Trippin' in da East

Michael and I went to NYC and DC last weekend for 5 days. Sigh. I miss it. He had to go for business, so I came along.... and we turned it into more of a get-away adventure!

Bragging moment: The "business" part of the trip was because Michael was receiving an award in DC. One of his projects at work shows transparency in Utah's spending (as required by legislature he helped to pass) and is a website that shows the public where every tax dollar is spent. It is a cool website and a lot of other states have their eye on it, so Utah (and Michael) was being awarded as a top 10 innovative website as chosen by the Government Computer News organization. Check it out: www.transparent.utah.gov

It was a F-A-N-C-Y affair, with spotlights circling the room, a rehearsal for accepting the award, music for recipients to walk on stage to, and lots of big wigs amongst the 800 attendees. I was honored to be there with him and so proud of his hard work! But I felt like any minute someone was going to call us out on pretending to be fancy people... it's kinda fun but not really us.


The rest of the trip we spent hoofin' it and cruising around on the subway trying to see as much as possible. Michael's cousin, Becky, let us stay in her mid-town Manhatten high-rise. Sweet!
Our favorite things we did in NYC were to see Central Park and WICKED on Broadway!!



We went down early to put our names in for the Wicked lotto. They only draw 13 names and BOTH our names were drawn for a total of 4 tickets, front row seats, at only $26.50 a ticket!! (These seats are normally $250). We couldn't believe our luck!! I didn't need my set-- since none of you were with us and we were prohibited from reselling them-- so someone else got to be drawn. OK, this was such a great show. We had not seen it yet, and although wary of the hype, Wicked is now my favorite musical. Spectacular first Broadway experience!


We loved NYC.

A definite "add back in" to the Bucket List.




Washington DC wasn't too bad, either! We saw lots of museums and monuments while catching dinner with friends and lunch/museum with Michael's sister and family.



It was the perfect fall weather-- and the leaves!

DC also had the coolest spy museum that Michael finally had to pry me out of. No photos allowed-- however, I did get to climb through an air vent IN the museum and spy on patrons below.

Were we supposed to miss the kids?





















Lessons learned:

1. I could make a life out of traveling.
2. We need to expose the kids to more.
3. Being the minority on the subway feels strange.
4. Having a husband that doubles as a personal security guard rocks.
5. The kids have more fun with grandmas than me. (duh)
6. I like hotel maid service making my bed.
7. I should never have brought books along to read. I was consumed with reading the "Swensen Says" blog every night- these great friends of ours were in Ethiopia at the time adopting 2 sisters and had quite the dramatic story unfolding. (see my blog list if interested but start back a few weeks)
8. Boring museums make my feet hurt more.
9. Technology made me feel closer to my kids than we really were. This is a big world with a LOT of people in it and it's a small world after all. (Someone should write a song about that.)
10. Home really is HOME.