Austins in the Big Apple5/10- It's Complete!! About This Page:

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Pre Trip and Background:

During the 10 years I have been a married woman, I have always wanted to do something “big” for my hubby’s birthday- frankly speaking, they seem to fall victim to “tradition” and we have never really gone all out for him. On top of this, his birthday at times occurs on Mother’s Day. This year would be one of those days and after Christmas, I began toying with the idea of a weekend getaway to make it really special.

We had always talked about visiting New York City and the more we heard, the more we just daydreamed about it. I went back and forth thinking about cost and our work schedules. Hmm, had to work that out. Just to see what would happen, I put NYC on Travelocity FareWatcher. In the meantime, I told Kevan to ask for April 21 and 22 off and we would maybe just take off to the Ozark mountains for a birthday getaway. It would be a bit early for his birthday but as it was Mother’s Day- there was no getting away that weekend- I had to be with my kids!

I was getting used to the mountain weekend idea when all of a sudden there was a match on AA.Com. The cost of a ticket had dipped from $468 to $221. That’s actually a fantastic price for anywhere out of here. Luckily, we had no food in the fridge so when Kevan went to the store later that night- I got on the phone to ask his mom her thoughts- and she thought it was a great idea- for him to have a “big city” birthday. Minutes later, tickets were purchased and I had also called a few hotels to see what I was looking at in terms of rates in various areas of Manhattan. All this before he came back with a trunk full of groceries.

I ended up choosing the Grand Hyatt at Grand Central Station- located about 10 blocks from Times Square. It had very modern amenities and seemed like the perfect hotel for us. On top of that I got a super deal so that was a go.

Being the HUGE Seinfeld fans we are, we had heard about the Kramer Reality Tour- led by the real Kramer- Larry David’s neighbor for whom the character was based on. I found his website and checked it out- it had gotten several mentions in the guidebooks and lots of great reviews. Since Seinfeld was going to be on our minds during the visit anyway, why not let Kramer show us around? I booked using the 800 number and we were set for a tour on Saturday, April 23.

Also immediately emailed Angie (poohsgirl) to let her know we would be in town- and see if she wanted to meet me a few weeks earlier than planned on our May Girls Trip. She was definitely up for it and I was looking forward to it. I also called up my good bud Jeannine to let her know we would be in town. I’ve missed her terribly since she hasn’t been working with me at Grand Getaways- but we remain really good friends. She and her husband Tommy offered to pick us up at LaGuardia and take us back- we gratefully accepted. We also made plans for breakfast on Sunday before we flew home.

I decided to keep it a secret and successfully did so for all of about three weeks. We were watching a TV show that featured the Manhattan skyline one night. Kevan said, “ Jeez, that looks so cool.” Before I knew it, the words flew out of my mouth. “Really, glad you think so- we are going there to celebrate your birthday!” Why did I blow it? Argh!! His response was “Oh, sure okay.” After three repeated statements of “ We are going. It’s all arranged!” I finally had to get out our etickets, the Kramer confirmations and hotel confirmation to back up my words. He was totally shocked and immediately went to Books A Million for a NYC city guide. One very excited birthday boy!!

It turned out to be a blessing that I spilled the beans. I got sooo busy in the next couple of weeks I had no time to even think about the Big Apple much less plan what to do and when. Kevan found out there was a Yankees game during our visit so we got tickets to that. Kevan also is a big CNN junkie so he booked us on the CNN tour located at the New York studios. We also tried for David Letterman tickets- but they weren’t taping that week. We love David Letterman so that was a rather big let down., but other than that the plans shaped up really nicely.

Before I knew it, April 20 was upon us and even though Kevan had been packed for days, I was running around that afternoon in a mad scramble to wrap stuff up with work and start laundry.

Coming Up Next: An unexpected loss…