Day 6 New York City

So our last full day in New York was spent seeing all the neat buildings to see and they all seemed to be circled right around our hotel. We could just walk to see them all and then take the subway to the museum. We knew it would be quite a walk but didn't think it would be too bad. It's so cool to see this stuff (that you see all the time in movies) in person. I strapped Jordyn on my sore back again and we took off.
Radio City Music Hall was just down the street. We weren't even looking for this one. We just kinda ran into it.

Today show

This is where people make fools of themselves. We got there just a little too late for their Friday concert and they were putting away all the barricades. I'm not sad though. I'm not a crowd person and it was cool to see when not very many people were around.

Rockefeller center. We didn't think it was all that (probably because there was no ice rink;) but we had to take a pic anyway.

The rainbow room

If you know Travis at all, you know that we HAD to see the Fox News building;)

This is where O'Reilly and Hannity do their thing.

St. Patricks Cathedral. It is so beautiful!!! And it's right in the middle of all these big buildings. So cool.

You can go in and walk around even while they are having mass. There were a ton of people in there. My Dad didn't want to go too far while they were doing their service but Travis and I just walked right up there and around. I wanted to see it all and since we saw other people doing it, we just followed;) There are a ton of statues everywhere. It's pretty cool to see even though it's not the true church;0)

Grand Central Station

Chrysler building

Empire State building

This is pretty much all we saw of the Empire State building. We were so security line weary from the Statue of Liberty and by this time we were hot and tired of walking so we decided to skip going up. We figured that if we were freaked out by the heights of the Statue, it would be way more intense for this one. And we were just so tired of going through metal detectors. We also wanted to get to the museum before it closed and it was getting pretty late.

Macys!! I don't know why I wanted a pic of this. Travis thought I was weird because there is a Macys everywhere but I just think Thanksgiving parade when I see this;)

The Museum of Natural History!!! I just love the look of all these buildings. They are so cool!!! This is right across from Central Park!

This would be the cool dinosaur that I think you see on Night at the Museum movie. I was thrown a little bit when we first got there. I guess we entered on the side and a floor below street level and you enter right into the space part. I was disappointed because I was expecting the dinosaur right as you enter. We found it much later and the lobby still looks a lot different but I love the architecture! It's so neat. I love how these old buildings were built. This place was huge and so stinking busy!!!

This is when Makenna was smiling!!! Why would she be upset?? Oh, just the dinosaurs that she was so excited to see. In her mind, she thinks she will love them but when we get there and are so close to them and being so big just freaks her out!!! She really enjoyed the elephants and the other animals like the deer and bears though.

We decided to finish the day there. We were so tired from walking and it was starting to sprinkle on us. We thought we might spend some more time at Central Park but we were all spent. It was a good thing because we got some dinner and settled in the hotel to relax when the clouds opened up and poured!! I just have to say that we were so lucky with the weather on our trip. We were definitely blessed. It was gorgeous and cool in Northern New York and didn't rain on us even though there was a chance during the pageant and it never rained on us while we were out and about in New York except some lovely cooling sprinkles. It was great!!

The humidity did weird things to J.J.'s diapers though. This kept happening to them! Poor girl would wake up with wet jammies because her diaper would just come undone! And yes, these are Christmas jammies. They fit and they are comfy!!

And this is how we ended the day again:) Oh, the lure of the window!

Day 5 New York City

This day started out by trying to find the right subway to get downtown towards the Statue of Liberty. On the way, a fire truck came racing by which Makenna loved! Daddy took a pic of it for her.

We found the subway and it was easier to navigate than I thought it would be. The girls loved it!! Definitely the easiest way to travel with them.

After going through the line of security to get on the ferry, we were finally on our way to see the Statue of Liberty.

Little did we know that we would have another line to stand in to actually go up in it!! Not fun! It was so long and this time we had to do the same thing along with an air test to make sure you don't have chemicals on you! I understand being careful but this was ridiculous. I have no idea why they didn't just do the chemical test before you got on the ferry! Such a waste of time!

This is my happy baby on my back while we were waiting in the never ending line. She took a nice nap while waiting, thank goodness!

Finally inside the Statue!!!

This is looking up inside of her. I'm glad that we didn't do the crown. That was a lot of stairs!!

Once we got up there, we only stayed like five minutes!!! We were all a little scared of the heights. I don't know if I'm getting older or if it's because I have kids but I can't stand being up that high anymore!! It was pretty crazy.

View of the city from the statue.

Mom and Dad!!! They wouldn't let us take their pic very often!!

Me and Trav. Not a great pic. We are both squinting into the sun.

We then took the ferry to Ellis Island. It was so neat to see where they checked in all the immigrants! This is inside the building.

Cuteness on the ferry back.

More cuteness.

Afterwards, we were all starving and we wanted some real New York pizza and NOT McDonalds. We were kind of wandering a little bit and not really going anywhere so I took matters into my hands and started asking people. (I have no idea why I'm the only one that will talk to strangers but it's the only way to find stuff out;) I asked this one guy and he just shrugged but then I found a cop and decided to ask him. He pointed to this place that was right by us and said it was great. I guess this is a huge cop hangout because there were tons of cops here. They had a dining area upstairs and there were tons up there. We felt very safe. Then all those cops left and a whole new group came in. It was great pizza!!! So yummy. I'm glad I asked!!!

