Celebrating 12 years in the best city ever .... NYC

We celebrated our 12 year wedding anniversary in NYC.  We had the best time.  Three days without the kids was just enough.  We got to enjoy each other, great shows and good food! We watched live jazz with an awesome barbecue dinner.  The jazz performance was outstanding featuring a special guest from Saturday Night Live (the man in the black suit playing the trumpet).  The following day we walked the city, shopped a bit, and watched Rock of Ages on Broadway and had another great meal at Mr. Chow's for dinner.  Sunday we took the hop on hop off bus tour.  Of all the times I have visited the city, I never took the bus tour.  It was actually really cool.  Really cool of course until we got stuck on it for too long and had to hop off it and taxi ourselves to Broadway to see The Book of Mormons .... we literally made it just in time!  This show was absolutely hilarious! We then walked the city some more and landed at a steakhouse for dinner.  We woke up Monday morning, after 3 full days and nights missing all of our babies.  It was the most perfect trip!

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May your heart be kind, your mind fierce and your spirit brave. That about sums our Lexi up!

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I love how children can help you forget about the world around you and bring the biggest dose of joy in just a moment.

Lexi and her competitive attitude!

Yes, she pretty much cleaned up at tennis camp this week!

Lionel Richie

As part of our 12 year anniversary we celebrated with dinner and the Lionel Richie concert.  We could not believe how much Lionel rocked it! This was no slow music concert.  He rocked that stage with all of his music ... older and newer! What a great night we had.  Concerts are one of our very favorite things to do.

Diamond Beach on the Jersey Shore

We spent two weeks at Diamond Beach.  This was an amazing vacation.  The kids had so much fun.  For momma and poppa it was a fun and relaxing vacation with very little "work".  We had the most perfect weather with 75-80 degree temperatures and zero humidity.  We had one morning of rain the first week and one day of cloudy weather the following week.

Some of our activities other than daily time at the beach included a climb up the light house.  199 stairs to be exact! Not many people can say they carried a 4 year old child up and down all 199 stairs, I can!  We visited sunset beach where we collected the coolest rocks ever.  We were also able to dolphin watch from the shore here.  So super cool!

We visited Cape May's historical streets.  Fun shopping, treats and momma was treated to a bracelet set that I have been wanting.  We of course did the boardwalk a couple of times, including a bike ride to and from one morning.  We rode a really cool bicycle built for 5! We also did the same pirate cruise we did last year.  This was even more hilarious than I remembered.  Gavin literally thought it was hysterical.

We visited Duffer ice cream shop more than one time.  We will leave it at that! Unbelievable is all I can say.  Played mini golf a time or two.

Perhaps what poppa was most excited about was the New Jersey state bbq championship.  Great food, great music and lots of lines.  Wishing the kids held up a bit longer here than they did.

We ate at more terrific, unbelievable restaurants than I can count! We may have come back a couple pounds heavier.