Manhattan!!!

I'm pretty sure my little brother gets to email today, so I'm going to try my best to get some of these blogs posted that are just sitting in my drafts folder.

In January Chris and I were able to go to the LDS temple in Manhattan, NY for the first time! We waited a long time to make this trip. We had babysitters set up, which was a miracle in itself! We thought that leaving 3 1/2 hours before we had to be at the temple was plenty of time. We were so wrong! Apparently driving to New York City on a Friday night means bumper to bumper traffic for over 3 hours. Add crazy weather to that (anyone ever heard of "freezing rain?" CRAZY stuff), and you get stress and frustration! We missed our temple session, but were still able to go inside and participate in some temple work. It wasn't a total bust, thank goodness. 

All of my stress of being late and crazy roads went away when I saw the buildings. It was awesome. I couldn't believe it was real!

We were rushed the entire night, but when it was just Chris and I walking the streets to get to our car or to the temple, it was awesome. Hopefully next time we won't be so rushed. We did learn our lesson - which is never go to the temple on a Friday night again. The traffic is just too horrendous!

After parking our car we started walking towards the temple. We were standing right in front of it and we didn't even know! We were right in front of it wondering which way to turn, when I looked up and saw the Angel Moroni on the top. Pretty cool!

We had already missed our session and while I was figuring out what we could do at the temple, Chris met up with a former missionary companion. He was Chris's last companion and his "son," I guess (meaning, he trained him). I have heard nothing but good things about Almam Moses Akepta-Kargbo (AKA: Elder A.K.), so I was thrilled to meet him! We had about 3-5 minutes to chat and then we had to say goodbye. Too short, but again... We were so rushed! Almam lives in Yonkers, NY and it was so great of him to wait around for us so we could visit for a short time. It meant a lot to us!

We ended up spending a lot longer in the temple (most of it was time spent waiting around) than if we would have made our session in time, but that's okay. It was relaxing to just be with Chris in that beautiful place! It was about 10:30 when we were done and almost 11:00 by the time we were out on the street.

The only place to eat that was open and wasn't going to cost a fortune was Shake Shack. I'd been wanting to try it for a long time, so we walked there as fast as we could and got there about 5 minutes before they stopped taking orders. We lucked out! We were starving and exhausted. The food was amazing (even better than In-n-Out), but all we wanted to do was get back home. We ate super fast, took some pictures, and then headed out!

It was crazy watching all the restaurants close and throw all their trash on the side of the street. There was so much trash! Chris was pretending to jump on top of it all as we were walking back to our car.

I think Chris got dangerously tired on the way home, so again... We won't be going back on a Friday night. It was a great experience, though, and I cannot wait to go back to New York!