For day one we drove to Pennsylvania and took the kids to Sesame Place. Think of a small Disneyland with water rides and Elmo. The kids of course had a great time and Jocilyn got to dance with Elmo which was pretty cute.
But enough of that, lets move on to New York!
That night we finished the drive to Staten Island and stayed at the Navy Lodge. The next morning we rode the Ferry into Manhattan and began the real adventure. Our first visit was to Ground Zero. It was really beautiful! They built these giant fountains where the twin towers used to stand, with the names of everyone who died on 9/11 engraved around the base. The buildings they are putting up to replace the ones that fell are GINORMOUS and very pretty. I'm sure once they're finished the skyline is going to be amazing.
From there we rode the subway to the Empire State Building. With three young kids we really needed a stroller, but riding the elevator down to the subway was by far the worst part of the whole day. Eww! Eww! Eww!
The Empire State Building was great. There were almost no lines, although the observation deck was pretty crowded. Kimball and I could have stayed up there for a while, but of course the kids were done in about two minutes. One day they will think its cool that they got to be there and see all of that, but not today. At least they better think its cool, I rode a subway elevator so they could be there for goodness sakes!
After that we had some genuine New York Pizza for lunch. It was so funny to see the kids trying to wrangle these giant slices of pizza. I love those kids!
By now Savannah was seriously tired of her stroller and pretty much tired in general so we figured we should start to wrap things up starting with a walk to Times Square (no more subways for me unless it was absolutely necessary). Times Square was very loud and crazy and absolutely what I hoped New York would be, but we didn't stay long.
After one uncomfortable incident with the "Statue of Liberty" we walked our little clan to Grand Central Station.
We went here for one reason only: Junior's Cheesecake. Kimball and I are not exactly in the know when it comes to New York, but during a job interview a million years ago Kimball stumbled across this little slice of heaven. We bought the largest Cheesecake we could find and high tailed it back to the subway. Yes, getting back to the car in time to put Junior's Cheesecake on ice for the trip home was absolutely worth the health code violations of the subway elevator. Though I am grateful none of us have come down with hepatitis since returning home.
To sum up it was the adventure of all adventures for our little family. While I don't doubt Kimball and I would have seen and done more on just a couples trip, aka Broadway, I am so glad we took the kids with us. For now Jocilyn's favorite experience was dancing with Elmo the day before, but Kaden was finally able to see the "Big City" and he has the blisters to prove it!
1 comment:
Super jealous!!! I want to go to NYC so bad. Looks like a lot of fun, and you are troopers for taking the kids with you, what nice parents. :) Maybe some time you'll be able to do a couples over-nighter in the big city. :)
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