural History, Air and Space museum, spent some time in Georgetown (my favorite!), spent Sunday at Eastern Market which is a large arts and crafts/trade show, and even got to see Ted Kennedy's funeral procession just when it was heading into Arlington cemetery towards Senator Kennedy's final resting place. I was so excited to get to see such an important piece of history! John bought the newspaper for us to keep for Julia so that she will know that she got to see it.

We ate some interesting food after asking some locals what their favorites were. The most memorable was the Ethiopian restaurant where all the food was eaten with no utensils.....only a piece of large flat bread was used to pick up different meats and vegetables. Very interesting experience and delicious! I had to put Julia and John on the plane Tuesday evening to head back to Memphis so that John could get back to school. That was tough....but we all survived.

I headed back to an empty and quiet hotel room and hopped a bus the next day after meetings to head to NYC. Believe it or not, I found a $5.00 bus fare for a bus that left on the hour every hour to New York. So around 11:45, I checked out of the hotel, literally walked across the street to board the brand new bus, and 3 and a half hours later, I was in NYC! Mary Katherine flew in from Fayetteville and met up with us that night. We stayed with my cousin Scottie and her husband Jason (the ones that just got married in Aspen....see previous post) for the first two nights. I can sum up the whole NYC experience by saying that it was FABULOUS and that I loved every minute of being there. Scottie, Mary Katherine and I had a blast and I had so much fun getting some quality time with both of them. Scottie was the perfect hostess and their apartment in SoHo was definitely a treat. We saw 9 to 5 on Broadway, took a double decker tour, did some shopping, and ate some very memorable sushi!

Mary Katherine and I spent our last two nights at the Vanderbilt YMCA where we shared a dorm style room complete with bunk beds and hardly enough room for us to fit our suitcases. We also shared a college style bathroom with many very young European travelers. Interesting.... I am still trying to make a final determination, but for now, I would say that I would do it again because it is dirt cheap and how nice do your accommodations really need to be when you are sleeping 6 hours and then heading out again for the day????

After four fun packed days of museums, the best pizza and food that I have ever eaten, Broadway, shopping, late night manicures and pedicures, and great girl time, I was refreshed and ready to get home to my sweet baby girl. She and John were waiting on me at the airport and Julia screamed with excitement when she saw me. I couldn't (and still can't) stop kissing her. Julia did well while I was gone. She got to spend a lot of time with her grandparents and John even took her to Memphis to see Sesame Street Live "Elmo's Green Thumb." Even with all the guilt I felt in leaving her, I now believe that mommas actually do need some time to do things just for fun. So, we are planning our next long weekend that we will take next summer or maybe even the next. I am guessing it will be NYC again because I don't think I could ever get enough.....

I picked some of my favorite pictures

This is a favorite because it represents how most of the trip went....Julia is a girl on the go...she led/drug me everywhere we went by holding my hand. She is still relatively content to be in the stroller, but adamantly prefers walking!