New York, New York!

Early Thursday morning we left Rochester and headed to New York City.  We made a quick stop in Scranton Pennsylvania in honor of the Office and to eat lunch.  As we drove through the Lincoln Tunnel  all I could think about was the movie Elf and it made me laugh.  Driving in New York in the giant Tahoe was pretty crazy but not nearly as terrible as I had expected.  Thank heavens for my wonderful husband who can handle stuff like that without breaking a sweat.  We parked our giant SUV in the craziest parking garage you had ever seen.  And then we headed to our crazy expensive and tiny hotel, the Algonquin.  We were reunited with the Mellors and we all headed out to see some sights and get some dinner at a nearby cafe.  We put the kids to bed and then Whitney and I ran out to do a little shopping (it's NY so it felt appropriate).  After that, Whitney was so kind to hang out in our room while Logan and I went back out for some more sight seeing without kids.  We checked out Grand Central Terminal and Times Square.  We were all pretty beat and the next morning we slept in a bit, then grabbed brunch at a nearby Cafe.  Then we just walked and walked, checking out as many sights as our children would allow us to.  We saw some Times Square stuff, M&M factory, FAO Schwarz toy store, The Rockefeller Center, NBC Store,  Central Park, and a few other sites here and there.  Although we were a tad limited by having strollers and children to slow us down, I thought we all did quite a remarkable job and our kids handled it well.  I loved New York and would love to go back without kids (no offense children) sometime soon!

 It was about a five hour drive from Rochester so we broke up the drive by stopping for lunch in Scranton Pennsylvania and had lunch at the Steamtown Mall.  Ah the Office, a classic.

The crazy parking garage.  Ok this picture doesn't make it look so crazy but those cars are packed in there like sardines.  You drive in and unload and they park it for you.  And it was a million dollars to park there, even more for us because we have a SUV.  But luckily our hotel partially validated parking so it was only a half a million.

.  Checking out the hotel.  Jack loves hotels and the lucky boy has stayed in many of them due to our cross country road trips.  

Tiny and expensive.

Rockefeller Center.  We ate lunch here.

Logan and Brett.

The NBC store.

The M&M factory.

We decided to get a small snack of M&Ms.  I let Jack help me.  The first dispenser only shot out a couple of M&Ms when we pulled the lever down.  He wanted some purple M&Ms (purple is his favorite color).  I wasn't watching as closely assuming it would do the same as the first.  I turned my head for minute and looked back to see our bag almost full.  Twenty dollars later there we were with an extremely over priced bag of M&Ms.  Ouch.

Grand Central Terminal.

The hotel cat, Matilda.  I wanted to take her home in my bag. 

Carriage rides were everywhere at Central Park.  It reminded me of Seinfeld.

I feel like this statue was on Elf?  Now I am probably just making things up.

Central Park.  Me and Whitney.

And this in a nut shell was what it was like having kids in the City. "We really love your baby, but we cannot accommodate your stroller".  It was a challenge trying to find places to eat with things like highchairs and toddler friendly options.

Sometimes we had to find secret entrances to get in and out of buildings instead of using the swivel doors.  We felt like we were going through Platform nine and three quarters from Harry Potter here.

I love cupcakes.  Seriously love.  So we stopped at Magnolia Bakery for some famous cupcakes.  I almost cried when I ate them.  They were terrible!  It was weird.  Next time we will hit up Crumbs.  But then again, nothing can hold a candle to my delicious Capenellos Crazy Cakes here in CVille.

FAO Schwarz, founded in 1862, it's the oldest toy store in the US.  

Jack is way into Disney Cars.  He has been asking for a coveted car character named Acer and they just happened to have it here.  We have searched everywhere and have never been able to find him.  So we bought it and like idiots, we opened it and gave it to him to keep him entertained in the stroller.  Well of course once we sat down for lunch at the Rockefeller Center we realized Acer was gone.  I frantically scanned the hallways looking for Acer knowing we could never get another one.  We told Jack he was gone and he cried ( and so did Logan and I deep inside).  Finally when we headed home and were folding up the stroller, there was Acer tucked in a crevasse   It was a NY miracle.  Stupid toys.

