Just how we do in good ole' Bean fashion, we planned a whirlwind trip to NYC. David had a business trip up in NJ on a Friday and we thought it was the perfect opportunity to finally go see NYC at Christmas time. So we took the girls out of school early on Thursday and began the drive up to NJ. Well, what should have been a quick 4-5 hr drive turned into a 8-9 hr drive. It seems everyone else was headed out of town for some reason, like Christmas break perhaps. We made it to our hotel, which actually was pretty fun. I never took a picture, but it had an upstairs loft/room area that the girls took over. Then there was a kitchen/family room downstairs with a separate bedroom down there. So the next morning while David went to his work meeting, the rest of us hung out at the hotel. Good thing there was 3 TVs to keep everyone happy! The meeting lasted a lot longer than expected, but we all stayed in pretty could spirits until 3pm when we were finally able to get on the road into the city.
Now driving into NYC on a Friday night is already a really bad idea, but doing so on the last Friday night before Christmas is a really dumb idea. But once we made it through the Lincoln Tunnel, it was smooth sailing from there. (I might add here that never have I been on a road trip that required more tolls than this one did!)
We checked into our hotel, which was absurdly small for six people!!! It would have been small for 3 people. Then we set out on the town for some exploring. The lights were beautiful! I loved seeing them all. And the windows were each decorated so fancy, just like you see in the movies.
I seemed to be the only one impressed with seeing Radio City Music Hall.
This is the tree all decorated on Rockefeller Center. It was very crowded and we barely pushed our way through the center. There was no chance of getting any closer to this tree, or snapping a family picture or even showing the girls that there was indeed a skating rink down in the center.
But it didn't matter much to them. The girls only had one thing on their minds - AMERICAN GIRL STORE!!!!!
When we surprised the girls and told them that they each got to pick a doll, they were so excited and hurried around the FOUR floors of the store searching for what they wanted. Okay, so hurried isn't the right word... like all other places, this store was crowded and there was just SOOO much to see that it took some time to finally find what they each wanted. But it was all fun! Except Dallin didn't feel so excited about any of it. He laid down near the bath robes and slippers and nearly dozed off.
Waiting in line to pay. Aliza didn't have her doll yet because there weren't any left on the shelf, but a sales person was positive they had one and she could pick it up at the cashiers. So she looks sad in the picture, but she really wasn't.
After the AG Store we were all pretty tired and just wanted to eat and go to bed. We headed back to the hotel but stopped in Time Square to grab a quick dinner at McDonalds. CrAzY!!! And the hotel room was so small that the pack and play barely fit in the room. Carmen, Charlotte and I turned sideways and slept on the smallest bed. I was falling off the entire night. And Dallin even joined us for some part of the night. I think Aliza and David slept great in their small bed.
The next morning we went to FAO Swartz to have some fun with toys. The girls were all mad that they couldn't buy anything because we had "forced" them into buying those American Girl dolls the night before.... SHEESH! Do they think money grows on trees in Central Park?!!
We got to play on the giant piano
And had fun with the giant candy in the candy store section.
Then we went across the street to Central park for a horse drawn carriage ride. But they only took cash. So we split up while David took some kids to go find cash, the rest of us sneeked into the famous Plaza Hotel lobby just to see what it was like. FANCY! Charlotte was the only one who would pose for a picture.
After all of David's valiant efforts to find cash, he had to sit out of the carriage ride because NY state law requires that not more than 5 people can ride at a time. It didn't matter whether some were really small kids or not. So, he graciously let all of us ride while he sat back and waited for us. What a sweet guy!
I learned all sorts of fascinating facts about Central Park, but I couldn't for the life of me remember any of them to tell David about afterwards.... I mostly spent the entire ride keeping Dallin from jumping off the carriage.
When we first told the girls we were going to NYC they had two requests of things to see - the Statue of Liberty and Carlo's Bakery across the river in Hoboken. So next on the agenda was the Staten Island Ferry. It's free and gives you a great view of the Statue of Liberty. We caught a cab to the ferry, which was actually pretty far away from Central Park. The ferry ride was long and we were all pretty tired and very hungry by this point. But it was fun to see Lady Liberty. We grabbed some lunch at the Staten Island ferry station and caught the next ferry back to Manhattan.
We couldn't have asked for better weather for this trip. We came
prepared with hats, gloves, scarves and big coats. But the girls just
each wore light jackets and Dallin and I never even put ours on. It was
nearly 60 degrees and felt wonderful!
We caught a cab back to our hotel to get our things. I think the kids really loved the taxi rides, fast and a bit scary and no car seats! While getting our things into the back of the Suburban, we got a parking ticket!! And it wasn't even our fault. The valet guy parked our car there and apparently the officer put it there while we were standing there loading our things!!! How absurd. Two men standing on the sidewalk witnessed the whole thing and just said "Welcome to New York" and smirked and walked away. So after contesting the ticket with the hotel people, who said they'd "take care of it", we headed out of town.
I still really wanted to see Carlo's Bakery - it's famous from the tv reality show Cake Boss, which me and the girls love to watch. It was far from the exit, and when we saw a very short line out front I knew I had to take the opportunity to get some treats from there. We ended up waiting only about 20 minutes outside and another 15 minutes inside. I ordered lobster tails, canolis, red velvet cupcakes, butter cream cupcakes and some cookies. From watching the show I kind of knew what were the most popular items, so that what I wanted to try. The lobster tails were my favorite! Everything was much sweeter than I expected. The only person from the show that I saw was Mauro's son, Little Buddy. He was working the register and was very funny about me not stealing his pen! It wasn't at all crazy or rude like it appears on the show. Well, it was crazy, but controlled chaos and the workers were all really nice.
So, it was a whirlwind trip in which we packed a lot of site seeing. But that seems to be how we do things. Although I was first reluctant to go (which I always seem to be), I'm glad we went. It was fun and it was tiring, but I hope it gave the kids some good memories.
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