Babymoon Recap! Day 3

Our third and final day in NYC started off very early!  We were on a mission...TODAY Show or bust!  It was a very cold and snowy morning in New York, but when I have my mind set on something, you can't stop me!  


We headed over to Rockefeller Center at about 6:30 AM.  I was quite surprised at how many people were already there at that point in the morning.  A group of high school students from California was taking up the front row most of the way around the barricade, but we found ourselves  a spot in the corner.  Since it was President's Day, none of the regulars were there, which was kind of disappointing.  Since it was so cold and snowy, they didn't film outside very much, but it was still cool to be there.


The girl doing the weather for Al came over to talk to us after she saw our sign, which said, "We're on our Babymoon!"  She congratulated us and told us about her three kids.    Kurt had DVRed the Today Show, so when we got home, we watched to see if we got on. In one shot, we saw the sign (I was holding it up high, so you couldn't see my face) and Kurt was on the edge of the group of people.  Here are some pics from our Today Show experience!

We headed home that afternoon, at about 1:00.

We had a wonderful time!  I highly recommend a babymoon to all expecting parents!

Babymoon Recap! Day 2

I was hoping that day two of our trip to the Big Apple would have brought sunshine and temperatures in the 70s, but no such luck!  It was still really cold, but the little bit of sun that made its way between the skyscrapers warmed things up a bit.  

We started off our second day with bagels from a little shop right by our hotel.  Kurt went and got them and brought them back to our room.  I was being lazy and actually fell back to sleep for a little while.  Once we got up and at 'em for the day, we decided to make our way back to Serendipity 3.  It was about 10:30 at this point, and they didn't open until 11:30, but we had heard that the line starts forming at about 10:45.  So, we hailed a cab and off we went to wait.  We were the second or third group in line, and by the time they opened at 11:30, there were probably at least 30 other groups waiting (and I'm not even exaggerating here!).  I couldn't believe it!  We got in and seated by 11:45, and within ten minutes, this little bit of heaven was sitting on our table...

That would be the famous Frozen Hot Chocolate!

Words cannot even express the pure deliciousness of this drink!  It was very rich, though, even for a dessert lover like me!

(On a side note...I look so exhausted in every single picture.  Ugh!)

We had a nice lunch to go with our frozen hot chocolate, and even though I had heard that their sundaes are the best ever, we were both so full that we couldn't even try one!  Maybe next time!

After lunch, we walked along 5th Avenue and shopped for a bit before we headed back to the hotel.  Kurt took some time to watch the Daytona 500 and I just chilled.  At about 2:15, we headed to the St. James Theatre for our 3:00 show.

You would not have believed the line to get into the theatre.  Luckily it went very quickly!  

We saw Green Day's American Idiot, which was starring (he actually had a very minor role, I thought), Green Day lead singer, Billy Joe Armstrong.  If musicals had ratings, I'd say this one was rated R or NC-17.  It was filled with sex, drugs, profanity, you name it.  And there were kids at the show!   I feel like Kurt and I were the perfect age-group for the show.  I wouldn't have wanted to be there with my kids, and I surely wouldn't have wanted to be there with my parents!  I don't know what these people were thinking bringing their young children to this show!  Anyway, the show was very similar in style to Billy Joel's Movin' Out, in that they created a show around a bunch of his songs.  Like I did with Movin' Out, I had a difficult time following the plot at the beginning.  After the show, I heard a lady remark to a guy, "Can you tell me the storyline?  I missed it."  I did have an older couple on the street ask me how it was.  They had seen Billy Elliot and the woman said she was jealous that we got to see something so energetic!  She said Billy Elliot was very dark and solemn.  

After the show, we waited around to see if Billy Joe would come out of the theatre, but he never did.  There were rumors that Al Pacino was going to come out of the theatre across the street, where he was starring in a play, but he never did either.  The good old NYPD closed off the street for nothing, I guess!

Later, we had dinner at Bobby Flay's restaurant, Bar Americain.  It was good, nothing to rave about though.  High priced and the food was just okay, I'd say.  After dinner, we walked back to Times Square, which I swear, is busy 24 hours a day!

Day 2 was a fun-filled day in NYC!

Babymoon Recap! Day 1

Kurt and I headed to the Big Apple this past weekend for our Babymoon!  It was freezing all weekend, but that didn't stop us from having a great time.

We began our journey on Saturday morning by way of charter bus.  There are so many bus services in our area that go up to New York several times a day.  It's actually a rather affordable way to travel, if you can stand sitting on a bus for 4 hours.  After a quick stop half-way through our trip, we arrived in NYC at about 1:00.  We hailed a cab and headed to our hotel, the Marriott Marquis in Times Square.  Fortunately, our room was ready, so we were able to get an early check in.  Our room was on the 23rd floor, looking out over Times Square.  Completely awesome!

Since it was nearly 2:00 by this time, we were both starving, so we headed a few blocks away to John's Pizzeria.  My brother-in-law used to work near Rockefeller Center, so he highly recommended that we hit up John's.  It did not disappoint!

After lunch, we headed back to the hotel to add more layers to our wardrobes.  Did I mention it was freezing, with 45 MPH wind gusts?  I had to buy a hat and scarf from a street vendor (fake Burberry!), otherwise I would not have survived the weekend.  After warming up, we decided to head back out into the arctic and make our way up 5th Avenue to Dylan's Candy Bar and Serendipity 3.  On our way, stopped at FAO Schwartz and picked up the most adorable little teddy bear for the little bambino.  We thought it would be neat to tell him when he is older that we went to NYC on a trip before he was born and we bought the bear for him while we were there.  Hopefully Macey doesn't make it one of her new chew toys before then!

