Thanks so much to everyone for the birthday wishes!  As always, my family and friends really put in a lot of effort to make my birthday absolutely fabulous.  I am truly blessed to have such incredible people in my life.

One of the biggest treats of this year’s birthday was a trip to New York City for Mathlete and I.  Mathlete’s parents watched the kids and we headed out on Friday morning for a long weekend.  We had originally planned to drive but, with the threat of a blizzard, we decided the train would be the better option.

The train was awesome because we could avoid the weather and traffic AND I got to do some work while we traveled.

Once we arrived in the city, we checked into our hotel {The Gotham in midtown}.  It was really nice and our floor only had two rooms on it because the opposite side of the floor was a huge outdoor terrace.

Our plans for the trip really didn’t include anything specific besides a few restaurant reservations so we just bundled up and headed out into the blizzard to walk around the city.  The snow was coming down pretty hard but it didn’t stop us or the hundreds of people trying to score tickets for the 8:00pm Broadway shows at the TKTS booth.

We did a little shopping in Times Square and then walked up 5th Avenue to Apple {open 24 hours!} and FAO Schwartz.

When we returned to our room, we were greeted with some Prosecco from the hotel…delish!

I always like to try new restaurants when in the city so I had picked three for our trip.  The first was a casual Mexican restaurant called Maya.

We were greeted with these delicious margaritas called Mercado Margaritas.  The margaritas are made with jalapeno infused tequila, passion fruit puree, citrus and rosemary hibiscus foam.  They were so delicious.

The next day we went straight over to the TKTS line try and score some matinee tickets for a show.  We ended up choosing Nice Work If You Can Get It with Matthew Broderick.

Before the show, we hit The Standard Grill for some delicious donuts and breakfast.

The restaurant is in the Meatpacking District so we walked around there and then over to the The West Village for some shopping.

I have never seen a show on Broadway so I was definitely excited!

Post show we decided to chill out a little bit in our room before dinner.  Room service helped with some snacks since we had missed lunch.

Dinner was at Cafe Boulud but we were way early so we had a drink at the bar next door. The entire menu is organized into three sections: Traditional, Seasonal, Inspired by the Market, and Exotic.

We started with short rib dumplings.  Then I had the beef wellington.  It was easily one of the best meals I have ever had.

Sunday brought an early wake-up call so we catch our train back to home!