Brooke Bites the Big Apple

It's Brooke's turn for a trip to New York! 

To piggy-back on John's [final] annual trip to NY, we left on Wednesday with him, and flew back just the two of us on Sunday.  

Brooke was beside herself excited to see the Big Apple. 

We arrived Wednesday night and checked into our tiny hotel room about 9:00 p.m.

 and she was immediately struck with the view. 

We quickly headed out to Times Square to see a little of the sites...

The ferris wheel inside Toys R Us

 and grabbed a burger at the Shake Shack (our fave). 

On Thursday, Brooke and I took the Subway all the way down to the Financial District.

Looking across to New Jersey

At the 911 Memorial - one of the new towers is behind her, center.

Cousin Angie, who just moved to Brooklyn, met up with us at Max Brenner's near Union Square. 

 Max Brenner's has lots of chocolate.

 After shopping at The Strand (and buying books) and walking, walking, walking we walked up to Macy's and the Empire State Building.

In the lobby of the beautiful Empire State Building

The New York Public Library ... Library Lion! (Children's book reference there) 

 In the NYPL, there was a Winnie the Pooh exhibit with the original toys that inspired AAMilne.

And we walked all the way back to Times Square where our hotel was.  

Our feet hurt!  

The next day we headed out to a different part of town and it was raining.  

We shopped, hitting Forever XXI, which is HUGE at the Times Square location.  Shopping in the morning is definitely a must.  The stores were quiet whereas when we went back in the evening to purchase (didn't want to carry around packages all day), it was crowded and crazy.

We headed uptown to Rockefeller Center, The American Girl Store, some more shopping, and 

the Apple Store...

and of course FAO Schwartz where Brooke experienced BIG without ever seeing the movie.

It was my birthday so we were nothing but gourmet and had a street-corner hot dog and pretzel for lunch.  Something you have to experience at least once in your life, right?

Then we walked over to Dylan's Candy Bar.  A three-story candy store.  What could be better?

We didn't feel like walking all the way back to the hotel so we hailed a pedicab.  A fun experience, but note to self: only use one if you have just a couple of blocks to go, unless you're alone.

There was a dog event next to the harbor where people were totally crazy with their dogs.  There were booths where you could do yoga with your dog (seriously, people were all spread out with the mats). Gives a new definition to Downward Dog.  The best though was this kissing booth. This woman was ecstatic to pay $1 to kiss her little dog.  Whatever!

Saturday we took a boat tour around the entire island of Manhattan (no, that's not the boat we went on!)

The views are great and you learn a lot more than trying to see the city for yourself, plus it saves aching feet.  

Having an afternoon snack at Magnolia Bakery.

In Times Square at night, they had a JumboTron and we were on it.  See us on the bottom?  I have my camera in front of my face.

Brooke and I got tickets to Mary Poppins and it was Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious!  

I recommend it!  We had a great time.

On her bucket list was getting hot chocolate at night.  We decided to after the show since it was our last night, so late and we had to walk back.  The weather was so warm we never felt the need, but wanted to nonetheless.

Experience the city was um, an experience?  Brooke was exposed to stuff she never could imagine.  It shows what a sheltered and clean life she leads in Newbury Park.  Most poignant though was probably the walk back after the show.  Not only was it late, like 11:00pm, but we had to pass some shady looking gangs, a couple of times on almost-deserted streets which was not too comforting.  We were so glad to reach the safety and familiarity of the Marriott lobby!

One of our favorite things is riding bikes in Central Park.  It was the most beautiful day, perfect for a ride, and cycling around the park is the absolute best way to take it all in.  

You'd never know you're in the middle of a city!

 We rode over to Lincoln Center where the temple is located.  It's only two blocks from Central Park in one of the nicest areas of Manhattan.  Of course.  

We had a fabulous trip.  I love our new tradition of taking one child at a time on an adventure like this when they're old enough and hope we can continue it.  Christian is already talking about how he gets to go in three years.  We'll have to be a bit more creative since John won't be doing these long NYC stints every fall anymore (new job, Hooray!).  

Taking a Bite Out of the Big Apple

We are taking a bite out of the Big Apple, or I should say it took a bit out of us! At least our feet . . . ouch!!! I'm still feeling it. My poor pups are not happy with me.

Once again, John has to be in NYC for 10 days (every Fall!) so instead of me just joining him for the weekend like I did three years ago(he works most of the time anyway), I brought Madison along. It's a new tradition I'm starting: once a child is old enough (I'm thinking 11 is a great age to start), we'll start bringing them on these trips, just one-on-one. Madison was beside herself excited when I told her we got her a plane ticket and she was going to actually miss a couple of days of school to go to New York.

We arrived late Thursday night - just a half hour before John's plane came in from London (via Dulles) - and we were only one gate away so we just waited for him. That worked out really well and who can say you have a welcoming party right at the gate anymore these days?

We got a ride to our hotel about midnight and then walked over to Times Square to give Madison a little hint as to what she's in for. A little hot chocolate from Starbucks and a stroll down the street was a great way to start the vacation.

First thing Friday morning, Madison and I took a subway, headed for The Museum of Natural History, then walked (and walked) through Central Park to get to the other side for the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

There were many fabulous exhibits on display there and she was excited to spot a real Lichtenstein:

Central Park at the Jackie O Reservoir.

We did lots of walking, shopping, and had fun.

We had to go to FAO Schwarz! What a super fun toy store.

In the late afternoon, John met up with us and had to show Madison the cool Apple Store. It's patterned after the Louvre in France.

