New York shopping

Well, after all my planning & preparation, to say my shopping 'haul' from New York was a bit disappointing is a huge understatement!!

A lot of the makeup I was after was sold out in many (many!!!) Sephora stores & even though we went into pretty much every CVS & Duane Reade we passed (so yeah, a LOT!), the displays were nearly always empty so I didn't get everything from there either.

Here's the few pieces I did pick up....

From Sephora, I only managed to snag a mini Sephora mascara for $5 (from the Aisle of Temptation!  You'll know if you've been there!!) & an Anastasia Beverly Hills Dipbrow Pomade, which was $18.  From CVS I bought two lipsticks from Wet n Wild for a couple of dollars each (which are surprisingly good & give MAC a run for their money!)  I also picked up a MAC lipstick in Call the Hairdresser from Macy's from the rudest sales assistants I've ever had the 'pleasure' to come across.

I desperately wanted to find the E.L.F. store but the address we had, after traipsing up & down this sodding street several times in torrential rain, we discovered had closed down, grrrrr!!!  So I thought that'd be a no-go but then I found a small display of products in Old Navy & picked up 2 each of the brushes shown here (one set for my daughter) & a BB cream.  However, apart from the MAC & one of the WnW lipsticks, everything else is as yet unused waiting to be reviewed so watch this space!!

I didn't find one single bag that I liked enough to warrant spending a few hundred dollars on & no clothes were to be found either.  Anything I found that I did like, I knew I could buy cheaper here so I left them!  To be honest, we spent most of our money on bits for the kids!

But the one thing I did buy that I really wanted & is now my pride & joy, was my Tissot watch.  However, this was bought from Duty Free at Heathrow so doesn't really come under the 'New York shopping' heading but hey ho!!  I googled the price of the watch in NY & it would've been significantly more to buy there so as I was going to save £70 off the price buying from Duty Free, it was a no-brainer!!

So I'm sorry I don't have more to show you but now that my computer is working again, I'll get reviews of the bits I did get up asap!!

New York #2

Day 3 & we woke to lovely sunshine again, albeit a bit cooler than the day before.  Today we'd earmarked for visiting the 9/11 memorial gardens & the Statue of Liberty so we hopped on the subway just by the hotel & a after short 8 minute ride, we emerged into the sunlight at the foot of the Freedom Tower.

The memorial fountains are beautiful but I really struggled with my emotions when I was there.  I'll admit that there were quite a few tears shed & generally, most people felt the same judging by the complete silence all around.  Most definitely a place for reflection.  Because of this, we chose not to go in to the actual museum, I'd have been a complete wreck!

From here, we walked by the river down to the ferry terminal & headed over to see Lady Liberty.  I love this ferry journey seeing the Manhattan skyline behind you & the imposing statue in front of you, just fabulous!

We wandered round the island & had a bit of lunch (with THE best deli sandwich FYI!!!) then caught the ferry back to the city where, after watching helicopters circling above all morning, we decided on a whim to try & find them & do a heli tour!  We pretty much just followed the helicopters & we eventually found the helipad right next to the Brooklyn Bridge.  After paying an extortionate amount (still makes me feel slightly sick thinking how much!!) & waiting an hour, our turn was up.  At this point I was extremely nervous about the whole thing & very nearly backed out but omg, I'm so glad I didn't!!  I absolutely loved it & it was definitely the highlight of our trip for me - and hubble would agree with that too!

After landing, we caught the subway up to Chinatown & had a mooch around & then the subway back to the hotel.  It was 5pm at this point & we were starving so we hopped into a diner & had a wee pig-out.  That night was spent doing a bit of shopping for the kids & we really had run out of steam at this point!  But I have to point out here that shopping for myself was verrrrry disappointing!! :'(  A lot of things on my 'list' were out of stock (this was in 4 different Sephora stores!) & I did see a few nice things - but they were cheaper in the UK so I left them!!)  I ended up with a few bits & pieces which I'll do in another post asap.

On our last morning we woke to torrential downpours that were already flooding the roads at 7am!  We were meeting my cousin & his wife who were in NY from California for breakfast so after a great catch-up with them, we headed back to the room to pack the suitcases before heading out one last time.  Within 10 minutes we were both absolutely soaked to the skin & frozen so that put a bit of a dampener of things but we still managed to do a few more shops!!

And then that was it, our trip to NY was over & we were in a very smelly, overheated cab heading back to JFK!!  It's really surreal that this trip we had been planning for soooo long is over - but on the upside, we're now planning a trip to Rome for next June to celebrate what will be our 20th wedding anniversary, yay!!!

Here's the last of my photos for you!

New York #1

Hi all, sorry for the unintentional blogging break!!  My PC has been in to be 'fixed' but I'm still not entirely convinced it's sorted so I'll get as many posts done whilst it IS still working!!

