I love New York!

DAY 1 in New York

For those of you who don't know, I'm in New York City this week with my mom and sister for my 23rd birthday. That's right, I turned 23 yesterday - woo! - and I'd like all of you out there in blog land to be a part of my birthday-week fun! So here's a re-cap of day one of our fun little journey...

Randee (little sister) and I took a red-eye from Orange County, CA to the Newark, NJ airport. After a McDonald's meal, a stop in Phoenix, a stop in Charlotte, NC and some biscuits and gravy at 5:30 am, we finally made it to Newark and into NYC around 10 am. Mom had flown from ID the day before, and didn't want to wait around while we took a post-red-eye nap, so we were off to the races before we could say "Big Apple!"

Randee and I decided to take as many random pictures as we could on our journey, and just two doors down from our sketchy hotel room (which is a block from Times Square, which makes it worth the sketchy-ness), we found the perfect first photo op:


Soon followed by a second, even more exciting photo-op. Thanks to M&M World in Times Square...

I know, you're jealous. What more could a girl want on her 23rd birthday than a giant M&M?? And the fun didn't stop there... There were plenty of NYC sights to behold. For your viewing pleasure, a few of them here:

By this time, we were exhausted, and came back to our oh-so-sketchy hotel room to take a nap before we went to see THIS!! -->

It was every bit as good as the first time I saw it in 2004. AMAZING. In fact, this part gets me every time... Yes, I get teary in "The Circle of Life" -- the first scene... (Don't laugh)


Yeah, it's that amazing. (Thanks for the tickets, Mom!) I'm serious. See it someday.

Well... I'd like to tell you more, but it's almost 1am NYC time, and I'm exhausted.

We'll continue this story tomorrow... Goodnight!