For dinner we went to Serendipity and of course to get some of their famous Frrrozen Hot Chocolate. I have to say though that I was a bit disappointed in not only the dinner (however, the portion was large), but the Frrrozen Hot Chocolate seemed to be much, much better in Las Vegas. Nonetheless, we enjoyed ourselves.

Of course a stop at Dylan's Candy Bar was on the agenda. What kid can complain about three stories of every candy imaginable? Even the stairs are made with candy.

Saturday morning we ventured out to see the Statue of Liberty. Our plan was to leave early, like 7am, but let's be honest here . . . that's not realistic when you're up so late at night and totally exhausted! We took the subway down to Battery Park, but because of construction, it didn't go that far on this day and we had to take a shuttle the rest of the way so that delayed us as well.

We got down there and the line was longer than Long Island and you can't even go up into the Statue because tickets to do that sell out months in advance. We aren't ones for long lines with not much reward, so we decided we'd try it the next day (earlier!).

It was really cold and windy - you can see the white caps on the river. And can you see that the Statue is really small? They just make it look big on TV.

We took another subway over to Ground Zero - or The Memorial. There's a museum there that we happened upon and it was a moving experience to see all the pictures of the people that were killed, the notes from loved ones and the stories involved.

Across the street is the construction to build a new building and memorial park.

Then we took a cab over to the Scholastic Store, shopped around a bit, then took another subway to Max Brenner's. While we were waiting for our table, we ran across the street to shop The Strand. It's legendary for having 18 miles of books and Madison couldn't have been more thrilled. She was also thrilled when walking into Max Brenner's, not knowing what it was, and smelling the chocolate and seeing the chocolate factory-like setting -- her eyes nearly popped out of her head! John met us there and we had a nice late lunch before heading back to the hotel.

We wanted to try and see a Broadway show while we were there, so we walked over to the TKTS booth (where they sell half-priced tickets for most shows). We had really good luck with them last time we were in NY and also in London, so we figured it was a good thing to do. When Madison and I got there, the line was wrapped around and around and was at least an hour wait. We braved it and narrowed down our choice of shows to "In the Heights" with Jordin Sparks or "Mary Poppins". I checked three different sources and all said that "In the Heights" was definitely family-friendly and totally appropriate for children. So when we got to the ticket window and found out we could get good seats for that show, I grabbed them.

Waiting in line . . .

After walking all day and standing in that line for an hour, we were spent and did not want to be on our feet for another minute so we hailed a pedi-cab and had the ride of our life!

We were no longer exhausted; after the crazy, action-packed ride we were exhilarated! I did think we were going to die at one point, or be involved in some dramatic accident, but our fearless peddler steered us right and we made it safely back to the hotel. It made Mr. Toad's Wild Ride feel like a nap on a hammock!

At every brief red-light stop, our driver jumped off to take pictures of us.

Reunited with John (who was working), we then planned to hail a regular cab to the theater, but ended up getting a Town Car. You just never know who/what is going to happen.

The Stage . . .

The show was good as far as Broadway talent goes, however we quickly learned that our definition of kid-appropriate and other peoples' is quite different. I wouldn't recommend it and wished that we just opted for Mary Poppins instead.

After the show we walked on over to Five Napkin Burger for some fine late-night dining. Madison and John shared a gourmet burger, and I opted for Matzo Ball Soup which hit the spot on a chilly night.

The next morning we booked a Circle Line tour around the entire island of Manhattan. It was a three-hour boat ride which was totally enjoyable and interesting as the guide gave facts, history and trivial tid bits practically the whole time.

The windy was nippy out on the river in some spots, but it was a beautiful day.

Who knew the other side was lush and gorgeous?

A little wave to the Lady in the Harbor . . .

The tall pink apartment building is where Bono (of U2) lives.

The U.S.S. Intrepid

After our 3-hour tour, we walked on over to the one of the best pizza places in town: John's Pizzeria. It was good, and the pencil-drawn murals covering the walls were wonderful. It's a large restaurant housed in what may have been a theater at one point as it was a stunning building with unique architecture. Below is the antipasta salad before the pizza arrived.

Then we hailed a cab on over to Columbus Circle where we rented bikes and toured around Central Park for a couple of hours. It was a spectacularly beautiful day and it showed as the park was crowded with everyone jogging, biking, picnicking, napping, walking dogs, playing with kids . . . you name it, they were out! I'm sure they were taking advantage of one of the rare perfect Sunday afternoons in the city.

The park is really beautiful!

The view from Belvedere Castle.

We returned the bikes and walked the couple of blocks over to . . .

The New York City Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints:

Resting and taking a break on Temple Grounds. Yep, this is what Temple grounds look like when you're smack-dab in the middle of one of the world's largest cities. The intersection has seven veins (arteries?) and this little island is in the middle with traffic rushing by on all sides.

This is a little placard nestled in the flowers behind the bench.

Across the street is the NY Philharmonic, The Metropolitan Opera, and Juliard.

We had to stop at The American Girl Place! Three stories of girlish fun. It looks like we bought a lot, but we really didn't . . . we just had three separate (small) transactions with a bag from each purchase.

It was a successful and fun trip. The jealousy on the other kids' part (Brooke) was cured by being completely spoiled by the grandparents all weekend.

Madison also did really well doing all her homework and make-up assignments on the plane, only to realize on her way to school Tuesday morning that she left them all in the seat pocket of the airplane! ughhh!! Luckily she has really understanding teachers.