Atlantic City Baby!

Ben and I recently took our first trip without the kids. It was a pretty emotional time when I had to leave Graham but we made it through.
We stayed at the Marriott Fairways Villas in Atlantic City, New Jersey. On the grounds there were two outdoor pools, one indoor pool, game rooms, ping pong, theater room, golf course and driving range, tennis, basketball courts, and lots more! Our villa was so precious. We had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, living area, full kitchen, jacuzzi, screened in porch, and big screen tvs. The villas were actually about 7 miles outside of Atlantic City in this quaint little town with cute houses and little cafes.

This is a picture of our villa.

This is the master bedroom. I took the picture after we had already made a mess.

The cutest little kitchen!

The first day we got out we headed to the famous Atlantic City Boardwalk. I never would have thought it was that long! We walked forever! It was full of casinos, restaurants, and little shops. At some point there was a small, very fancy mall that reached out over the ocean.
We had drinks at Hard Rock Cafe, ate some of the famous Nathans Hot dogs, and collected shells from the ocean for Caroline. Also bought lots of souvenirs!

This is an elephant made out of jelly beans.

One of the many casinos.

I know this is a weird thing to photograph. There were all these cats that lived under the boardwalk. They seemed to be very well fed. This particular one looks identical to our "Little Kitty" at home. I knew Caroline would like this.


The amusement park wasn't open in October. Ben was relieved when he realized this because he knew I would have made him ride with me.

Taking a stroll on the beach.

We drove to Harrahs Casino. I think it was the biggest one in Atlantic City. It was amazing! This is a sand sculpture they had in the front lobby.

They had a really neat indoor pool and spa area.

After taking in all sites we finally set down to do some gambling. Neither one of us had ever really done this before and did not want to loss much. We ended up having a really good time though.

I usually stuck to the penny and quarter slots!

Ben took ten dollars and sat down at a poker machine. After playing a few hands he was dealt a straight flush and won $109!!!



During our trip I just HAD to visit New York City. It is my most favorite place to visit! I really think I could live there. Anyway, that day was very long. NYC is only about two hours away when you measure the distance. That doesn't sound so bad, right? It took us 4 hours to get there and 7 hours to get home.
We woke up and left the villas at 8:00am. We had to drive about 45 miles to get to the train station. Those 45 miles took about an hour and a half because of traffic and lights. We had to wait about 30 minutes for the next little train. We took the little train to Trenton, NJ to catch the big train that took us to Penn Station. The little ride took about 35 minutes and the big one took two hours. We arrived in NYC around 11:30am.
I immediately took Ben to Times Square. He was pretty impressed with everything going there. We made stops at the huge Toys R Us, M&M store, Hersheys Store, and lots of souvenir shops. Then we made our way to Rockefeller Center. We went to my favorite store, NBC, to get my usual FRIENDS shirt. We watched the skaters and walked around to see some other sites. I think if we had brought some of our stuff I would have tried to talk Ben into staying the night. We just didn't have enough time. We made our way back to Penn station at 6:00pm. We wanted to check on timetables for our train before dinner. They were having switching problems that were going to delay for 30-60 minutes. Ha! We took our time eating a yummy dinner and went back to check. Still having problems......We had to get back at a certain time because remember the little train I told you about? The last one leaves at 9:30pm.
I go to the bathroom and when I come out Ben is shouting that they had called our train and we race down stairs to catch it. We get on but it is completely full of all the other people waiting to get home to NJ that night. We have to stand. That's not so bad. People will get off at the first stops and we can sit down then. Did I mention that we have been walking all day? Our feet are tired! We stand on that stupid train for an hour before it even moves. The tracks are so backed up from having to wait. When we do finally get going it took almost another hour just to get to the first stop because of all the starting and stopping. When we finally get back to Trenton we have missed the last little train by 10 minutes. We walked around a bit trying to get information out of the people around the train station. Finally we find a bus that will get us to the town where our car is. They tell us this is only 20 minutes away. So.....we get on the bus and first off notice that the driver is the slowest person in the world. At everything! Then he has to stay on his route and stop at every freaking bus stop in between. It took forever to get back. Then the guy drops us off about half a mile from our car. That wouldn't be so bad except the neighborhood does not look that safe and it's already 11:00pm. And this is the kind of place where people are going to be walking the streets. We make it safely to our car and hit the road. It was a very long night. It was worth it to me because I love New York so much. I do not think Ben would have done it again. We will never drive into NYC again. From now on we will fly in and stay there the whole time!

Here is the Hershey Place. It smells so yummy in there!

I had to take a picture of Sponge Bob for Caroline.

This is the ferris wheel in Toys R Us.

NYPD

We took these pictures for Mylet. This is the Philippine Consulate.
I thought is was kind of neat.

We are finally on our way home. We decide to leave a day early and drive to McLean, VA. That is where Langley (CIA headquarters) is located. I love the tv show, Alias, and realized on the drive up that we were just a few miles from there. We couldn't find an address anywhere so when we got to the town we stopped and asked where it was. Nobody could really give us a definite answer. One lady said that she knew where it was but that we couldn't see it from the streets. There was a high wall all around Langley and other government buildings in the town. So, I gave up on seeing Langley and we got a hotel for the night. The next day we drove 14 hours and made home at 9:30pm on Saturday night.