Tuesday, April 21, 2015

NYC honeymoon- Part one

Hey readers!
I'm going to do these blog posts a little back wards..
As I don't have all of my wedding photos downloaded yet. 

I suppose I should start by saying I have been rather absent from this blog over the past...
Year?
Before getting engaged, you all know I was taking care of a very active 6 year old. 
I pretty much worked full days for the family and I found in my spare time I just didn't want to blog. 
Once engaged I had my job and a wedding to plan. 
I'm not sure what time I would have had to blog. 

Now I am a house wife...
But I sure haven't slowed down any!
My handsome hubby keeps me busy!
Seems like we never have an actual DOWN weekend since getting married. 
Every other weekend Chris works for his dad's restaurant. 
And those other every other weekends, either we have company over, are going out of town, have church, or just something going on. 

I will do my best to keep up with my blogging again, for those who are interested.
And since I haven't posted much about our honeymoon over social media, I thought it would be a good place to start.
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Chris' original plan for our honey moon was a cruise.
But I had just been on a cruise with the family I worked for and he knew I wanted to go to New York with him one day...
He booked it, he planned it all and away we went!
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January 25th
As you can imagine, we were kinda excited about this whole honeymoon/marriage thing...
Kinda?
Try ecstatic!
It was hard to stay mature!
Not to say we were immature, but ya know
we had to try our hardest to "keep it cool". 
We were happy, excited, in love- just all around giddy.
When we printed our tickets, we quickly realized that our seats were no where near each other on the flight. 
Devastated and feeling slightly hopeless-Juuuuust kidding.......
Got to our gate, were told that the plane was completely full. 
All we could do was ask the flight attendants. 
Once on the plane, our flight attendant said, "Just ask the person in the seat beside you." 
My seat was first, there was already sitting in one of the seats. Chris asked "are you with anyone?" 
She said," Yes, these two girls behind me." 
So I sat down and Chris moved back to his seat, where he planned to ask the same question. But I had barely sat down and the lady next to me said, "You know what, I'll just move back there so your husband can sit here." 
And with that she just moved.  
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Our hotel, Empire Hotel, was about 10 blocks from Times Square and 2 blocks from Central Park. Very ideal, practical spot. 
PLUS- there was a starbucks on the corner! 
(Oh, there's pretty much a starbucks on EVERY corner of the city.)
When we checked into the hotel- the man said "well, just so you know, the room you booked is the smallest room we have here. It's good for one person on a business trip, maybe staying one night- but for the two of you- it may be small. Why don't you check it out and if it's too small we will up grade the room." 
Sure enough- I'm not sure there was even room for ONE suitcase on the floor. 
The nice man gave us the biggest size room with the nicest view available for a VERY reasonable price. We were so thankful. 
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We knew that we would be tired Sunday, so we hadn't made any plans for the afternoon or evening. 
We just walked around (It was sooooo cold) 
drinking warm coffee,
talking,
holding hands,
enjoyed some Indian food,
being all in looooove.
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January 26
Had a yummy breakfast down the road from our hotel. 

I love, love, love buckwheat pancakes! I hadn't had them in years! 

We started hearing about a blizzard that was supposed to be hitting the city by that evening. 
There was a chance that our trip to the Statue of Liberty would be canceled. 
But we decided to take the chance and head that way.

By the time we made it to that side of town ( very long subway ride) 
the snow was already starting to come down pretty fast. 
Luckily the tours weren't canceled yet-but the last ride out would have been like 2pm. 
Once at the counter for the ferry I realized I didn't bring my ID.
Chris had already purchased tickets for us to go all the way up to the crown.
We were told I could get over to the island, walk around the base, but I would not be able to go up to the crown, being it's a national monument.  
We decided there was no time to run back to the hotel and at least we could go to the island and look around from the outside. 
So right before we got on the ferry we prayed and asked the Lord to make a way. 
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Security is crazy.
It was like walking through airport security before we even got on the ferry AND once we got to Lady Liberty. 

Ferry ride BEFORE freezing.^^

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Since Lady Liberty is on an island you can only imagine how WINDY and COLD it was.
And with a blizzard starting?!
WOW.
I've never been in such cold weather. 
We were literally huddled over running for the nearest shelter. 
At this point of our adventure, I was pretty sure my nose and ears were going to fall off.
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When we made it inside of the base and got in line for our wrist band
-still praying in our hearts-
The security guard asked for our tickets and IDs. 
Chris said, "Well, I have my ID-but she left hers at the hotel."
The officer said, "Okay, Mr. Barfield-do you claim her?" 
"Absolutely! I just married her this weekend!" 
"Alright, if you claim her, have a good time!" 
Don't doubt the Lord! ;-)
If you like climbing up 345 teeny-tiny steps in a tight, tight circle 
I would definitely suggest going all the way to the crown. 
But if you're claustrophobic and hate exercise, I'd suggest just snapping a touristy picture from the outside.

^In the crown^
The statue was swaying from the high winds and because it was pretty much blizzardy outside, you couldn't see anything out the tiny crown window. 
But it was fun! 
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There's a museum in the pedestal. 
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Although you can't really tell from this photo, it was practically pouring snow. 
The Immigration museum would have been more interesting if I hadn't been so tired. 
Chris was probably annoyed because I just wanted to go back to the hotel, turn up the heater and drink HOT chocolate. 
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When we got back to the city after our ferry and long subway ride, the snow was coming down so hard and so fast we could barely see. 
We had to dart in and out of doorways just to clear our eyes and get a good breath. 
We kept getting phone calls and text messages from our concerned friends and family about the major snow storm that was about to hit the city. 
In fact, the city was basically shutting down for the night. Restaurants were closing early as were the subways AND the roads. 
It was supposedly the was worst blizzard in history.
If you were on the road past 11 pm that night, you were instantly given a ticket. 
We ate at a restaurant on the corner of our hotel last night. 
But you know what? 
I believe our prayers ( both ours and those of our friends and family) 
were heard. That storm turned and went 50 miles in the other direction. 
Other than the snow we had during the day, it never touched us. 
:) 

Part two 
coming soon!