Back from the Big Apple

We had such a great time in NYC this past weekend with my mom, sister, niece, aunt and cousins. Here are a few highlights from our trip:

~ Going downtown no Friday night for dinner, we wanted to take the subway. We saw a sign for an elevator to the subway and thought we'd try to find it - it took asking three people and finally a Port Authority employee taking us up and down and around to finally get there! We were an hour late to dinner and the hostess was not happy with us when we finally arrived. Luckily the food was AMAZING and I don't usually like thai food. Lesson learned: just collapse the stroller, pick the kids up, and go down the stairs. ;-)

~ Went to the very top of the Empire State Building. Jackson wasn't too interested but he had fun running around while we enjoyed the views and got his very own King Kong gorilla as a souvenier, thanks to my Auntie.

~ Got soaked walking back to the hotel from a 5 minute shopping trip. When we went in, it wasn't raining, by the time we left the one store we made it to, it was pouring all the way back to the hotel. It was probably quite a sight to see, a double stroller, with an umbrella rigged to cover both kids, being pushed by two mommies and their cousin all trying to share one umbrella. Needless to say that one umbrella didn't do much good. To top it all off, when my mom and aunt came back ten minutes later, they were bone dry!

~ Walked around Ground Zero, amazing.

~ We were so excited to see our cousins, Casey, Erin and Lauren who all live in NY for a yummy lunch on Sunday.

~ Ate well, really well, most of the trip thanks to the restaurant planning done by Tamara ahead of time. I even enjoyed Thai food!

~ Strolled around Central Park, enjoyed the playground with the kids, and took them on a carousel ride which was not so successful.

~Bought chestnuts off the street, unfortunately, they smelled better than they tasted.

~Spent a decent amount of time on the shoe floor at Saks, but walked away empty handed, tear.

~ Took the kids to FAO Schwartz where Jackson walked out with an awesome lunch box that included 4 puzzles one of which is a fire truck so you can guess how much he loves it. Thanks Auntie!

~ Jackson enjoyed the travel days full of taxi rides, moving sidewalks and trains at the airport and of course most of all the airplane! He was sitting next to the window, then me and Tamara but Nana (my mom) was sitting across the aisle which to Jackson meant she needed regular updates of what the plane was doing. He kept saying, "Nana, we're moving." and "Nana, we stopped." It was really cute, almost as cute as Jackson and Emerson holding hands on the plane. I had Emerson in my lap and looked down to see she had extended her arm over to Jackson and he was holding her hands in both of his hands, how cute is that?!?!?

It was a great trip with great company but not so great sleeping. Although I can't really blame Jackson for not sleeping well in a pack n play that he has outgrown, it would have been nice if we could have returned home well rested. We made it home safely and were very excited to see Nick at the airport!