Hey everyone! Happy New Year! I hope you all had a fabulous New Year.

This year my family had the amazing privilege to see the New Year ball drop live, from our hotel room. It was so exhilarating and fun.

New York itself was so amazing. We did so many cool things that were very unforgettable. One of them, which was my favorite, was skating on the Rockefeller Center. It was such a magical experience. Since it was right after Christmas time, there was an extremely huge Christmas tree right above the golden statue there. The Christmas tree was covered in red, green, and gold lights and every so often it blinked the colors.

Later that day, we went to the Empire State Building. It was so indescribable as to the sight we saw while we were up at the top. We could see for over 30 miles. New York has so many sky scrapers and since the Empire State Building is the tallest, we saw all of the tops of the other really tall buildings.

The next day, my parents took my sister and me shopping on Fifth Avenue. We had a ball! We went to the Apple store, which was so unique because it looked like a huge glass block on the ground. Underneath was the Apple store. We saw tons of incredibly detailed display windows. It was so crazy on Fifth Avenue. There were people everywhere! We were walking along and all the sudden we stopped in our tracks and saw everyone looking up at a building. There was something so unique about it. It was the fact the there were these huge snowflakes on the building that blinked in a pattern that matched to the song that was playing which was Carol of the Bells. It was unbelievable!

On New Year’s Eve day, we went to the Statue of Liberty. It was snowing so we didn’t stay to long but there was this really great museum right before you climb up the Statue of Liberty telling you about the history. Later, we saw the ball drop from our hotel room, the experience we were all waiting for. I remember watching the ball change colors and patterns as it dropped. It was an experience that was unique, fun, and definitely unforgettable.

Let’s all look forward to an incredible 2009!

From the Heart, Rachel