Concrete Jungle, Here We Come

Can I just say how excited I am that we're getting out of town.  Scram, scat, and skedaddle.  Heading to NYC to catch some of the high life, maybe even on the high line.

Even though our Spring Break was last week, we had to stay home since we built this trip around the date of our niece Sophia's Bat Mitzvah in Boston. While I was huddled in bed doing my Little Match Girl routine because the weather was so cold and miserable in Portland, I was at least able to make some fun plans for our trip.

We rarely get back East, our last visit as a family was in 2006 when we returned from our trip around the world.

I can't believe how little Dylan was back then!  

My last visit was for a job interview in October 2010 (a quick two nights in NYC) so we thought this was a perfect opportunity to take Dylan to look at some colleges.  While we don't expect her to apply to all/any of them, we wanted to expose her to some campuses so that she could get a sense of what's out there after high school.  We will visit Columbia, Parsons School of Design, NYU, Yale, Amherst, Dartmouth (Andy's alma mater) Harvard and Wellesley.

I also got us tickets to see Alan Rickman on Broadway in his play Seminar, and passes to visit the World Trade Center Memorial site.

The best and perhaps most serendipitous part of our trip will be meeting up with Rhonda, Gulu and their boys for a couple of days while in NYC.  We're continuing our tradition of crashing each other's vacations in an attempt to see each other at least once a year!

So, needless to say, it's going to be a pretty awesome trip topped off with a fun party with a huge number of Wells.  Once we get back, there's a lot of stuff brewing in the background that we need to finalize.  One is that I'm hoping to come up with a new look for my blog.  Another, is that I'm going to send out a new and improved book query to another round of agents.  Andy will be jetting off to Europe for more work and Dylan will be in the final countdown to her high school musical, Hairspray.  She's one of Corny Collins' dancers.

I think the sun is trying to break through the dense clouds over Portland, so better run. I leave you with a bit from Jay-Z.

New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made of

                                            There's nothin' you can't do

Now you're in New York

These streets will make you feel brand new

Big lights will inspire you

Let's hear it for New York, New York,