Touring for the Weekend: The In-Law's Visit

This past weekend was a whirlwind of fun with M.’s parents visiting NYC. And lucky for them, it all started when they were upgraded to first class free of charge. I’m still waiting for my chance to fly first class people…yes, it’s true, positively preppy in pink flies coach...you can pick your jaws up off of the table now. :)

My in-laws flight didn’t land at JFK on Friday until very late in the evening, so M. and I occupied our time with new episodes of Mad Men on Netflix. I’m telling you – this show keeps getting better and better! By the time M.’s parents made it through the front door, we were all pretty tired and spent a little bit of time visiting before calling it a night.

Saturday we had some major touring plans. The first stop was a trip to Starbucks and then we were off for our hop-on/hop-off boat tour of the city. I’ve gotta say, with the amazing weather we had this past weekend, the boat tour couldn’t have been a better idea. It was really great learning a few new things about the city and also having the chance to be pretty close to the statue of liberty since in all of my times I have visited New York and now that I live here, I still hadn’t seen this iconic NYC landmark up-close – there were definitely some photos taken that afternoon!

We hopped off the boat at Battery Park, walked around, visited M.’s office space so his parents can see where he’s hanging out during the week and then we stopped for lunch at the Shake Shack (you can’t get much better than that!) where we all enjoyed burgers and fries. For dessert the ladies enjoyed a scoop of the flavor of the day, S’mores. Yum.

There was no time to stop so we headed back on the boat, enjoyed riding a little more, and then walked through the South Street Seaport area so that M.’s parents could check into their hotel and so that we could kill some time before our 9/11 memorial reservation. We ended up walking down a very narrow street (which the name now escapes me) and exchanging a brief hello with a security guard outside of one of the buildings. He followed up the greeting by asking if we were from out of town and then a “wanna take a picture of an iconic New York building?” Without really thinking (although maybe we should have thought about it a little more) we replied “YEAH!” and he led us into what was the original AIG building and BOY was it cool! Right now, the building is apparently “for sale” although a few of the floors are currently occupied by a business group (can’t remember the name).

This security guard took us up to the 60th floor of the building which then led to a private elevator. We piled into the little bitty elevator and rode to the 66th floor and when we stepped out…oh my gosh! We stepped out to see 360 views of New York City from far above most of the buildings. It was absolutely incredible! I took just about a million photos of everything and was totally digging the “top of the world” feeling I was getting! The security guard gave us a little history of the building and…I mean, not that it needed any explanation really, AIG was a part of one of the biggest scandals in the US! It felt pretty cool to be in a room where, most likely, some pretty important people once set foot!

After our crazy tour of the old AIG building, we headed off to our reservation time for viewing the 9/11 memorial. The memorial is beautiful and the design concept is sleek and simple. The sound of the water drowns out any of the surrounding city noise which is really nice since it gives people a chance to reflect on what happened that day and all of the names etched into the borders of the waterfalls reminds you of just how many people lost their lives that day. The saddest to me were the women’s names that were followed with “and her unborn child”. Very sad stuff, but the memorial was beautiful and on Saturday the warm weather and cloudless sky had the sun dancing across the falling water in a really pretty way.

After a full day of touring we were all pretty tired. We hopped in a cab to head back to our apartment where I had homemade pasta sauce waiting to be heated up (made this on Friday night before the in-laws got there), and while the boys caught up on the college football games and prepared for the Tennessee game to start, I boiled the pasta, prepared the baguettes and set everything out for dinner. We dined while watching the game and after dinner my mother-in-law and I tried out the Strawberry Cake that I was telling all of you about in a previous post. I put the cake together according to the directions, but was missing one key ingredient which I really think would’ve made all of the difference. Either way, it still tasted delicious and of course, the pink cake and pale pink frosting looked pretty too! :)

We called it a night, said goodbye to the in-laws and I promptly fell asleep on the couch. M. dragged me to bed and before I knew it the Sunday morning sun was streaming through our bedroom window. M. and I hurriedly got ready for one more day of touring, and we met M.’s parents at Chelsea Market to start our trek through Greenwich Village and on. Bleecker street pizza was our choice for lunch (M.’s parents HAD to get some authentic NY pizza while they were here) and it was super delicious. We walked through the village a little bit and then headed towards 5th Avenue, Grand Central Station and a few of the other necessary stops including Rockefeller Center and Central Park.

We capped off our visit with M.’s parents at dinner that night. If you can’t tell – I’m a total burger person…I love a good burger. We headed to Five Napkin Burger for dinner and it was positively delicious. “Special” burgers with sautéed mushrooms and truffles were ordered for M.’s mom and myself and the men went with Bacon-Cheddar burgers. It was a fun meal and my favorite part was when we recapped how M.’s dad proposed to M.’s mom. You’ll never guess where he did it…just like a movie….on the dance floor at PROM!!! Definitely a fun story to hear!

Overall the weekend was fabulous and I’m already excited for this coming weekend when we’ll travel down south for the big Tennessee V. LSU football game. According to M. though, it’s going to be a “rough game” since Tennessee’s quarterback hurt his thumb pretty badly and will most definitely be out of the game.

Have a wonderful Tuesday! I’m going to enjoy one of the last warm days we’re going to have here in the city!