We got some candies and other treats at Dylan's and decided we were ready to head up to Serendipity 3 for dessert.  If you haven't noticed yet, this was a food-themed trip!  So, we walk about half a block up the street to Serendipity and are met with the shock of a 3 hour wait!  Yes, you read that correctly...3 FREAKING HOURS!  I was disappointed because that was one of the places I really wanted to go on this trip.  I felt defeated!  So, we did the next best thing...we hailed a cab (because I was so excited to get there, I didn't realize that we had walked like 20 city blocks!) and headed to Magnolia Bakery!

If you've visited New York City before and haven't hit up Magnolia Bakery, you are missing out!  One of the best bakeries I have ever been to and I've been to a lot of them!  We decided to go all out and got a few desserts to taste:  Vanilla cake with vanilla frosting, Key Lime Mini-Pie, and Banana Cream Pudding.  We also shared a hot chocolate, which I must say was one of the best hot chocolates I've ever had! We walked back to the hotel and sampled our delicious desserts.  Luckily our room had a mini-fridge, so we were able to keep what we didn't eat (most of it, actually) for later.  

After I took a little nap, and Kurt watched a hockey game, we walked to a little burger place for dinner and then headed home.  We were both beat from our busy day in the city!  

Stay tuned for our day 2 recap tomorrow!

A New Look!

Yes, that's right!  We had a little makeover here at the Bradshaw Buzz!

Thanks so much to Leslie and her design talents!  She was so great to work with!  Head over to her design blog to see what she can do for you.

Teacher Talk Thursday

Abby over at Snyder Stories is hosting her Teacher Talk Thursday again!  This week's theme is management.  

I have three books that I highly recommend when it comes to the topic of classroom management.  The first is Fred Jones' Tools for Teaching.  Several years ago, our school was given some funding to support book discussion groups and Tools for Teaching was one of the books we discussed.  Jones covers a variety of topics, from room arrangement to behavior management to setting rules and expectations for your classroom.  The book has a lot of text features, so it's an easy read.

The Morning Meeting Book is a book that was recommended to me this year, as I made the transition from 3rd grade to kindergarten.  I had never done the Morning Meeting thing in my previous eight years, so I really had very few ideas about what the characteristics of a Morning Meeting were.  I never knew how important a Morning Meeting was in order to set classroom climate and expectations for the day.  This book is another easy read.  

The final book was given to me at my New Teacher Orientation, nearly nine years ago, and I still read it at the beginning of each school year.  The First Days of School is another easy read that helps me to get into the new school year frame of mind.  

Be sure to check out Abby's giveaway!

All things nautical

I have a slight new obsession with all things nautical.  How cute are these things?

Found on Etsy at Finny and Zook

Found on Etsy at Wandering Starfish

Found on Etsy at Alphabet Monkey

Now, I need to decide what we need for Baby Bradshaw's room!

Meet the Teacher!

It's Meet the Teacher time over at The First Grade Parade!  Without further ado...

I'm Kate!  I'm the wife of 3 1/2 years to Kurt and the mama to the Macey pup.  I'm in the process of preparing myself to be to the mama of our first baby boy, who will be here in May!  I don't think I'll ever truly be fully prepared, but I'm working on it!


This is my ninth (holy moly!) year of teaching:  2 years in 5th grade, 6 years in 3rd grade, and now in my first year of kindergarten.  I really enjoy teaching kindergarten, but there are definitely some aspects of the upper grades that I miss.  I have my Master's degree in Educational Studies, with certificates in Gifted Education and Teacher Leadership, and just recently achieved National Board certification.


Now on to the questions:
Q: What would you be doing if you weren’t a teacher? 
A: Hmm.  I really have no idea.  There is part of me that thinks I would like to be a stay-at-home mom, but the realist in me knows that I would miss the interaction with others, especially other adults.

Q: What are your hobbies? 
A: Being crafty, photography, shopping, web surfing

Q: When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up? 
A: I went through stages.  When I was really young, I wanted to be a "payer" (a cashier).  I went through a dental hygienist stage and a florist stage. I'd say by middle school, I knew for sure that I wanted to be a teacher.  

Q: What are your guilty pleasures? 
A: Facebook, reality t.v., Reese's peanut butter cups 

Q: What is your biggest fear?! 
A: Snakes and death of my loved ones  

Q: When you’re on vacation, where do you like to go? 
A: I love going to the Outer Banks.  My family goes there every other year for a big family vacation.  

Q: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received? 
A: As a natural worrier, "Don't sweat the small stuff."

Q: If you could choose one of your personality traits to pass down to your kids, what would it be? 
A: Caring for others.  Maybe sometimes I care a little too much about others and how they are doing/feeling, though.  Guess that's the worrier in me!

Q: If you could have lunch with anyone in the world….living or dead…who would it be? 
A: I think I've answered this question in one of these types of "getting to know you posts" before.  I'd definitely say my mom's mother.  She died when my mom was very young, so I'd love to talk to her.  I hear my mom is a lot like her mother.

Now tell us one random thing about yourself:
I have webbed toes, a trait I got from my dad's dad and my mom's mom.  I've thought on numerous occasions about whether or not our baby will get this trait.  I hope not!



I can't wait to "meet" so many of you teacher friends out there!