We found amazing deals to NYC so we booked them as an my early birthday getaway. Someone remind me to not keep doing birthdays early or late. It was such an amazing trip but my actual birthday was super lame (real talk). Lyle was out of town, my family is across the country, it was on a Sunday AND it was mother’s day. However, I am grateful for best friends who give amazing birthday shoutouts with the most embarrassing pictures on the planet and all the awesome people who texted me, called, etc. This past year had a lot of good but it’s fair share of ups and downs as well. I am so grateful to see another year and I have a feeling this next year is going to be huge for me, and for us. So many great and exciting things are coming our way. For one, I will be in a 5th grade classroom come August for my student teaching and then in November I am officially done! The rest of the good will have to wait to be shared another day. 🙂
Anyway, New York was glorious. People always seem surprised that we keep wanting to go back but there is always so much to see and do that it is always so different. We got to go to a Mets game with one of Lyle’s buds and meet up with some UT friends at the Smorgasborg. We rode the Roosevelt tram to see the cherry blossoms and discovered new food favorites. My absolute favorite part was waking up a block from Central Park. We got up to run through it and I kept stopping to look at Lyle and tell him how perfect this was and how lucky we were…those were probably my exact words about a million times. I immediately fell in love with our tiny airbnb. It was a basement apartment but it was so perfect. Our morning walks were down past the temple and we finally got to do a session one night. We also got to see Hamilton which was my birthday present. It was phenomenal and so were our seats. Every day Lyle searched for tickets and people tried to scam us constantly but we got paid half of what the people next to us did so it was a mirWe stayed out late wandering the streets at night and let me tell you, the feeling of NYC at night is so inspiring. We went to dinner at Jacobs Pickles at 1 am and talked about our future and life and if I could live that night again I would do it over and over. Lyle asks me why I love NYC so much and I don’t ever know how to completely explain it but if you feel the same way you just get it. There is this feeling of anything can happen and excitement and dreams coming true and I love it. Marilyn Monroe announced Brooklyn as “her favorite place in the world” and I love that. I shared some specifics on my NYC to do post but here are some pictures. Until we meet again NYC…hopefully later this year!
Meghan and her cute family sent me these amazing cupcakes from Georgetown. <3
haha for the longest time I was like wow Lyle’s handwriting looks different…kinda girly actually…until I realized it was the flower shops and not his.
the best pancakes I have ever had are from Bubbys. (I have a NYC food blog post elsewhere)
I swear, even the South doesn’t do biscuits like NYC. 
If you know me you know I loveeee cinnamon rolls. Not my favorite honestly, but the presentation was on point.
Lyle thought this was cool as soon as we walked in and they were playing the Beatles. He was being so silly everyone was videoing him haha. From his complaining about our Chinatown foot massage and our Chinatown lunch where we had no clue what was going on Lyle kept me laughing the whole trip. So grateful for him.
XO CAIT