FAO Schwartz

FAO Schwartz....what can I say...it really does not matter if you are 9 or the mother of two nine year olds, FAO Schwartz is just plain fun, and it is must not be missed stop on any tour of NYC.

The girls were charmed with these wonderful fellows, or maybe it was these fellows who were charmed by our girls...

For those of you not in the know...(I wasn't in the know until I was met by this large blue thing) this is the Ugly Doll. Well lets just say its ugly...hence the name. The dang thing is also expensive, to the tune of about $15 for a doll that is about 7 inches big.

Of course no trip to FAO Schwartz is not complete without playing on the giant piano.

Now this was my favorite part of the ENTIRE store. The BARBIE section! What can I say, still love Barbie, will always love Barbie.

They have this whole display about the process of designing and making an upscale Barbie and her ultra cool clothes.

Here is Barbie in her couture beach wear. The designer of this fancy Barbie clothing was a former contestant on Project Runway.

Here are the Barbie dress I would probably sell a child to own...(especially if the child were a very cranky, and bossy three year old...)

More hot couture.

Although my Barbie clothes were designed by my mother, who could definitely keep up with today's couture, I still had nothing in my Barbie closet like this.

Were these priced? Of course not. I do believe its one of those things that if you had to ask, you couldn't afford it.....

Alright this was the best part of the Barbie section. These are dolls based upon the television show Mad Men. Mad Men happens to be the BEST show on television, although it is most definitely ADULT, (in content, not nudity), so no kiddies allowed. It combines my several of my most favorite things, the 60's and advertising.... What can I say, I love the 60's....twisted I know....but the styling is sooooo coooool!!!!!!!

If the judge thing does not work out....

About four years ago we had a lady named Alicia Richmond come and speak to our Young Women's group on fashion and how to dress trendy and cool, and still be modest. Alicia is a personal stylist with a really hip business called "Chic on a Shoestring." (chiconashoestring.com) I had never met Alicia prior to that evening, but I knew who she was from seeing her on local TV and hearing her on the radio. From the moment I met her that night I knew we were going to be friends....

Since then I have taken a trip with her to NYC in March 2008, modeled for her on Good Things Utah, and went to China with her last year. My latest venture to NYC was with Alicia.

In the 90's when all of us girls who were children from the 80's were wanting to get our "serious" college degrees so we could have those oh so important "power" jobs Alicia was a fashion design and merchandising major at BYU.

I will let you in on a little secret, I am jealous....truth be told I did not have the guts to major in fashion design and merchandising, (although I had the skills) because I was afraid I would not be taken seriously. My greatest fear in the late 80's and early 90's at BYU was that if I did not choose a serious major everyone would think I was only at BYU to bide my time until found my eternal companion, not really to get an education.

You see fashion design and merchandising was considered a fluffy major, like elementary education, or a family science or interior design, something girls who were only interested in getting married studied until being swept off their feet, and then putting their husbands through school. I simply could not be taken for fluff. I went to law school. No one ever accused any girl who went to law school of only being a BYU to get married. They took you seriously.

Now its not that I don't like being a lawyer/judge. I have an amazing job, and I have had an amazing career, with opportunities and experiences too numerous to mention. I am only saying that sometimes you wonder about the path not taken, and where you life would be if you had chosen a different path. To me Alicia represents that path. (Trust me she is NOT fluff at all, and has had equally amazing opportunities and experiences in her career. She is one of the coolest people I know.)

Part of her business is to host shopping tours. As part of these shopping tours, she takes you to her favorite stores and she styles the women who travel with her. She shops with you and helps you find clothing that will look good for your body type, and then helps you fit the clothing and select the accessories.

In addition to shopping tours, she does personal styling, helps people get rid of clothing in their closet that is out of style or does not look good on them. She also does a lot of public speaking about fashion, body types, body images and helping women, regardless of their size, feel good about their body and the clothing they wear.

Finally every week she has a fashion segment on a local daytime talk show called Good Things Utah.....

