Shopping and Bar Hopping in NYC

My favorite hotel, The New Yorker, is having special 35% off sale.  This is a great deal for a great hotel with a perfect location.  Book now for a stay from now until September!  Sale ends today 3/9, so don't miss out!  Check out their shiny new website www.newyorkerhotel.com

I've mentioned my love for this hotel in a past post, but I also went back to stay there again the week before Christmas with three of my very best friends.  NYC is exciting anytime of year, but Christmas time is magical!

Our Trip:
Words cannot describe how excited we mamas were to go on this little trip!
We took an (extremely) early Amtrak train from 128 Westwood Station.  I did this last time and it worked out great.  Not much traffic and really easy to park--$12 a day.

We were able to check-in early!  The New Yorker Hotel lobby was decorated for the holidays.  Once again this hotel was perfect.

We scored a "Cyber Monday" deal that was a steal for Christmas time in NYC.

Our room was very nice and quite spacious...and as I have mentioned before the beds are so so comfortable.

The view from our room

We freshened up and then walked to Times Square.

We had a few celebrity sightings...one was real...Nick Lachey

and one was made out of wax...lol

Heather and faux Tony Bennett

We decided to see the sights by way of a Grey Line double decker bus!  You could get on and off all over Manhattan all day.  We were bundled up so we sat in the open air up top, it was awesome.  Kerri was our photographer...

Me and Heather on the double decker bus

Here are some things Kerri captured along the way...

cool black and whites suitable for framing

Empire State Building

Washington Square Park

We got off the bus for a late lunch in Soho/Little Italy.  We happened upon this lovely place, The Grey Dog.  So cozy inside.  The wine was 1/2 off after 4...of course we stayed until after 4!  It goes down in history as one of the best lunches ever...so relaxing, lots of laughs, good food and of course wine.  

It was dark when we left, Little Italy was all lit up...

We bought dozens scarves and pashminas on Canal Street and in Little Italy.  We hopped back on the bus...very cool riding on the top or the double decker at night...a little chilly but worth it.

Housewives of NY fans?  This is Jill Zarin and her
 husband's fabric business

Rockefeller Plaza

Home of the Rockettes!

We got back to the hotel and got ready for a night on the town!

View from our hotel room at night.

We started with a fancy smancy dinner at Ruth's Chris.  Excellent!

From there we went to a few bars/pubs and ended up at The Mean Fiddler--dancing and foolishness ensued until the wee hours.  Our last stop of the night (morning) was the Tick Tock 24 hour diner...this city really doesn't sleep!  I shall not reveal what time we finally put our heads on the pillows.

The next day (later that morning) we got huge coffees, thankfully Dunkin Donuts was right on the corner.  We checked out of the hotel but were able to leave our luggage locked up until we were ready to take the train home later.

Our plan was to walk to Rockefeller Plaza.  We saw some landmarks and shopped/haggled with  various street vendors along the way.

In the Fashion District they were selling some dresses on the street.

I got this one for 20 bucks.

Rockefeller Plaza was bustling with holiday excitement.

Woody was a little creepy and smelled like pee--sorry, just a warning

After one last stop at the Tick Toc Diner we headed home on the train back to Boston.  We had an absolute blast, but we were ready to get back to our kids and get some sleep.

Maureen said it best on her facebook status that evening "heading home from the city that never sleeps, to get some sleep"

Some of my loot

scarves and pashminas

My First "Tweetup" at Nordstrom Rack

I was very excited to be invited to my first social media event!  Last (very rainy) Tuesday night, my very good friend Laura (Being Loopy) attended a "Tweetup" at Nordstrom Rack in Burlington, MA.  

What is a Tweetup you ask...I was asking myself that same thing when I got the invitation.  I knew it had something to do with Twitter which I am still not completely comfortable with yet, so I was nervous.  (fellow bloggers I'm sure are laughing at me right now) The urban dictionary defines a tweetup as - A meet up of people that 'tweet' using Twitter or a real-life meeting organized on the social networking site Twitter.

Essentially we were getting a sneak peek at the new Nordstrom Rack store in Burlington, MA the night before it's grand opening and we were asked to "tweet" about it.

Here is how the evening went down.  We signed in and were greeted with a generous "swag bag" that included a gift card to shop!  There were also, yummy appetizers, cocktails and fun music.

We were asked to take pictures and tweet them.  So Laura and I got busy!  As you can see from the above pictures and these few others, at first we were being silly taking pictures of each other.

Then they announced that Jodi tweeted about an awesome bag and won it!  So then we started taking pictures of all the great things were we finding and tweeting like crazy.

Shoes, shoes and more shoes...and boots, lots of boots!

Uggs

cute rain boots

 Chocolate brown down vest that I wish I got...I'll just have to go back, who wants to come with me?

 very cool watches at very frugal prices

Adorable kids clothes and shoes

 Laura ended up getting these fab leather gloves, aren't they awesome?!

 She is ready for winter...

We didn't win anything but we had so much fun spending our shopping and checking out this fabulous store.  The selection is huge, tons of brand names with extremely reasonable prices.

I ended up getting some workout clothes, a very comfy bra and this Skagen watch, the bargain of the century.  The watch was originally $100 marked down to...drum roll...$15!!!  That just goes to show the deals to be had at the Nordstrom Rack. 

Nordstrom Rack I will be back!

You can follow Nordstrom Rack on Facebook www.facebook.com/NordstromRack

and on Twitter nordstrom_rack

or visit their website 

http://shop.nordstrom.com/c/nordstrom-rack