NYC, baby!

So, I made the decision years ago that my 40th birthDAY would, in fact, be celebrated for a YEAR.  Why?  Because I am actually really excited to be 40.  I mean, why not?  I have my family and friends, a great home, a career and hobbies I love, so much to be happy about at this point in life.  My 30s were so much about building my family and career, that I feel like my 40s will be the time to reap the rewards of that hard work.  I became a mom about a week before my 30th birthday, which was celebrated by a quick dinner at a restaurant, where I basically couldn't sit comfortably and I milked through my shirt and dashed home in embarrassment, so...yah, I thought I was owed some fun for the Big 4-0 ;)

I am also extremely lucky to still be close with many of the girlfriends of my youth.  Five of us, who have been friends since Kindergarten, decided to take a trip to NYC to celebrate our birthdays in style, and to toast our lifelong friendships.

I had TECHNICALLY been to NYC before.  What does that mean, you ask?  Well, 8 years ago, I went with another friend to celebrate her 40th. She had recently moved to North Carolina, so I flew there to see her and her family, and she arranged a bus tour to NYC for us.  Did you know that North Carolina is really FAR from NYC?  Well, as Canadians, we really are not all that sharp about US geography so, um, we did not.  So our trip started with a REALLY LONG bus ride, made even longer when the bus broke down on the side of the road for 6 hours.  This was especially painful as I happened to be 8 weeks pregnant with LBNL, so was nauseous and had a bladder the size of a pea.  In addition, the bus tour was through a church group of extremely exuberant African American Southern senior citizens, who were the sweetest people ever, but who piped their homemade cheesy soap operas through the tvs and tended to shout "Hallelulia" and "Amen" approximately 47 times per hour.  It was quite the experience!

And the fun didn't end there- we arrived in NYC to catch the tail end of Hurricane Ernesto, which caused rain to pummel us sideways, preventing any kind of walking outdoors (which is how you DO NYC!), nor could we see through the windows of our city tour bus so....yah.  Not fun.

I digress.  But you can see how my life is a bit of a sitcom?

Anyways, this time?  I WENT to NYC!  And we sure did it right.

We shared some laughs with Rob Schneider at his standup show:

We saw amazing musicals:

 We had many cocktails:

We shopped:

We danced until the wee hours of the night, and then we did karaoke (check out my pit stains, dudes):

We even went here.....

...and did this:

So many awesome things happened.  And one of my favourites?  Visiting Purl Soho!!

So many pretty things....

And I brought some home with me :)

The stuff in my Purl Soho bag was WAY more expensive than what I had in that little blue box above, lol!  But I just LOVED being in there, surrounded by succulent yarns, soft and gorgeous Liberty of London fabric, the friendly staff, and all the inspiration! Heaven :)

So all in all, I would say this trip was FABULOUS and we are already busy planning our Big 5-0 return!!