My trip back East...

My Mom invited me to a girl's weekend in New York City. I accepted after Merril bought me the plane ticket for my birthday. I went with my Mom, my sisters, and a few other cousins and relatives. We took the red eye to JFK and took right off. We went to the Empire State Building,

St. Patrick's Cathedral,

and looked at Grand Central Station. We went to a show that night called Anything Goes, a show about love, set in the 1930s with lots of swing music and tap and ballroom dancing. It was great!

The next day I did a session at the Manhattan Temple, which is so small but beautiful, and then headed off to visit my friend, Emily. We hit a museum but mostly just gabbed and played at the park with her two cute girls. I took this picture of them before I left and headed back to Manhattan, where I hooked up with my family again.

The next day we went to Hoboken, NJ to visit Carlo's Bake Shop where they film the show, "Cake Boss" on TLC.

That was super fun!

There wasn't a line so we walked right in! There was general mayhem that accompanies a lot of people in a small space but I loved looking at the shelves of pastries.

I bought 2 chocolate strawberries, a chocolate mousse cake, a berry tart, an M & M cookie, 2 sugar cookies and a chocolate almond biscotti. I spent $21, which is fairly average pastry shop prices. I took some of it home to my kids but I ate probably a 1/3 of my purchases.

Then we walked around China Town and Little Italy back in Manhattan for a while until it was time to catch our plane home. I fell into bed at 4:00 a.m. and woke up at 7 to give my kids hugs and presents. Wahoo! Fun times!