Happy New Year!

2011 was a wonderful year! I got to experience a lot of new places and go back to some old places. I checked off some things from my bucket list and added a few more places to my bucket list....ok well a lot more places. I thought I would do a short recap of the fun places I went and my favorite people that I got to experience these places with.

1. Vegas : I wanted to do something fun for my 30th birthday. I thought about going to Vegas the weekend I turned 30 but I thought it would be more fun to go nor NYE so me and 2 of my besties (and one of their husbands) made our way to Vegas. It wasn't my first Vegas experience but it was my first with friends. One of my dear friends lives in Vegas now so she got to join in the fun. We had a blast ringing in the new year in Vegas.

2. Italy : The planning started back in November 2010. One of my dear friends who also happens to live in Vegas wanted to do something fun for her 30th so Italy it was. We did a lot and made the most of our time.  We had a private tour guide to show us Vatican City, experienced true Italian cuisine, went to Wine School in Siena, saw some beautiful things in Florence, relaxed and hiked in Cinque Terre, saw the incredible Swiss Alps on the way to Zurich, and experienced the high prices in Switzerland.  The trip was definitely a trip of a lifetime!

3. Alaska : What an adventure! As you remember I got to share the experience with my mom. Those are some of the best memories I have with my mom.  I will remember that trip forever.  We saw parts of Alaska that a lot of people never experience.  It was beautiful!  The weather was wonderful compared to what we were hearing about back home.  We saw some neat wildlife including moose, bears, caribou, and a few reindeer :)  I could never list all that we did because they pretty much cram packed in everything into the 10 days we were on the tour.  I will say though that going to Denali was one of my absolute favorite parts of the trip.  It was gorgeous!  I would love to go back and it's definitely on my bucket list!

4. NYC : How could I leave out Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade adventure. One of my besties that was mentioned earlier endured the early morning cold weather to score a front row seat to see the parade. Another experience I will never forget for sure.  We also were among all the black friday shopping in NYC.  I would most certainly go back for this annual event even though we were up early for the parade. 

It was a wonderful year! I'm hoping 2012 is just as good and even better. Here are some goals for my year(I don't make resolutions)

1. Go somewhere that I have never been before.
2. Go somewhere that I have been before.
3. Leave the country for a vacation.
4. Take a trip with a friend or friends.
5.  Take full advantage of airmiles and travel rewards. 
6. Make the most of every opportunity I get to travel.

Hopefully I'll check off a few places from my bucket list.  I guess I need to post said bucket list so you can all hold me accountable. 

Thanks to all of you that encourage me to travel and go with me on all of my adventures.  Thank you for following along with me.....I feel loved! :)  I just want to make the most of life and experience as much as I can. 

Stay tuned for more fun this next year!  I'll see ya when I see ya! Hopefully sonner rather than later :)

Merry Christmas! (a little late)

Merry Christmas!  I know I'm a few days late but with lack of internet and a slow connection speed on my iPhone thanks to AT&T, I haven't been able to do much on my phone besides the basic call, text, check facebook, you know, the necessities :)

Christmas this year was good.  I stayed close to home and am still enjoying my break from school and family time.  We visited with Chase and Lauren a few days before Christmas and then on Christmas my parents came over for brunch.  It was nice and quiet and all in all it was a good time.  I am certainly blessed!

I already have down all my Christmas decorations (they were actually down after my parents left on Christmas day), and I'm already searching the internet to see what kind of travel deals I can find in the near future.  I need a plan...I need something to get me through my next semester of school besides sweet smiles for children that tell me "I love you more!"

So, it's Wednesday and we all know what that means.....Travel Zoo Top 20 Deals came out today.  I'll be searching those shortly to see what I can come up with.

Hopefully sometime soon, I'll get some holiday/winter pictures uploaded and onto facebook and a few here.  Internet will be installed on Friday at home.  I have gone long enough without internet and I need internet to fully utilize my Christmas present, therefore I caved and called Time Warner again and got a really good deal.

I'll let you know whenever I plan my next adventure.  Hopefully it will be sometime within the next few months.  We shall see!

