New York, New York

I've been anxious to visit NYC since we moved to Philadelphia last year. I'm glad my parents wanted to go there when they came to see us, otherwise it might not have happened. When my family was planning their trip, it was actually cheaper to fly into New York instead of Philadelphia, so Justin, the kids and I headed up to NYC on Thursday night so we would be there when they got in at 6 on Friday morning. Rather than driving and paying parking for two vehicles, we rode the Megabus which in the end was cheaper and so much less stressful than driving would have been.

Here we are waiting for the bus. We didn't know what to expect so we got there super early. As you can tell Kobe was tired of waiting!

Finally on the bus! It was really comfortable and since we were there so early we got seats facing each other with a little table in between.

I completely failed as a mother and didn't bring anything to entertain the kids on the 2 hour drive, but we survived!

When we got to New York it was after 8pm and instead of trying to figure out the subway with all of our stuff and the kids we took a taxi to the hotel.

The next morning Grandma, Grandpa, Bret and Kimberly finally made it to the hotel around 10am. 

 Grandpa and Jaxon met for the first time! After letting them relax for a few minutes we headed out to get breakfast.

 Just a side note: I loved our hotel. It was a really old building, but it seemed so quaint!

Grand Central Station was just a few blocks away from our hotel and was where we got on and off the subway. 

Our first destination:

 Battery Park to catch a ferry to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

 The view from the ferry looking back towards the city was amazing!

And of course the Statue of Liberty was pretty neat too!

 I have always wanted to see the Statue of Liberty in person and I thought it was awesome to be so close.

 Ellis Island was neat but I want to go back sometime without children. Maybe then I could read a sign or two and spend some more time learning about everything that happened there.

 

Bret was great at entertaining the kids on the ferry!

 

When we got off the ferry some street performers were just starting a show. They were pretty impressive.

 They also did a very good job of swindling money from the crowd after the show!

The other people who were great at swindling money were the "characters" that were more than willing to pose for a picture. As soon as the picture was taken they would hold out their hand/tip bag for you to put your money into. Kobe kept asking to get a picture taken with the "Statue of Liberty" and I kept telling him no because I wasn't going to spend money on a picture I was taking with my own camera. As soon as Grandma found out what Kobe wanted, she chased down a Statue and paid him for a picture. Thank heaven for Grandma!

After a long morning and afternoon, we took the subway back to the hotel.

While everyone else rested up for the big night on the town, I stayed awake with the kids. It was too late for them to take a nap or they wouldn't have slept that night. We had a little photo shoot!

 Cute kids, huh!

My mom was wonderful and offered to watch the kids at the hotel while the rest of us went to see Phantom of the Opera on Broadway.

 IT

 WAS

 AWESOME!

After the show we went to Times Square. Even though it was after 11pm, there were people everywhere. It was so crowded!

 And out of all the shops to choose from, we chose to visit the Hershey store!

After the Hershey store we decided that Times Square was something that my mom needed to see, so we headed back to the hotel and planned on coming back in the morning. On our way back to the subway station we stopped at The Shake Shack to get something to eat. We figured it must be a good restaurant by the line that came out the door and down the street! The shakes were definitely that good!

The next morning we went to Times Square again with the kids and Mom. First stop, Toys R Us.

 That was a lot of fun!

We also stopped in at the M&M store,

 posed with the Statue of Liberty,

 and, of course, left with a lovely assortment of M&Ms.

 As we were waiting to check out, Kobe spotted this humongous red M&M

And what do you do when you see a humongous red M&M?

 Eat it!

We got lunch from a cart that claimed to have the best hot dogs in NYC. Is there a street cart that doesn't make that claim? Anyway, they were really good hot dogs!

 And before leaving Times Square we got our first ever family picture with all 5 of us!

In the afternoon we stopped by Central Park.

 Central Park is wonderful! It's so big, green and open, right in the middle of the crowded, tall, and grey city. We only saw a very small part of it and I can't wait to go back and see more!

 The kids loved having space to play and climb,

and Lilian's favorite thing was to chase the pigeons.

 My sister really wanted to see the Balto statue and we were all shocked that Justin had never seen the movie or even heard of Balto. Don't worry it's now on our Netflix queue!

 One last picture in Central Park.

Our last stop before heading home was the 911 Memorial.

 This is one of the buildings that is replacing a tower that fell.

This tree is called the survivor tree. Apparently, this tree was uprooted and charred but still alive after the attack on 9-11. It was transplanted and nursed back to health, but was then uprooted again in a storm in March 2010. Again it survived and was planted at the memorial site and bloom the first day of spring this year. So fascinating!

The memorial was a great experience. The enormous waterfalls were incredible and so symbolic. A definite must see for anyone who visits NYC.

After two long, exhausting days in the city we were happy to sit back and relax on the bus ride home.

We were only able to spend two days in NYC and I can't wait to go back. There are so many places to see, shows to watch, restaurants to try, stores to shop, etc..... Someday!