Surprise Birthday Get-Away

My husband is so sweet.  Anyone who knows LL knows he loves surprises, and he's pretty good at planning things, and this past weekend he really outdid himself! To celebrate my birthday, he planned a weekend trip to NYC.  Kid-free.   I have never been gone overnight since Trey was born, and only been away from Collette a couple of times-- the longest of which was when I was in the hospital having Trey! So LL planned waaaaaay in advance, and asked my parents back in the winter/early spring if they would mind watching the kids when they came to visit in August.  I, of course, had no idea about the whole thing.  I kept trying to make plans for that weekend, and finally, the week before we left, LL said to me "We are busy.  We are going away.  You can't make any plans." And that's the extent of the information I got out of him. 

Do you know how hard it is to pack when you don't know where you are going?

(I actually do, because this is the third time (at least) that LL has planned an trip and not told me where we are going.  The most impressive example of this was our 3-week honeymoon in New Zealand.)

Anyway, he gave me some packing suggestions, and I packed my bag as best I could.  I had just finished putting Collette down for her nap and getting Trey ready when I heard voices downstairs-- surprise! LL had planned for our friends Kate and Matt to come with us, too.  As we were heading out the door, he revealed our destination-- New York City!

NYC is only about a 3 hour drive from us (depending greatly on traffic), so we left in the afternoon, and got into the city around 6pm.  We stayed at the same hotel we stayed at during our last fun adventure to NYC, with Tiffany and Andy. 

The first event LL planned was a trip to the 9/11 Memorial.  While it's free, you need tickets with times to be admitted, so that was our first stop.  The Memorial is beautiful, and so touching.

After the Memorial, we decided to have dinner at Eataly, Iron Chef Mario Batali's restaurant.  Eataly is a huge food market with six different restaurants in it, and we decided to eat at Birreria ,the rooftop terrace restaurant.  It was beautiful to be on the rooftop looking out over Manhattan at night, and the food was spectacular! I didn't get a copy of the menu to give you the exact "fancy" names of what we had, but we shared an Italian cheese platter for an appetizer (divine!), LL got the duck, and I had pork shoulder.  Sooo good! For dessert, we went back downstairs and got some sort of delightful chocolate caramel concoction. :)

We went back to the hotel and slept all night. And slept in late the next morning. There was no long-haired little girl announcing gleefully at 5:45am "Mr. Sun is up!" There was no little strawberry-blond boy crying to be fed in the middle of the night.  There was just sleep, blissful sleep.  NINE HOURS of uninterrupted sleep!

After sleeping in super late and having brunch at the hotel, we met up with Kate and Matt (who, not having children, decided to get up and go shopping instead of sleeping in), explored Times Square, and then went to Radio City Music Hall to see Cirque Du Soleil's Zarkana. 

The show was amazing!

After that, we did a little shopping (and got some good deals for the kids!) and then went to Iron Chef (are you sensing a theme?)  Marc Forgione's. We loved it so much with Tiffany and Andy that LL decided we had to go back! And it did not disappoint. Everything was soooo good! LL and I shared Bell & Evans Chicken Under a Brick, with Yukon Potatoes, Broccoli Rabe, and Pan Drippings. It was incredible! 

They even had a little birthday surprise for me!

All of the food was incredible-- see for yourself!

The next day we got up, had breakfast together, and went back to Times Square.  We did a little bit more shopping and couldn't pass up going in the enormous Toys R Us, complete with a ferris wheel:

And life-sized Jurassic Park moving, roaring T-Rex (you can see how big it is next to the guy in the background)!

 

It was such a fun, unexpected weekend.  I really would have been happy just spending my birthday at home and hearing Collette sing "Happy Birthday" with gusto, but this was so much more! It was great to get away, reconnect with LL, visit with friends, and be "adults," not just parents.  Thanks, LL, for the awesome birthday weekend! (And thanks, Mimi and Bumpa for watching the kids!)