Two weeks ago, I managed to cram in three parent-teacher conferences in two days, six outfits and my laptop into a carry-on approved piece of luggage, and I headed off for NYC. I attended an event that I'll detail later this weekend over on my review blog. Never one to miss an opportunity, I decided to take a few days to see my brother and sister-in-law, who live in Connecticut.

I'll say this - even with the aid of my trust iPhone maps, I still walked many blocks in the wrong direction in Manhattan on my way to meet up with them. Of course, my brother gave me the wrong address a couple of times, but it was close. By like, five blocks or so ;)

Here's what I saw when I arrived at Norma's at the Parker-Meridian.

How stinking adorable are these two? Right?

"So, what do you want to do while you're here?" they ask me.

"Uh, the kids want giant lollipops from PapaBubble, but other than that? I dunno."

We decided to get them checked into their hotel (since they planned to stay in NYC for the night to better show me the town.) We walked in a much less dramatic detoury fashion to their hotel, and got them checked in.

After my brother and I had a few indecisive moments, my sister-in-law took matters into her own hands and said, "Right. We're going to see if there are any Broadway shows you want to see, and we'll get tickets. Then, we'll take a subway, because you haven't done that yet. And we'll show you where the secret underground troll/hobo people live underground. And then we'll go get the lollipops for the kids. And then we'll go to Lush. Also? Your brother needs a new pair of shoes and maybe some pants, so maybe we'll go to Macys."

Thank goodness for people who can make plans. About the secret underground troll-hobo lair - this is something my mother speculated on while visiting NYC a few years back. Alas, we did not find any, although it sounds completely plausible, and I'm sure some native New Yorkers would know how to find them. Maybe it's on one of the tours.

Anyway - following this new schedule of events, we headed off to Times' Square. I know people walk all over in NYC, and I would probably be a svelte size 4 if I just walked everywhere, but I brought stupid shoes. At this point in the afternoon, that shoe shopping at Macys sounded pretty awesome. But I trudged on.

Oh, Times Square - you seething mass of craziness!

After seeing the 700 mile long line for show tickets, we thought maybe Mamma Mia? But I've seen the movie with Meryl Streep, so I figured we could just move along to the next event of the afternoon, and maybe catch a comedy show instead that evening.

Next up? Subway, and troll-hobos.

Apparently we got on an express train, so the stop we needed would have been a speck in the distance if my SIL didn't yank us off after a few stations. We took a cab the rest of the way to Papabubble - where I bought the kids the infamous lollipops the size of their heads.

With a good ten pounds worth of sugar in a bag, we headed back up to go shopping at Macy's. I make it sound like this was just a quick jaunt, but no, we got to walk quite a bit before we were able to get a cab. It was fun to see some of the pretty embellishments on buildings:

By this time, my feet were being total haters. They wanted new shoes. Pronto. So, we skipped LUSH and headed straight to Macys. So now I can say I went shoe shopping with my brother in NYC. He got lace up oxfords:

And so did I: