Our second honeymoom (aka, My husband is a famous designer)

It's true. Jude is such a great designer, so much so, that he was selected as a winner in the Art Director's Club Young Gun competition. This award features designers under 30 years of age from all over the world with really great work. Only 50 are chosen and my handsome husband got one! (Sick of me bragging? Here's more.)

Because he got this, Mississippi State paid for his flight and two nights in a hotel in Manhattan to accept the award! Sounds like a great deal, right? That's why we extended the trip, flew me up, and called it a second honeymoon! When else will half the trip be paid for?

By the way, to check out Jude's portfolio, go here, or to put change back in our pockets, visit our store here.

New York was just what we needed! And we were so blessed by the generosity of my parents and his parents who gave us spending money while we were there. (We only had to eat Burger King once...) And thank you to my mom, who took care of our girls while we were away!

So here's what we did - and don't be looking for the photos to go along with it... our camera was lost in transit on the way back (We won't be turning down any prayers to St. Anthony on our behalf if you'd so like - or maybe even St. Jude because it's kind of a hopeless case by now...)

Thursday the 7th:
We arrived at our swanky hotel in Midtown in the afternoon and grabbed a bite to eat at an Irish pub. The sweet potato fries are blog worthy. After freshening up, (I tried not to look too much like a mother of two small ones from the south...I realize now I should have worn black) we walked about 15 blocks to the gallery opening at the Art Director's Club. Here's one of our only pieces of proof that we were ever in New York,

And we're on the front row on the right side of the crowd here

We also have one copy of us in a photo booth at the party that I'll have to scan and post later. Jude's award was a cube of wood from Coney Island that he had to finish sawing off.

After the show we walked through Times Square and bought Jude some chicken from Burger King (he didn't enjoy the crazy pizzas at the party - the most normal one had cauliflower on it...).

Friday the 8th:

We ate granola bars for breakfast from the pharmacy next door and walked 35 blocks to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. For lunch we ate NY hotdogs from a street vendor in Central Park. Very New Yorker. We finished some exhibits up at the museum and headed back. For dinner we ate amazing brick oven pizzas and attended a comedy show. ("Get off my face..." That's for you, Jude.)

Saturday the 9th:

Granola again. We walked through the farmer's market, just outside our hotel, and took a double decker bus tour through the city. It brought us to Times Square, Macy's, The Empire State Building, Madison Square Garden, The World Trade Center Site, Wall Street, The Statue of Liberty and the Ferry to Staten Island, the Brooklyn Bridge, China town (we got off here and ate Chinese at a hole in the wall and walked through their markets and then on to Little Italy), The United Nations Building, Soho, Greenich Village, and off at Rockefeller Plaza. We went shopping around here - The Lego Store, Anthropologie, The M&M store, and Hershey's store. Ice skating was up and running at Rockefeller Plaza, but we opted out. We grabbed greek food and ice cream at the farmer's market and ate it in Bryant Park. (Project Runway fans, I also had a picture of Parsons... oh well.) And of course, we watched LSU beat Florida in the hotel after this.

Sunday the 10th:

More granola. We attended mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral, lighting candles for baby James. The cathedral was both beautiful and crowded. On the way back, Jude hit up a Kinkos computer lab to catch up on his fantasy football account... I love this man. We walked 12 blocks to the Empire State building and ate crab cakes and shrimp wontons at the brewery underneath it. We went up to the observatory, taking all the photos you're supposed to, but it was so crowded - more than St. Patrick's which is kind of sad... We went to a matinee performance of Memphis, the Tony award winner for Best Musical of 2010. Our evening wasn't complete until we made it to an Irish sports pub to watch the Saints lose. 

And we flew back on Monday. 

Again, I'm just so proud of Jude for his achievements and I'm honored to stand beside him as he works. Now I'm just trying to get him to win an award that he has to accept over seas... Oh yeah, he's teaching in Italy this summer. Can you say, "ciao?"