Well the producer of Good Things Utah sent Alicia to NYC with a video camera to record the trip and how to score great fashion finds while on vacation. Guess who got recruited to be the art director, and tape the segments? Yep that would be me. So when I was not wrangling nine year old girls, I was driving everyone nuts with the video camera taking shots that will hopefully be edited into a segment for Good Things Utah. You know what ? I liked it! It was really fun to think what shot might be good for the segment, or is the lighting ok, but mostly I was amazed at Alicia's ability to be so impromptu when I turned the camera on. I really will not know until the producer edits my video if I am any good at shooting video for TV, but honestly I watch enough TV, I know what goes into a segment. So you know if that whole judge thing does not work out, I might have a new career.....

I ate my way through NYC.....

The food, the food, oh the food I ate in NYC....... Let's just say that although EVERY menu item in NYC show the caloric content, I ignored that small detail. (I think it must be some city code thing, because everywhere we went there was full disclosure of what we consumed. Too much information if you ask me.)

This yummy treat is a red velvet cupcake from Crumbs. The best cupcake I ate in NYC. The frosting had sufficient amounts of sugar and the cake was thick and dense.


This is a peanut butter and chocolate cookie from Crumbs. Not so good. Crumbs clearly should stick to cupcakes, because this cookie lacked flavor, and was hard, not chewy or soft.

First night we were in NYC we ate at this amazing Italian restaurant and I had the best salad I have ever eaten in my life. It was a spinach base with portabello mushrooms, asparagus, black olives, tomatoes, grated asiago cheese, with a balsamic vinaigrette dressing. The girls did not share my enthusiasm. After being on the red eye flight and running around the city all day, they literally slept during dinner. I finally had to have the waiter get a diet coke for Lauren to get this girl going, after all we still had a Broadway show to see that evening.

This yummy treat would be frozen hot chocolate from Serendipity.

Sunday night it was on to Balthazar's. Alicia is a food network junkie, and prior to our trip she had been noting food network recommendations. Many of the places we ate were at the suggestion of the food network. The pasta you see in the photo was what Lauren ordered.

This is what I ordered. Yep one juicy steak, along with french fries, or as it said on the menu "with ponmes frites & maitre d butter sauce."

Apparently Balthazar's specializes in "ponmes frites" Yes they tasted as good as they looked.

Here we are ready to dig in. Alicia ordered chicken and let me tell you it was one of the juiciest chickens I have every seen.

After finishing our delicious dinner, we decided to walk it off, as we hiked 1.1 miles up Broadway to Max Brenners for chocolate pizza.

Trust me it tasted as good as it looked!

Finally another food network recommendation, Magnolia Bakery.

This was the delicious treat I consumed there!
Lets just say this was not a vacation where the word diet was used....

American Girl Place

If you are going to NYC with two nine year old girls you WILL be going to American Girl Place. (I have to admit my hats off to whomever came up with this very clever, and successfully marketed product, designed to make parents part with their money, and by money I mean LOTS of money, to fulfill the desire of their daughters...)

Here are Lauren and Chloe outside, excited to go in and find treasures.

They both love this camper and both think it would be a wonderful addition to their collection. At a cool $295 both moms said "no!"

When Lauren learned we would be going to NYC and a trip to American Girl Place was on the agenda, she began saving her money. She already has several of the historical dolls, but wanted a doll that looked like her. Lauren babysat for me this summer whenever I needed to run an errand, or take Mark to karate which is how she earned almost enough for her doll. (Ok, I made up the difference, because she never complained about babysitting and she even had to change a poopy diaper or two...) Great minds must think alike, because Alicia, Chloe's mom, made her earn her money too. Chloe already had a doll that looked like her so she wanted a historical doll. Although Chloe earned her money by modeling for one of her mom's clients. I think Lauren wanted to trade Chloe jobs.....

Lauren in front of "Julie" the doll from the 70's which happens to be Lauren's favorite historical doll.

Did I mention they pierce your dolls ears for a cool $14? (I think that might me more than what they charge at the mall?!!!) Yes, the doll now had pierced ears, and earnings, and mommy has less money.

The bag with the goods. Lauren managed to talk me into three new outfits for her doll....I told you the marketing behind this product was genius.

Bergdorf Goodman

A must have experience in NYC is walking down 5th Avenue. Its the location of all sorts of snooty stores, expensive items, and uber rich people. All of the stores have these amazing display windows. But Bergdorf Goodman's windows were by far the best.

They oozzed class, and basically they were works of art.

