this past week has been absolutely wonderful and we hardly know where to begin, but we'll try.
2 fridays ago, we celebrated our own christmas with fun little presents. my favorite was my new waffle maker that we have used several times this christmas break.

we've tried chocolate chip, peanut butter chip, strawberry with cool whip, and plain with powdered sugar! i think we like them all!
saturday we were off to new jersey to visit matt's mom and her family. on sunday, amanda and jasen flew in from houston and after circling the newark airport at least 8 times we finally got the hugs we had been waiting for :o)
on christmas morning, we were surprised by tons of generous gifts of which our favorite were...
new pjs

and a magic bullet! sweet!

the next 2 days we spent in NYC which was the highlight of our trip! here's a little tour:
DAY 1
we took the train from NJ to NYC which was tons of fun!

after checking into to our hotel (hilton times square - thanks to mr. ashdown), we spent a majority of the morning in soho and did some shopping

the famous dean & delucca

a trip through washington square park

a sneak peak of the empire state building

the biggest macy's ever

the clock tower

a view of the empire state building at night from our hotel

times square

the famous rockefeller christmas tree

trump tower - now when all the apprentice's get fired and they have to take a cab ride home...we can say we've been there. sweet!

a slice of heaven...according to matt & jasen

the view of 42nd street from the 42nd floor - where we stayed

DAY 2
our day started with the empire state building and after waiting in line for over 2 hours, we made it to the 86th floor (i think). it was freezing cold and started snowing when we were up there, but it was so awesome! we could see all of nyc!

northwest manhattan

northeast manhattan

south manhattan (with the statue of liberty)

southeast manhattan

past wall street's famous new york stock exchange

then we went to visit miss lady liberty - we didn't take the ferry, but we saw her from land


matt's artistic picture in battery park

we went to ground zero and saw the memorial

then we headed north on the subway to central park




from there we were pooped and our feet were sore, so we grabbed a bite to eat and headed back to new jersey!
it was a wonderful trip :o)