New York City

We packed up the Trailblazer last weekend and headed to New York for a few days. We thought we should see the sights while we were this close and our kids totally appreciated the significance of the trip...ha, ha. But none the less we had a great time. Just staying in a hotel alone is enough fun for the boys. We met up with our friends, the Salazar's, who also have 4 little ones. Our kids play so well together and have so much fun. We drove down on Thursday morning, it was a short 3 hours or so drive. It really wasn't bad at all. We arrived just after lunch and headed to "the Jersey side" of the Statue of Liberty. We boarded a ferry, at Liberty State Park, that stopped at Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. The boys thought it was cool, but I think that enjoyed playing pirates with the binocular viewing things along the shore of the island more than anything. After that we headed to the hotel for dinner and what else, swimming! The next morning brought our exploration of the American Museum on Natural History.
It was gigantic and I'm pretty sure you could spend at least a couple of days there alone and not totally take in all there was to see. The boys liked the dinosaur exhibits and some the the animal exhibits.


Truman has been particularly accident prone as of late. He totally hit the ground in one of the exhibit halls and ended up with this huge goose egg on his head, poor guy. All the boys had fun, but they heard we were going to Central Park and what kid doesn't love a park? So we listend to chants of "When are we going to the park?" for most of the afternoon.

Boys just need wide open spaces to run in, rocks to climb, and dirt to dig in. Central Park is a pretty spectacular place. We spent the afternoon walking & exploring the park. We saw Belvedere Castle and The Lake and we tried to get ice cream at The Dairy...which, come to find out, does not have ice cream. The evening was topped off with a ride back to our car in a bicycle taxi. Two of the nicest guys offered to take the boys for free just because they thought that our boys would have fun and enjoy the ride, and of course they loved it! We got take-out when we arrived back at the hotel and the boys watched a movie. They love to watch movies and they know it is a special occasion when they get to watch one every night of our vacation!

Saturday was our last day in the Big Apple. We thought that it probably wouldn't be feasible to pack the boys around to many of the downtown sights, so we decided to undertake our own driving tour. We saw ground zero (not much there to see aside from a very large fence and lots of construction vehicles), the Empire State Building, Times Square, and the Manhattan Temple. After our car tour we went to F.A.O Swartz and let the boys roam. They played on the big piano and found everything that they want to buy with their chore money for the next 4 years. We grabbed lunch at a trendy little burger joint called Burger Pop (I have to say it was a really original concept) and then we went back to where else but...Central Park.

We just relaxed and enjoyed the beautiful weather. The boys splashed around in one of the spray parks and then we got Popsciles and sat under some large trees.

It was just nice to laugh and enjoy being together as a family. Taggart was an angel baby. I packed him around in the Baby Bjorn for almost the entire trip, he barely saw daylight!

So that was it for NYC. We loaded back into the car and went back home. We were glad that we made the trip!