New Jersey here I came!

THE LONG AWAITED NJ TRIP DETAILS!! I know, finally! It's going to be long, and several posts... BUT, so worth it! So many funny moments not to be forgotten :)

May 22nd 2009

Schedule of events:

11:30 pm the night before - get in to Newark and Lexie pick me up!

6:45 am - Wake up to the sound of 3 little boys eating cereal, playing, crying, etc.

7:30 am - Finally wake up a bit more after Lexie crawled in to my air mattress with me

11:00 am - Lexie and I drop off the boys with one of her friends and we head to the mall to do a bit of shopping and grab lunch - NJ doesn't have taxes, so I went a bit crazy...

2:00 pm - Pick up the boys and play with them a bit

3:30 pm - Rob came home and Lexie and I ran to the grocery store for a bit

5:30 pm - Lexie and I grabbed the NJ train and headed into NYC to go see MAMMA MIA!

8:00 pm - After 1.5 hours of walking through the city, we got in and watched the awesome musical!

10:30 pm - Started the trek home...

1:30 am - After getting home and chatting for hours, we decided to head to bed.

Okay, so now here are the details for DAY # 1 with Lexie, much more exciting!

• The boys - Even though those little rascals woke me up at 7 flippin AM they are just the cutest boys ever!! So entertaining really! I'm realizing if you have kids, although they are a lot of work, cry, etc - they still are so funny and can always put a smile on your face! Reven is 4 now - wow! He's so big. And then Mason is the middle child and has the cutest dimples, and has the emotional middle child syndrome a bit, and then Jesse is the youngest but more the bully than any of the boys. They are just the CUTEST kids though. I hate to say that I was almost hoping this "trip" would cure my baby hunger pains (I just love babies right now!!). But, the boys didn't cure it. They were too cute. Even if they were messy and woke me up and stuff.


• NJ Traffic - it's horrendous! There are all sorts of crazy drivers, but what's even worse are the actual roads! The "freeways" are so funny - no on or off ramps, buses stop on the side of the freeway, the roads are all tangled up and all over the place! The side roads have barriers and you can't make a left and get to stores on that side till you get a mile or two past it and turn around...ah, annoying.


• Eiffel Tower - So, Lexie and I were driving back from the needed trip to the mall. Isn't it funny that I've been needing to go shopping and I've been in UT and spent hours finding nothing, and then I had 2 hours with Lexie and was like Ms. Shopaholic...! Anyway, back to the car afterwards and as we're driving I got a quick glimpse of the NYC skyline!! I excitedly looked at Lex and said - oh look! The city! And, that's the Eiffel Tower!!?? It's the tallest right?! Sweet!! Lexie says - yes Andrea, the "Eiffel Tower" - sarcastically - and I was like - what?? Lexie - Yes, Andrea we are in Paris aren't we?!?! Oh man! You're right, what's that called again Lex? Lex - You are serious? The Empire State Building!! Me - Oh yeah! Whoops...hahahahahhahah. At least I said a tall building that started with an "E" right? Luckily I don't get embarrassed too much, and especially with Lexie, she's heard and seen it all... This weekend trip had at least 100 CrAzY Andrea Experiences like this one. I started making a list so I wouldn't forget...

• Walking through the city - Lexie and I dressed up for Mamma Mia and took the train and then walked about 25 blocks to the Theatre. It was nice weather, cheaper than the subway, and I needed to see the city anyway... So, we walked. In our dresses. And high heels baby! At a nice lady from the Bronx came up to us and said "You look like you are NYC girls, can I follow you guys there?" She looked at me and I kinda laughed because, oh wait, I'm totally NOT from here and even Lexie hasn't been on the trains too much so we thought it was pretty flattering - guess we looked the part at least! Also, my dress has sooo much fabric that the wind could really pick it up and send it up higher than I wanted! It was pretty funny for Lexie to watch me panicking every time it would blow. The best was when we were standing on the side over a subway vent - the subway came by and up went my skirt - all the way to my elbows!! Yeah, I'm sure people saw everything - well, only my whites, but who in NY knows what those are??

• More walking experiences - So, more stories... After only a few minutes of walking the 25 blocks we needed to go, I grabbed on to Lexie so I didn't have to try and dodge the hundreds of people all over the place. We even had a bit more fun and would hold hands sometimes to watch and see if we got a reaction. Even in NYC we did get a few stares. There were LOTS of people for us to stare at too - those weirdos, so we were just joining the crowd. Rob, Lexie's husband, knows that I am Lexie's one true love still even though he got to marry her...hahah.


• Butt checks - YES! So, here we are after the musical, trying to dodge the crowds again on the way back to the train stop. Since we were all dolled up, I made a comment to Lexie saying that I was surprised we hadn't had anyone try to do anything to us (more joking a bit)... She said that this was NYC and people are still civilized here, gosh! Not more than 3 minutes later we were stopped at a light before a crosswalk (The yellow ones don't stop! Taxi's!) and my words came to pass! A shorter man was walking past us from the other direction when we all were in congestion and rather than him passing by us, he stopped and basically stood behind us longer than he needed to. I noticed his hesitation and just thought he was kinda weird. Well, then I realized that someone had just rubbed their hand down my butt - YES, my butt!! What?? I basically jumped forward because I'm not too used to having that part of me caressed.... And then Lexie looked at me and she too had a weird expression, he had just grabbed her butt too!! We looked around and the little guy and ran off. Lexie turned to me and said, did he just touch your butt? YES!! Me too!!! No way!! What is this world coming too??!! Yucky!! But it was one of those moments to add to the list of crazy things we've experienced!! Yes, we were looking fine and a guy just totally grabbed our butts. No, not just one, but went for both of us - and then disappeared! Hahah. Only in New York right??

• Mamma Mia - Yes it was great!! The movie is great too by the way, but something about sitting and watching the actors and seeing a bit different portrayal, or a bit more in depth portrayal, is just SO AWESOME to me. I love Broadway Musicals! (And I just realized that they are called Broadway's because they are on the Broadway Street - yes, blond moment - but why would I know this if I really haven't been to NYC too much?) I love Abba songs! Lexie and I snuck in our soft pretzels from the stand outside and continued to eat and take illegal pictures till it started. More just to be rebels and for that little "thrill" like we'd get when we'd spy on people back in high school, etc... The musical was great though. And it was hilarious to watch one 70 year old man usher who during the last number busted his groove and got jiggy with it in the back row! If only he wasn't the picture Nazi, we would have videoed him!