After we ate, we walked down to Wall Street! It truly looks like a wall (of big buildings)!!

Next stop was the Trinity church. Alexander Hamilton (my mom's possible great, great uncle) is buried here and it's such a cool looking church in the middle of all these buildings. I think this is also the church that a lot of people ran to on 9/11.

Fire Fighters memorial

Trade center site. It was amazing to see in person.

A sculpture made from scraps of the Trade Center.

Looking at over the Hudson. When you turn around, you can see where the Trade Center was and it truly looks empty. I took a pic because it looked so empty but it doesn't show up in the pic. So sad.

As we were coming back across the Trade Center back to the subway, there was a fire station that was right across the street that had their doors up. It was fire station #10 and they had a memorial in their station that some people were already looking at. This fire fighter was sitting on the edge of the truck and asked Makenna if she wanted to sit in it. She was so excited and I think this will be the highlight of her trip. She will always remember it. I will remember the hunky fire fighter. He even turned on the lights and sirens for her and gave her some stickers. It was great.

The side of the fire truck.

After coming back on the subway, we got to finally relax. Our feet hurt so bad and were blistering. This is how the girls enjoyed their evening. We couldn't get them away from the window.

Day 4 New York City

It took us about 4 hours to get from Syracuse to New York City. It was a pretty easy drive and the girls were awesome in the car!!! They were either sleeping or just hanging out being good. They were even holding hands at one point...so cute!!

This is when we first saw the city!! There are so many trees along the highway that you can't see anything until you are right on it!

Giants stadium

It got a little hairy once we actually got into the city though! But my wonderful hubby did a great job driving and not getting us in an accident. It was amazing how many cars honked! It was like a constant thing. If you didn't move the second the light turned green, you had a few cars honking at you already. Travis said he wanted to honk at someone at least once while we were there and he got his chance. We were behind this guy and he was trying to turn right at a street where it said no right turns. The light turned green and we are just sitting behind him and Travis honked at him and it got him on his way;) I guess it works and it's so common that you don't get evil looks like you would at home;) We ended up having to circle around again because we went down the wrong street (or so we thought) and came down the right street only to not be able to see the parking garage our hotel told us to go to. I jumped out and ran down the street to ask where to park so we didn't have to circle around again. I asked the guy where to park and he said to just pull up in front like we could have in the beginning!! O-well!! We got all checked in and started off for Central Park. It wasn't very far from the hotel. A couple blocks down, we heard loud music and these helicopters were circling overhead. We looked down the street and I guess Paul McCartney was giving a concert for the David Letterman show. You could see the cameras moving around and the street was all blocked off. And then as we walked, we passed right by Carnegie Hall!!

We got to Central Park and they had these carriages all lined up and tons of bike riders trying to get you to take a ride with them. It was pretty expensive though and we would have had to take two!

We saw Chip and Dale as soon as we got to the park. So stinking cool. Especially for a desert rat like me. You just don't see that!! They would eat right from this ladies hand.

We found a hot dog stand for dinner (not so great) and a playground right off the bat so the girls could get some of their energy out. Unfortunately, it didn't work for Jordyn....she was a screaming banshee the rest of the night!!! It was kind of a different experience at this park. There were nannies with some of the kids instead of their parents.

We had a hard time finding things. I wanted to take them to a carousel and never found it and wanted to see the fountain and didn't find that until after dark and we were leaving and walked into it by accident. It's just so crazy big that we couldn't get our bearings. O-well. This is one of the lakes there.

There were a ton of turtles sticking their heads out. All those spots in the pic are turtles.

Cool looking bird

Another squirrel at the bottom of the tree behind Kenna.

This is the best family pic we could get. Jordyn just wanted to get down and go!!!

Jordyn chasing after a squirrel.

This is the view of the bigger lake once we finally got there. Central Park is HUGE!!!

Just a view of some buildings from the park.

The stinker Jordyn going wherever she wanted to go.

We thought these buildings looked like candles;)

So, as we were exhausted and just trying to find our way out, we ran into the fountain.

It took us awhile and me asking for directions to finally get out of Central Park;) We were pretty tired and ready to relax in the hotel room. We got some milk at this little store on the way back (that we found only because I asked someone;) and it was so expensive just for a small jug. I have no idea how New Yorkers live. I never saw a grocery store. Just these little shops on the corners. I guess they just get a few things every few days or locals know of better places to go;)

This is the view from our hotel room. I wasn't sure if we would have a view since they don't have to do that for employee rates but it was fun looking out of our windows. The girls loved just looking out at the chaos down below. It was also neat to see how they parked the cars. We should have taken a pic. They had them stacked so tight on the roof and they even had these things to park cars on top of each other. Pretty crazy!! And this is the city that truly never sleeps. We would hear horns honking into the night;)