WE LOVE NEW YORK & RUBY FOOS

The Tour Bus we road around town Saturday




We loved New York!!!! Sorry Julie we didn't get to see Bon Jovi, but at $1500 from scalpers for tickets to a free concert we'll pass ( We did see Blue Oyster Cult tonite though). And THANK you LISA- RUBY FOOS WAS YUMMY YUMMY YUMMY and Darlene for telling about the Circle Line Tour.
We woke up early Saturday and had a very good but expensive breakfast on the top of the Empire Hotel. This is the hotel we stayed at in New york, the Empire was very nice ($799 a night for the room we had). It's on 63rd next to the Lincoln Center, 1 block to Central park and right across from Madonna's apartment!! Nope NO A-Rod sightings ;-)!! We walked to times square and paid $98 to take the City Sights NY hop-on hop off Double decker Tour Bus. The all around tour took us uptown, down town, Brooklyn Tour, Night tour, free admission into the New York Historical Society or the Museum of the City of N.Y. and the Circle Line 75-minute Harbor Cruise. We took the down town tour Around the Empire state building, Wall St. Ground zero and much much more. We were planning to take the harbor cruise but found out from other tourist that you really really needed to be there at 8 AM just to have a shot at the last tour leaving for the day at three. So we just took the bus for the uptown tour around Central park, hells kitchen, Harlem, past the Bon Jovi concert line (27 blocks long 7 hours before the concert) the Metropolitian and more. The night tour was worth every penny we paid. It starts in Times Square goes thru the downtown area and over the Brooklyn bridge and to a ferry landing with a Beautiful view of the NEW YORK City skyline and the statue of Liberty. Our tour guide was wonderful and even played some ole Blue eyes songs. After the tour we ate dinner at Ruby Foos (Thanks Lisa) very good chinese food, a very chic place to eat right on Broadway in times square. It's really funny because this is the 1st place we ran into after we arrived friday.
After dinner we went into Toy's R Us, the ESPN Zone, the Hersheys and MnM's store and went to a few clubs and enjoyed the lights and sights in times square.
Sunday we just walked around the hotel area and inside the Shops on the circle shopping mall.
At 3:30 our Limo picked us up and took us to the airport. This is was the only bad part of the trip. We arived at 4 for a 6 o'clock flight and were moved up to a 4:30 flight seeing how our 6 o'clock flight was delayed and we wouldn't make our connection to Erie. We made it to the plane and then sat in the runway for 3 hours!!! Turns out some bad weather closed the flight path we were suppose to take! Our plane ran low on fuel and returned to the terminal, an hour later we finally reboarded the plane a finally took-off at 9:30 pm (this was the time we should have arrived in Erie).
To make a long story short we arrived in Cleveland at 10:30 paid $114 for a hotel room we didn't get settled into until 12:30 AM woke up at 5 AM- arrived at the airport at 5 AM and were home in Erie at 9:30 AM. Other than the delay we had a GREAT TIME IN NEW YORK CITY!! We just wish we had some more time to see the sights, the bus tour was realy the best way to see everything but we really wanted to walk around China town or little Italy. Guess I'll just need to win another trip so we can visit NEW YORK one more time. We love New York.

Sports Center Has New Host look out NEW YORK

We made it safe and sound to New York city. It's only 10:00 but we are beat, waking at 3 AM , 2 flights and walking over 30 blocks will do that. The day started out a little rough up at 3 AM at the airport before 5 and finding out they gave me 3 tickets to Philadelphia and only gave Sandy a ticket to Hartford!! After a few stressful moments things were taken care of and boths flights were on time and we had no more problems. We arrived at the Hartford airport to find a LIMO!! Waiting for us to take us the ESPN studios. When we arrived we found 1 other couple from Philly whom had also won the same contest we had ( Joe and Charlene). On the way out to start our tour the 1st person we walked past was Chris Carter (former Minnesota Viking). We had lunch at the ESPN CAFE it was VERY VERY nice. ESPN tables cushioned chairs, plasma TVs to watch VERY NICE!!! After lucnh we had our tour guide Joe show us the ins and out of ESPN and we got to tour the NEW and Old Studios. Everything was very impressive and I was in my glory with all the Sports memoribila they had. After the tour our LIMO picked us up for a 2 hour ride to New York city!! Our hotel is VERY VERY nice. We are just 1/2 a block central park. We just walked over 30 blocks and found Ruby Foos near times square (this restraunt was by Lisa and will most likly be were we eat dinner Saturday). Sandy wanted steak and we found a nice place with a decent price dinner. Today we walked in Central park, and around Time square. We also found the ESPN ZONE (KIM) and walked around and took some pictures. The Toys R US is huge and has a ferris wheel inside the store. We also found Radio City music hall and the David Letterman studios. Tommorow we'll take to city circle tour and ride around the city and take a boat ride to the statue of liberty.
We'll I'm really starting to doze and Sandy is already sound asleep so I'm off to bed and look forward to another big day tommorow.

