I (Joni) decided to give Paul a break write a blog this week. We are super lucky to live in Connecticut, even if it's only for a little while, because there are so many fun things close by. I LOVE having visitors and last week I got to see two friends, Andrea and Christina, from Utah. Here are a few pictures from the time we spend in the big apple.

Here we are hanging out by the central park boat pond (as seen in Stepmom according to Andrea/movie trivia genious)

Gotta have a hot dog in Central Park. I was sad here because I realized I only had 1/2 a hot dog left and I was still hungry. Then again, I'm hungry all the time now a days!

We were crazy enough to roll out of bed at 4:30 am to get to the No Doubt concert on the Today show. Gwen is that blurry blonde figure to the left. We got pretty close to the stage because we were so early, but it was still difficult to see being only 5' 2 and 3/4". I took this picture while they hoisted me above the crowd.

We were only a few feet from Matt, Merideth, and Anne.

After the Today show we decided to go on a 3 hour boat tour around the entire island. It sounded like a nice break after standing on the street at the Today show for 2 1/2 hours. Here we are at the beginning of the boat tour all peppy and excited...



And here we are about 2 1/2 hours into the tour...

It's not that the tour wasn't moderately exciting, we just were a little too ambitious after waking up SO early. We all slept for a solid 15 minutes! Overall we had a blast in the city. We saw all the sights, went to Chicago on Broadway, and discovered a heaven-sent bakery near our hotel from which we all bought mulitple pastries. We went back several times during the trip - even in the rain!

Back in Connecticut we had fun too. We ate at Plan B, my favorite gourmet burger place.

Apparently West Hartford isn't quit as entertaining as NYC so we were thinking of stuff to do one night. Both Christina and I braved a shot of pickle juice (a bet) in order to get free ice cream at Ben and Jerry's. I found out pickle juice is acually kinda good.

When we got back from the city Paul had a fresh batch of stuffed french toast ready for us. What a sweetie. Dilly was excited too and decided to make a little puddle every time Andrea touched her. It was good to know we were missed. It was awesome to have a girl trip!

Just so everyone knows Paul is still going strong on his nightly push-up challenge, even when he has to do them at midnight!

Bye for now...

Joni