Our New York City Christmas Trip!

** A little preface: yes, i am WAYYYY behind on all that I wanted to document on our blog from the last month. I feel like I am still recovering from all that we crammed into a few short weeks in December - and baby girl isn't even here yet... man, I am going to have to step up my game to keep up with how fast life is about to speed up! ANYWAY, I still wanted to share our fun NYC trip... and I have a holiday recap and some new years goals to share in the coming days, so bear with me while I catch up with myself. This little blog just seems to get neglected at times in place of actually living in the day... anyone else ever feel that way? **
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About 3 weeks ago {before the holiday craziness} Jay and I traveled to NYC with our good friends Dave & Alison for a long weekend. We crammed in lots of eating, lots and lots of walking, and lots of fun!

Jay went to New York back in October on a "food tour" with several other Chick-fil-A operators after reading Danny Meyer's book about his restaurants. He is a specialist in great hospitality and some yummy food too. Jay took us to 2 of his restaurants and they were delicious.

The Shake Shack is seriously the best hamburger ever, and their peanut-butter milkshake was simply amazing. 

Lady Liberty herself at sunset

The Blanco's about to enjoy dinner in Little Italy 

We decided Bella would NOT like living in NYC one bit {lucky girl spent our weekend away with her grandma}, but she would actually probably love all the people / dogs / smells / walking that is Central Park

Sunday Morning in Central Park before we headed to church at Tim Keller's Church Redeemer Presbyterian -- it was awesome! 

Spider Man in broadway -- it was also amazing! 

whew, busy, busy, busy Times Square actually made us all very thankful for little old Waynesboro 

We saw the Rockettes' Christmas Spectacular! 

And we visited the 9-11 Memorial. It was very powerful and humbling to stand where the towers fell 10 years ago. They are still working on the Freedom Towers, and Museum, but there are two huge pools in the exact spots of the North & South Towers with the names engraved of all those who lost their lives. So, so many heros and such a great remembrance of the power of what it means to be an American. 

I loved this little tree that could! It was alive in the exact same spot between the towers and survived the whole attack, and it still alive. Such a symbol of hope for all of NYC.  

We had a wonderful, chilly, and fun-filled trip! Christmas is the best time to visit the big apple in my opinion :) 

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Okay - back to today... just because I love, love, love our Bella girl, and because today {Jan. 4th} is her "birthday" and because she was so dang cute {and pitiful} on Christmas in the sweater my mom made her wear I have to share the pictures....

What a sweet girl -- she is two today! We celebrated this morning with her favorite - a scrambled egg!

Now I am off to eat Chili, make these Cream Cheese Cookies from my sweet friend Heather's Blog, and pull for my Clemson Tigers in the Orange Bowl tonight! 

More yummy recipes and our Christmas recap to come...