my christmas came early ~

we made it -- call home and check on the kids

the view from our hotel- that is the good morning america studio


at the stage deli: pete calls beth to reminisce about seeing annie

sporting his infamous smirk, peter handed me an envelope last thursday afternoon and said "merry christmas." inside plane tickets, broadway tickets and the details pertaining to our hotel accommodations.

before i could even start with the barrage of questions that were already festering in my head pete said "lydia will be here on saturday and she is staying with the kids... we're all set!" after a deep breath -- i quickly got extremely excited.

and with that we were off. we flew to nyc through newark early sunday morning. we checked into the marriott marquis in time square, freshened up and set out to see the as much of the city as we could in less then 24 hours.

we had lunch at the stage deli (a blast from pete's past) and met up with pete's colleague jason bell. great to finally meet this man - as i've heard plenty about him.

from there we made our way to a 3:00 showing of august: osage county. gritty! that is the first word that came from my mouth when pete turned to me as the lights went out and the curtin closed. Yah - gritty he replied! very different from most of what i've seen in the past. full or emotion and an end that does surprise.

following the show we made a quick pit stop back at the hotel so i could put on my walkin shoes. we spent the next 3 hours taking in all of the delights the city has to offer this time of year. we saw the tree in Rockefeller center and witness a proposal on the skating rink. we popped into saks and checked out all of the windows. we ended our tour walking through central park and landed at tavern on the green. we enjoyed a few cocktails (they have a rockin very berry cosmo) and then a late dinner. we probably should have waddled back to the hotel but the wind had picked up considerably so we grabbed a cab and called in a night.

monday morning i lounged around and stayed in bed until nearly 9:00AM. MERRY CHRISTMAS to me!!! at 10AM i kissed pete good-bye (he stayed to work) and i made my way back to the airport and started my trek back to asheville -- back to kiddos -- back to reality! back to our home. the place i miss even if i am away for a mere 24 hours.

taking a day -- just for us to enjoy together, especially at this time of the year was amazing.

my husband - he is a gem!