So, it turns out that turning 40 is not so bad after all! ;)  I had loads of fab presents (shoes, jewellery, personalised gifts, a clutch bag, restaurant voucher, Jo Malone perfume & enough pennies to go & treat myself to my fabulous Tissot watch that I've been lusting after for months!!) & of course, the highlight of my birthday was our trip to New York.  I'm going to have to do a couple of posts as there are mannnnny photos.......!

Hubble & I flew down to Heathrow the day after my birthday as we were staying at the Ibis hotel the night before (absolutely brilliant hotel btw for anyone needing to stay at Heathrow airport!) our flight to JFK.  We flew with Delta, an airline we've never used before but they were great & we wouldn't hesitate to fly long haul with them again.  We landed in grey, drizzly weather but we were quickly through customs & in a cab on our way to Manhattan & our base for our holiday, the Sheraton Times Square.  We were an hour early for official check-in but we asked at reception & our room was ready straight away.  Unbeknownst to me, Hubble had emailed beforehand to let them know we were celebrating my birthday so they kindly had upgraded us to a larger room on a higher floor & gave us a voucher for a full breakfast the following morning!  (We could just see Central Park from our room!!)  We dumped the cases & then headed straight out into the now-sunshine.  Times Square was only a 6 or 7 minute walk from the hotel so we headed there, where I promptly entered my first Sephora!  We spent a couple of hours wandering round & then ate before walking back up to Central Park to enjoy the sunset.  Jetlag was seriously setting in at this point but we forced ourselves to stay awake until 10pm (3am our time!)

Day 2, after we'd enjoyed a fabulous breakfast, we knew it was going to be a sunny, hot day so we wandered down to the Empire State Building.  I was surprised that I remembered so easily where all the landmarks were & was off leading the way like it was only yesterday since I'd been there - rather than the 22 years it actually was!!  

We did some more exploring - and shopping - then Hubble had to buy shorts & trainers as he was sweltering in the 28 degree heat!  That evening, we headed to Top of the Rock as I really wanted to see the sun set from up there & it was absolutely stunning watching the low sun reflecting off the skyscrapers & then the sky turning dark.  I didn't want to leave......

I'll leave this post at this point & let you enjoy (hopefully!) some of our photos from the first 2 days.

*hmmmm, the fact that it's taken 3.5 hours to upload these photos leads me to believe that my pc is still poorly, grrrr!!!*

New York shopping list

I can't believe that a week today, we'll be in New York & I'm ridiculously excited - I'll just skip over the part about turning 40 though & pretend like it's not happening!  It's been sooooo long in the planning, it seems very strange that we'll soon be there & it's safe to say, my shopping list is growing daily, as are my daughters' !

It might sound odd to other people, but the majority of what's on my list is cosmetic based with some house-y bits thrown in too.  My main thing to shop for will be a new watch & I seem to be veering back towards a Michael Kors one again.  I went off them for a while as it seemed like everyone & their dog had one but I just can't find another one I like as much as this one, simple & classic;

There are specific stores I really want to visit, mainly being CVS & Duane Reade pharmacies & Sephora for makeup, Pottery Barn, Bath & Body Works, Nordstrom, Tiffany & Co, Bloomingdales, Kate Spade & somewhere to buy Converse too!

I have a wee notebook that is rapidly being filled with more things as & when I think of them & now that it's just the two of us going (my sister, brother-in-law, dad & stepmum had to pull out due to the health issues of my sis & stepmum *sobs*) poor Hubble is going to be dragged round store after store!  He has been forewarned however & is prepared - he'll be fine as long as he gets plenty of coffee/beer breaks!!

So as well as the shopping, we've planned to do the usual tourist things as it's hubble's first time in NYC & I haven't been since I was 18.  We'll be doing The Empire State Building one morning & Top of the Rock at sunset, the Statue of Liberty, maybe a helicopter tour, Central Park & whatever else we can fit in.  I've also managed to get a long list of eateries we'd like to try too - I think we should've gone for 2 weeks rather than 4 days!  We booked to stay at the Sheraton Times Square as it seems perfectly situated midway between Times Square & Central Park & is close to a subway.  So this is a warning that there will be a fair bit of Instagramming going on next week (sorry, not sorry!)  I just really need to crack on & get all my laundry sorted now.......

Btw, my pc is having to go in for repairs as it's still very poorly & I know now what a faff it is trying to do a blog on an iPad as I can't insert any photos.  I'm having to draft it out on here (iPad mini), then email the images to myself to download onto my daughter's laptop to insert on here - I think I need a Chromebook too or something similar as this is soooooo time consuming :(. So apologies if anything looks odd with the final blog post!