This one was all done in gold, including the frosting on the cake. I am not really sure how one achieves gold frosting....?

I loved the grey dress with the flowers in this window.

The mannequin in the middle looked as if she had been drizzled in wax.

Chanel, its always a classic.

Dylan's Candy Bar.

I have discovered the place I desire to be buried and spend eternity. Dylan's Candy Bar. For someone like me who believes the four food groups are white sugar, brown sugar, powder sugar and honey, I have found heaven. It is a store where only items made with significant amounts of sugar are allowed to be sold. If its candy, they have it and they sell it.

The owner of this story is Dylan Lauren, daughter of Ralph Lauren.

Yes, Dylan has her own Barbie doll, also available for purchase. I am thinking you have "arrived" if you have your own Barbie....

Did I mention Candy???

Chocolate covered Oreos. I have to say, they are delicious and give those fried Oreos a run for their money.

There was lots of chocolate.

A big bathtub filled with gum balls.

Lauren was invited to participate in a marshmallow shooting contest, hit the target, you get a prize.

She hit the target and got a tin to fill with any candy she wanted. Considering the candy was $12.99 a pound, she scored, in more ways than one.

This is the celebrity wall. Celebrities who visit, select their favorite candy, and sign the box of candy that goes on the wall. (Sugar and celebrity, what is NOT to love about this place???)

Finally the wall of candy bars, both new and retro. If its sugar they have it, and if they don't, it was never a good candy to begin with.

Statute of Liberty.

In all my visits to NYC I have never gone to the Statute of Liberty. (Truth be told, it takes several hours and I was never willing to give up shopping time....I know, I know...)

Since we arrived early in the morning on Thursday, and there was nothing scheduled for the tour until Thursday night, we had a free day. Alicia and I decided the girls, and us, needed a trip to the Statute of Liberty.

We hopped on the ferry, and sailed into the Hudson Bay, toward the lovely green woman.

Of course the girls had to ride on the top of the ferry for optimum viewing.
Here we are on the island. Lots of people as you can see.

Lauren used the viewing bionoculars to veiw the city and the statute close up.

She really liked this.

Did I mention it was windy? Oh yeah and that night a tornado hit NYC. Yep got caught in that too...ok, well not technically the tornado part, but the wind and rain part. What can I say.....NYC knew I arrived with full force.....

Did you miss me???

Did you miss me??? New York City called and I had to answer. Its actually been calling for about 8 months now, because its been a while since I came a calling.

Last April I saw my friend Alicia, who does shopping tours to NYC, China, and Italy, and I asked her if she was planning an NYC trip anytime soon. At that time she didn't have any specific plan, but come three months later she called and said she was putting a tour together, and asked if I was still interested. Of course I was!

Alicia said she was going to bring her 9 year old daughter, Chloe with her and asked if I would be interested in taking Lauren. Of course I was!

We cleared our calendar, booked our tickets, and packed our bags. Here a few highlights of the trip.

Lauren at the airport, patiently waiting to board the airplane.

We landed. Did I mention that it was a red eye flight? We left SLC at 11:45 p.m. and arrived in NYC 6:15 a.m. (4:15 a.m. SLC time) Upon arrival it was a shuttle to the hotel. These two are looking a little too spry for only having a few hours of airplane sleep.

Subway riding is always an adventure.

Wicked was on the agenda. Lauren's verdict, it was "awesome, cool, awesome, wicked."

Shopping in China town. Lauren scored a purse, and of course I had to get one for Katie. I did not buy ONE single purse for me in China town. Clearly my medication needs to be checked....

While Alicia was shopping with some of the ladies on the tour, I took the girls to Ground Zero and a new museum. This is the hat of a fire fighter who was in the building and survived the collapse.

Of course there was shopping involved. In fact I am quite amazed we did not get kicked out of several stores for our rather wild behavior....

Times square was shouting distance from our hotel.

Did I mention shopping.....?

We went to Church on Sunday in the building that also houses the temple.

Central Park after church. In case you can't tell by the picture, American Girl Place was a hit, and each girl is sporting a new doll. (Don't worry I have a whole blog post planned about THAT experience...)

Lauren and I in Central Park.

Alright now I have "wet" your appetite for my trip with some of the highlights, you can look forward to several days of blog posts with all the dirty details.