A few months ago Haylee sent a text that casually mentioned she wished Mom and I could come to NYC to see her. This is the second time I've ended up in NYC on a complete whim inspired by a message from Haylee. Clearly, it doesn't take much to make me want to go! It does, however, take a lot of money and that is why I'm thankful for Southwest's frequent flyer points. And, admittedly, for Jake's frequent work travel so that I'd have that opportunity.
We flew out of Birmingham last Friday, December 4th at stinkin' 6:30am. We had to go through Orlando because we flew into Islip on Long Island since it's so close to Haylee's place. The flights going and coming home were flawless! Not sure I've ever experienced that before. Well, actually...a man passed out on the flight from Orlando to Long Island, so he'd probably disagree with me on the flawless thing. But we were on time and didn't have to run, how's that?
Also, when we were walking out of the Islip airport we saw a movie or tv scene being filmed. So that was the fame part of the trip.
This was my first time to see where Haylee lives since she's been on Long Island (about five years)! She rents the basement of her friends' house. We also got to meet her boyfriend, Jonathan, visit her church, and see [one of the places] where she works. It was a great trip! Much too short, but great.
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| The view from the front yard. |
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| Neighborhood church |
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| Lunch at Chop Shop with Haylee's friend, Regina, and her mom. |
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| Shopping in Huntington |
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| Cute but VERY cramped toy store where I was practically forced to buy a baby doll. Not really, but they were pretty aggressive. |
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| Candy store! Haylee is hiding behind Mama :) |
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| We stopped by the Huntington Arts Council to meet Haylee's new bosses and see the art show. She had just decorated the window displays before picking us up that afternoon. No direction, just told to decorate...look how pretty! |
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| Coffee filter tree. So cute! |
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| I have had pink eye for about a month and Mama got it too. No eye makeup for either of us and no contacts for me! |
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| I think Haylee's apartment should be featured in a magazine! But since I can't make that happen, I'll just feature it on my personal blog ;) |
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| She called me a creep for taking pics of every spot in her house, but it's cute so...a creep I will be. |
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| We went to Stop and Shop on Friday night since we had a big, late lunch that day. They had an antipasta bar so we had cheese, olives, artichokes, and prosciutto stuffed pepperoncini peppers! And gluten-free crackers and crisps. Oh, and sea salted chocolate bars for dessert...yum! |
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| Haylee made us breakfast Saturday morning! |
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| On the Long Island Railroad to NYC! |
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| Thank goodness for Starbuck's to keep us going. |
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| Love her :) |
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| Rockefeller Center was SO crowded! Of course, we did go at dusk on the first Saturday it was open. |
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| We turned the corner and found a lights show at Sak's Fifth Avenue! |
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| St. Patrick's cathedral |
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| Nuts for Nuts!! Why didn't we buy more of these? |
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| Shopped at Tiffany's :) |
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| Haylee took us to this holiday extravaganza thing where there were little shops set up. Mama bought some really cool art for her office. And we sampled some chocolate peppermint bark with bacon on it. Couldn't taste the bacon like we pretended, but it was still good. |
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| Haylee found an Italian restaurant for us. It took forever to be seated, but that's okay. We were together :) |
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| The Empire State Building from a taxi :) |
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| We got to visit Haylee's church, True North, on Sunday. |
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| Jonathan and Haylee at the Airport Diner after church. |
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| Right before we left for the airport Haylee gave us a mini concert. I think that was the best part of the trip! This looks like a video, but it's really just a screen shot of a video...sorry! |