Nite Nite

ESPN BOUND!!

Congrats Kim on correctly guessing we are going to visit the ESPN studios in Bristol Conn.
I won a contest back in Dec. from the Dr. Pepper cap codes!! We'll be flying into Bristol and getting a tour of the ESPN studios then driven to New York where we are free to do as we wish for a day and a half. We hope to have our schedule tommorow (we were suppose to have it by last Thursday) so we'll know where we'll be staying and can plan on what to do. I did see Bon Jovi is playing a free concert in Central Park or we might take a sight-seeing tour. There is just so much to see in New York we'll just try to do as much as possible. Anyone have any tips as where to go or what to see, places to eat etc... let us know!!

New Clue & Our 4th of July Starts out with a Ring Ring Ring?!!??

Sandy and I hope everyone has been having a wonderful 4th of July weekend. Our 4th started out not with a bang but a Ring ring ring of our phone at 7 A.M. >:(
Yep at 7 am our phone was ringing but we let the answering machine take the call, we awoke a few hours later (ok it was more like noon but it's one of the advantages of not having any children yet). There was a message form a nurse at the hospital for Sandy saying that her son was admitted last night and that he was in the MICU but doing ok. Sandy and I were thinking "we don't have a son" must be a mix up. So Sandy called the hospital and talked with the nurse and she said your son was found laying on the road last night and was unresponsive when he was brought in but he's doing ok now. Sandy asked so just how old is this son of mine and she said 39!! Sandy explained there must be a mistake and that she doesn't have a son and hung up. After she told me I started thinking Hey 39 years old my name , address and phone number what if someone is trying to steal my identity?? So I called back the hospital and told the nurse my name is Brian I'm 39 but i'm Sandys husband. The nurse read off the address and phone number for this guy and YES it was our home address and phone #. A few hours later the hospital called back and told me things were taken care of and that there would be an investigation into how my name and number were being used for this guy.
After thinking about it for a little while I thought maybe I should file a report with the police just incase this guy has been using my name before!! So I called back the hospital and asked if a police report had been filed. The nurse told me NO there was a HUGE mix up on the behalf of addmissions. The guy picked up was another Brian Kelley!!! They wouldn't tell us how they got my address and number but if he was unresponsive when brought in didn't they check any ID he was carrying and how did they get my number?? The nurse wouldn't say but it was a HUGE mix up and the other Brian Kelley didn't know any of our personal info. Big relief there but it started our 4th off on a crazy note. Now if I can just get this other Brian Kelley to pay our Adoption paperwork loans ;-)

Well we are off to take the dogs for a walk at the beach and for a little BBQ just me and Sandy and the pups today. hope everyone had a great 4th of july and sandy and I look forward to another 3 day weekend and we get ready to head to New York City and Somewhere else you havn't guessed yet, and this other part is the whole reason for the trip. Here's todays clue:
'The Swami'

Guessing game part 2

Congrats Suzanne for correctly guessing that we are going to New York City, here's a little tidbit of info that everyone has been guessing about the $24 will get you a lot clue.
The Dutch supposedly bought Manhattan from its Native American inhabitants for about $24 worth of trinkets

So ok we are going to New York and will have 2 days to sightsee, but we are really going there to go somewhere else. so here's the 1st clue as to where this trip to New York is leading us to:
A part of Walt Disney- Most Men like this part of Disney

NEW CLUE

Keeping with the holiday here's the new clue, this can be found at a popular tourist spot in the city we are traveling to.


JULY IV MDCCLXXVI

Sorry Suzanne it's not Amsterdam, remember no passport is needed.

One week to go another clue.

Here's another clue to the guessing game, where are Sandy and I going?
Well this city and Almaty share something in common.

Todays Clue

6377 miles from this city to Almaty Kazakhstan

Sorry Julie it's not Colorado