Christmas Card Update

As you might remember back almost a month ago I did a review on Tiny Print cards as a promotion to get my Christmas cards free. Well I had a really hard time choosing a card because I'm somewhat picky. Here are the criteria my card had to meet.
1. It had to be foldable. I don't have a problem with flat cards but if I'm getting them free, I'm getting the most that I can.
2. There had to be more than one spot for a picture. Since I'm not really all about photoshoots of just me, I wanted spots to put pictures of all my adventures from throughout the year. I would have loved to had a spot for a picture inside the card but that didn't matter as much as having several picture spots on the front.
3. It could not say "Happy Holidays." It was necessary that it said Merry Christmas somewhere on the card.
4. There had to be a spot to write a short paragraph about my year. Since there really wasn't room for any captions for the pictures, I felt it was necessary to write about my year. I know that I love hearing about things that are happening in other people's lives so I guess I hoped that people might want to hear about my year :)
5. Picture spots on the back weren't necessary but they were definitely an added bonus. I added two pictures of my award winning photos from the state fair.

*Before I made my card I decided that I wanted to add my blog web address to the card somewhere. I was in a time crunch to get my cards sent off so I could have them back in time to send them off before Christmas. I also wanted to be able to give them out to coworkers before we were out for break. I forgot about the blog address as I was designing my card and I didn't remember until I had already sent it to the printer. Today I sat down and just wrote it on all my cards. It didn't take too long and it adds a little extra to the back.

If I don't have your address and you would like a copy of my card, just email me. I've got some extras. I'm very pleased with them and I'm hoping they do another great promotion next year :)

wednesday is my favorite day....sorta

Wednesday might be one of my favorite days. Of course I love Fridays and Saturdays and I don't want to forget Sundays but if we are talking about travel, Wednesday is probably my favorite. That's when I get the travel zoo top 20 deals email. Sometimes it's a dud but sometimes it's not! So I wonder what tomorrows deals will be, what kind of airfare will be on sale, and what other vacation packages will be on sale.

On my list of places that I would like to experience...

Let me start with places in North America in no particular order.
1. Chicago
2. Napa
3. Niagara Falls
4. Yellowstone National Park
5. Lake Tahoe
6. Oregon
7. Whistler
8. Grand Canyon (I've only flown over it.)
9. Mall of America
10. Hawaii

Places in North America I want to go back to are...
1. NYC
2. Seattle
3. Alaska (more specifically Denali)
4. Vacouver

I guess I could take a road trip this summer. Who wants to join???

love this song

I was listening to the radio the other night on my short commute from work and this song came on.  I immediately loved it.  It just had a nice ring to it.  So I shazamed it.....well it came up with nothing.  I tried it again and again and nothing.  I tried it one more time and it finally came up with this and I downloaded it.  I've heard Josh Wilson's music before but I guess I don't really ever remember names.  I looked him up today and realized some of the other songs that he wrote.  I youtubed to find his song.  Here is it....it sounds better on itunes but I guess I just like the song itself and the words.  Check it out here if you are interested :)

Where Next???

Now that I'm back, I've already got the travel bug again.  I'm ready to start planning another trip.  I love when I get discount fares in my email inbox.  It makes me want to book something and then start planning.  It seems that the cheaper fared places right now are Chicago and Seattle.  I've never been to Chicago except going through their airport.  Of course I've been to Seattle but it's one of my favorite places and I'd love to go back, not only for the scenery but for some Top Pot too :)  Anyways, I guess I better start thinking and deciding.  Maybe Santa will put a plane ticket in my stocking this year....you never know!

Go ahead and tell me where you think I should go.  Have you been somewhere neat that I should go see?  What's your favorite destination???

NYC Trip in a Nutshell

The trip was wonderful!  It had been at least 7 years or so since I had been to NYC and it felt so good to go back.  Our flight there was fine, no problems, getting to our hotel was fine, no problems and basically there were no problems throughout the whole trip. 

Day 1:  I already blogged about that for the most part down below.  That night we went to see Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall.  The show was great as always and we loved it all.  I was so tired throughout the show that I could barely keep my eyes open so when we got back to the hotel that night, I was ready to bed! 

Day 2:  That was our morning that we got up and went on the NYC Water Taxi.  I really wanted to visit the 9/11 Memorial while I was there and this was the only way that we were able to get tickets to see the memorial.  It rained most of the time we were on the taxi that day.  We did get to stop and take pictures with the statue of liberty in the background which was a nice photo stop.  I'm all about photo stops :)

 Then after we made our rounds on the taxi, we ended up going back to the hotel before heading to the balloon inflation before the big parade.  That was really neat to see.  They started it around 3pm and it was supposed to last until 10pm.  There were quite a few people there and it took us extra time to find the place because I wasn't looking at the map very good but we finally found it.  Oh, I forgot to mention that before we went to the balloon inflation, we scoped out a place to watch the parade.  We did some research ahead of time and decided that we needed to try to get close to the beginning of the parade route and we also needed to be near a public restroom.  We located a Starbucks close to the beginning of the parade so that is where we decided we would go the next morning.  After we located our spot and saw the balloons being inflated, we made our way to time square and checked out the scene and took some Times Square pictures.  Of course it started raining again but oh well.  We made the best of the situation.   

