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...I'm 40 today!

Yep, that's right!  Age has not bothered me...yet.  And I got to celebrate New York Style!

This man -- the love of my life -- the best giver of surprise gifts -- the greatest trip planner -- made my birthday the absolute best!

Did I mention he was great at surprise gifts?!  Well, about six weeks before my birthday he surprised me with my birthday present.  He really wanted to wait until a couple of days before my birthday, but he was too afraid I was going to plan some PTA or school function and wouldn't be able to go.  :-)

So, then I had to wait six weeks for this surprise trip to take place.  I was SO excited!  And, the boys were so not because they had to stay here and go to school.  

We first started with a Ranger game with some friends.

Thad and Becki left their kids at home, too, and went to the game with us.  We had so much fun!

Then, the next morning Jason and I took off to New York City!  It was a fun-filled and incredibly full weekend.  It was such a fun way to celebrate my birthday!

Our plane took off late Friday and then with the crazy traffic, it seemed to take forever to get to our hotel.  But we got settled in and then went to eat at one of our favorite places:  Chevy's.  Then, we had great tickets to see The Lion King.  And the coolest thing about that -- we got to see an ACU theatre alum that we had seen in several productions in Abilene play the part of Pumba.  So cool!  And did I mention we had great seats?!

Saturday morning we took the subway down to the 911 memorial site.  We have been there several times since that tragic event in 2001.  So, we wanted to see it again and see what had been done since we were there last (in 2006).

This is a picture of the new World Trade Center building that is going up.  When it is finished it will be the tallest building in America.

There was still a lot of construction going on at the site.  We were able to go into the Winter Garden balcony of the World Financial Center and view the memorial site that is still being constructed.  This is probably hard to see but this is a picture from the balcony viewing one of the reflecting pools.

This is a picture of the building that will house the 911 museum.

We went into a very small make-shift museum and this framed picture made a huge impression on me.  It's a flag that consists of every person's name who perished because of that terror attack.

This is an artist rendering of what the memorial site will look like when it's done.

It was amazing to see!  The whole site.  It's very humbling, sad, and breathtaking all at the same time.  It amazed me how we left the hussle and bustle of Times Square -- with all the noise and craziness -- and when we stepped off the subway down at this site, it was almost an eery quiet.  Very strange feeling.

We had some time before our next show and we had never been on the Staten Island Ferry before, so we decided to take a ride.  You get a great view of the Statue of Liberty from the ferry.

 See the Statue of Liberty behind us?

After we got off the ferry, we grabbed a quick bite of New York pizza (yum!) and headed to our next show:  Mary Poppins!

L-O-V-E this show!  Again we had great seats.  My husband rocks!  And now we know how to spell "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" and can do a little dance to it as well (well, sort of)!

Next, we went to another of our favorite places to eat:  Ellen's Stardust Diner.  Our waitress was so fun, and right after we sat down they sang Happy Birthday to all the people in the restaurant.  And, yes, Jason told her it was mine.  So, while all the waitstaff was singing, she let Jason sing to me into the microphone.  Then she said, "Wow!  You're good.  When the customers sing better than us, we might ought to be worried."  :-)

So, I took this picture out our window to prove that Jason actually sang ON BROADWAY!

After our yummy meal, we went to our last show of the weekend:  Wicked!  This is one of my all-time favorites.  All-time!  And did I mention how my husband rocks!  We had great seats again and sang the whole show...quietly since people around us didn't pay to hear us.  :-)

Did I mention this is the love of my life?  Did I mention he is the best surprise gift giver EVER?  Did I mention he rocks?!  He gave me such a fun birthday trip!

His birthday is coming up in less than a month...and how will I ever top this?!