Can I tell you how excited I was to come here.  Big is one of my all time favorite movies.  Zoltar told me my fortune.  Unfortunately he didn't tell me I would grow big, nor do I want to get any bigger than I am.

The Big piano.  I should have practiced Chopsticks before we came.  

Finally we headed back to CVille.  Can't wait to go back.

The Play Museum

On Wednesday we went to the Strong Museum of Play.  It was so fun.  It was nice to have a laid back day as well.  Due to hotel mix ups, the Mellors headed to New York City a day early so we were solo at the museum.  This place was insane.  I think it's the largest children's museum in the US.  There was so much to do.  We were there 4 hours and still hadn't made it through the whole thing.

Part of the Train wing.

Train ride.

Flying an airplane

With all the things to play with, Charlotte's favorite was still the books.  They had bookshelves everywhere that were themed the same as the exhibit.

Her cute face.

This little grocery store was my favorite.  I would have died as a child to play here.  You got to shop for your own food  and then check it out and even print out a receipt.  Char loved pushing her cart around and loading it up.

Char loved Sesame Street land.

Jack on the news with Rosita.

Lego land.

Jack climbed the beanstalk.

 

Jack told us he was doing his homework.  I guess this is what he thinks Logan does all day.

New York part 2

The next day we went to Palmyra.  This was definitely my favorite part of our trip.  We saw Joseph Smith's home and farm, the Sacred Grove, the Book of Mormon Publication site and Hill Cumorah.  There were many tours to be taken, but with three rambunctious children, we were very tour unfriendly.  It was a challenge to take it all in with our kids running everywhere but I still loved and enjoyed it.  It further strengthened my testimony of the Gospel and definitely magnified my love and appreciation for Joseph Smith and the saints.  The missionaries were very kind and accommodating though.  Later that day we went to Niagara Falls.  It was soooo cold.  Still cool to see though.  

Joseph Smith's home.

Charlotte trying to nudge her way past Logan into the roped off rooms.

Jack picked out his shoes for the day...

The Sacred Grove.

Touring the Book of Mormon Publication site.  The Sister Missionaries were very patient with these boys.

Brett and Logan practice folding Book of Mormon pages.

Hill Cumorah.

Niagara Falls.  This picture says it all.  It was cold.  We were basically in Canada after all.  Char's face kills me.  The kids did really good though considering the lack of circulation in their fingers. 

We ended our night with the hot tub to reset our internal thermostats.

The Big Apple

We mustered up the courage to take our kids on a 23 hour road trip touring some sites in New York.  We went during Logan's spring break and our good friends, the Mellors came with us.  We have been talking about doing this since we moved here but when we finally started looking at cost and drive time, we started getting cold feet.  About a week before the break we got crazy and booked hotels and put our plan into action.  On Sunday evening we drove three hours to Baltimore to stay at Brett's brother's house.  The next morning we headed to Rochester to our hotel.  It was about a six hour drive but we had a late start so got there that evening.  We ate dinner at Dinosaur BBQ which turned out to be delicious.  We have learned that Yelp never steers your wrong, almost every food decision during our trip was made by checking Yelp.  We hit the pool for a swim and then we put the kids to bed.  Using baby monitors, we snuck into the Mellor's hotel room for a little Bachelor Finale.  The men weren't interested but Whitney and I had to finish the terrible finale.  This brings us to day 2 of our trip.  More to come...

So much driving...

Checking out the room at the hotel in Rochester.

We went swimming that night at the hotel.

Jack and Lincoln.  Or as Jack calls him Linky.

We ate at Dinosaur BBQ that night.  So good.  Logan and I were starving and ate a whole rack of ribs.