Day 3:  The next morning started very early.  We got up at 3am and then left by 4am.  Our plan was to take the subway but for some reason it appeared that it was blocked so we got a taxi.  It took hardly anytime to get there because there weren't many people on the roads.  However, we weren't the first ones there.  We did get a front row spot though (and we should have because we were there by 4:30am).  Once we arrived, we set up camp.  We brought chairs with us from REI that we bought.  We found chairs that were comfortable and that would fit in our carryon luggage.  We were going to be sitting in them for quite a while so we insisted on finding comfiness.  They were quite comfortable.  I'm not sure what time the bulk of the people started getting there.  I do remember though that at 6:30 I left to go to the restroom a block away and it took me almost an hour because there were a ton of people in line.  At lease I was waiting in the warmth instead of in the 30 degree weather.  When I got back, I had to fight my way back to my seat.  I was a little annoyed with people that were in my way and didn't seem to be going anywhere.  I tried to explain to them that my seat was like 10 feet away and people weren't letting me through.  I even tried to be a bold new yorker about it but they weren't budging.  We slowly moved and I found my seat and didn't move until the parade was over.  We watched and waited and finally the parade started.  There were some kids next to us that were in the way quite often.  The boy was probably 10 and I had to be strategic about getting him out of the pictures I took.  The little girl was probably 6 or 7 and sweet and quiet and she loved Hello Kitty.  It was really neat being so close to the action.  It ended close to 11am at our spot and then we left to go back to our hotel to unload all of our stuff.  We ate lunch at a burger place not too far from the hotel and then we went back over to time square.  The weather was much nicer on Thanksgiving than the other days we had been there.  I know at some point we went back to our hotel to rest because we were exhausted and wanted to get out to do some black friday shopping at macy's at midnight.  So, we slept for probably 3 hours and then we were up at 11:30pm to get ready to leave.  When we arrived at Macy's it was crazy!!!  There were so many people but the doors were about to open and we were squished in the doorway and scooted up the escalators.  If you've never been to Macy's on 34th in NYC, it's huge!  There are 9 levels and a basement.  I found some great deals and bought a new suitcase because it was such a great deal, a new coat that I love, and then some fun souvenir stuff. 

Day 4:  Black Friday.  We got back to our hotel around 3:30am and then finally got settled and in bed just in time to have 3 or 4 hours of sleep.  We were up at 8am and ready to leave by 9am and headed to the airport in New Jersey.  It was very easy to get to and there was NO ONE there.  The plane left on time.  I tried to sleep but it just wasn't possibly with the loud kid in the row in front of me.  I could hear him with earplugs in my ears.  Ridiculous!  We made it back 30 minutes earlier than scheduled and then back home just in time to unpack and pass out. 

Overall the trip was great!  People ask if I would go again, and I totally would.  I'd love to see the parade again.  I loved the location of the parade and would sit there again or would even try another location.  We had a good time, walked alot, and ate some good food.  Good food and good friends always make a good trip :)



day 29 & 30

I've been slacking a bit lately.  The day I got back from NYC I came down with a cold.  I don't know when the last time I have been sick is so I wasn't really sure how to manage.  I did manage though and now I'm getting back to normal.  I have challenged myself to blog about being thankful and I have been reminded that I have so much to be thankful for. 

So the last 2 things I want to blog about being thankful for are...

1.  My health:  I know I just wrote about being sick but seriously I am usually never sick.  I have lived a decently healthy life and I am thankful for that.  I can keep up with the best of them and for that I am grateful. 

2.  My Grandmother:  She is one of the greatest people that I know.  She never meets a stranger and always has a smile on her face.  I vividly remember spending school holidays, summer vacations, and sick days with her.  She would do what we wanted and did everything in her power to make sure we had a great time.  We made forts with her, cooked and baked, played on her computer, and she even put us to work numerous time.  Everyone loves Nanny.  She has always encouraged us and raised 3 wonderful daughters along with my grandfather that I never had the chance to meet.  I'm am eternally grateful for raising the best youngest daughter that she raised (which is also my mom :)) even if my mom did talk her into letting her eat ice-cream cones for breakfast morning after morning.  She means a lot to us all and I don't think we tell her that often enough!