I have been so busy lately and I have so much to share with you all! I am going to start with my trip to New York City with my 13 year old daughter Pookey.

Pookey has been dying to goto New York City and when an opportunity arose from Affinia Hotels, I took it and took off to NYC with my daughter for some mother/daughter time.   Pookey, the oldest of my 4 kids and my only girl, is always babysitting for me, hanging out at her brothers sporting events and basically doing boy stuff, so I figured she could use a little girl time and what better place than NYC.

We stayed at the Affinia Gardens on 64th street and took advantage of their Central Park Adventure package.   The package included tickets to the Central Park Zoo, Lollypops from Dylan’s Candy Shop, a map of Central Park, and a 24 hour rental of a Wii Console.  We stayed in one of their one bedroom suites and it was fantastic! We had a fully equipped kitchen, a desk and living room area with a sleeper sofa and a separate bedroom with 2 queen beds.  I had stayed with Affinia Hotels before when I was in Chicago last year for BlogHer, I was impressed then but I was even more impressed this time.  The staff was so nice, the hotel was beautiful and our room was so comfortable and welcoming.  I loved having a kitchen, the first night we were there we went to the local Food Emporium and stocked up on some snacks, breakfast items and water, which really saved us some money over eating out for every meal.  If you are going to BlogHer this August I would definitely recommend looking into Affinia Hotels for your stay.  They have several properties all over NYC, the one bedroom suite is perfect for a group of friends traveling together!

Central Park

Our trip began at 5 am at Pittsburgh International Airport, we landed in NYC around 7:30 am, hopped on the bus, then the subway and checked our bags at the hotel and headed for Central Park.  When I took a look at the map I couldn’t believe how large it was!  We were there for about 6 hours and barely put a dent in everything there is to see.

Madison Avenue

After the park we walked back to the hotel, down Madison Ave and window shopped….

Broadway

We finished our first day with the best pizza ever in Times Square and tickets to Green Day’s American Idiot. It was Pookey’s pick, I wanted to see Mary Poppins, but I ended up really enjoying the show.  The music of course was fantastic and the energy of the show was addicting.

WOW, I’m tired just writing about all that we did in that first day! It was fantastic, we could not have asked for a better day.  Make sure you come back to see what we did on day 2 and day 3!

Disclosure ~ I was extended a free night and an additional night at a press rate from the Affinia Hotels.