A View from the Top and some Baseball

We pre-arranged to go to the Top of the Rock Saturday morning at 8 am, so we made our way over to Rockefeller Center to look around at the beautiful flowers and even made our way onto the Today show for a brief second. :) 

It was a beautiful morning after storms all week, so it was perfect timing to see all over New York and you could even see all the boroughs.  

 We had a super-helpful security guard who volunteered to take a picture for us and ended up taking like 20.  Good thing because it was super windy and my hair was in front of my face for most of them.

We thought it would be more green in April but New York had a pretty cold winter so I guess we will just have to come back and see Central park all green.  

After Rockefeller Center, we at breakfast at a yummy little shop and then walked around and saw St. Patricks Cathedral.  We meandered around Rockefeller Center and then made our way up to the Bronx to watch the Yankee's Red Sox game in their new stadium.  We ate McDonalds right next to the stadium and then headed in to look around.  It was pretty cold, but still pretty awesome.  We went to the little museum they have in the stadium and saw a good chunk of Yankee history with old jerseys, ball and world series trophies.  

Here is Mike in front of Babe Ruth's jersey and hat.  Pretty neat!

33,116 steps

Today was a doozy! We ended up logging 33,116 steps walking around town today which is over 16 miles!  We also logged 136 floors which might be true between subway stairs and such, our legs we're sore!

We started the day quite rainy and foggy, but knew that the weather report was for it to clear out by night.  We decided to use our city pass for the Empire State Building which included a day time and night time entrance so we were banking on the fact that we might be able to see that night and decided to go see what it would be like to be in a cloud.  It was so foggy that you could not see anything, which made it feel like you were not that high.  We were also basically the only ones there, so we did not have to wait in lines and had a long time to take pictures, unless you are Mike and cannot stand the cold.  He decided to view from inside the building.  

 

The little dial said turn to clear vision... didn't work for me!

We had the elevator to ourselves on the way down, so we were jumping to see if we could feel the effects of going down a super-fast elevator.

Next stop was the New York City Public Library which was super neat to walk through, even if most of the famous reading rooms were inaccessible due to repairs while we were there.  We did get to see the original Winnie the Pooh stuffed animals which looked so dearly loved, just how they should be!

After a fortuitous lunch at Lombardi's Pizzeria (just randomly stopped at a pizza place to find all these pictures of famous people on the wall), we went to the Washington Arch (which was being updated) and on the way there we walked a bit with Janel Moloney (Donnatella of the West Wing cast) as she was taking her little kid to go get a hair cut.  He apparently didn't want to take a cab and was laying down in the street not wanting to walk anymore.  We told her we understand as we have kids the same age.  Kind of fun!

After the arch, we headed over to the MET which is HUMONGOUS!  You could spend days there, but in true Mike style, we whipped through that thing in 4 hours, not stopping for long but were able to see everything.  Mike especially liked these suits of armor.
 

We still had time left in the day, so we headed back down to the Brooklyn Bridge because it had stopped raining.  We walked all the way across to Brooklyn to make sure we made it to every Borough.

After walking back to the lower east side, we headed over to Little Italy and ate delicious Italian food at Pellegrino's which was awesome!  I had the secret Lasagna not on the menu and it was so good.

After dinner, we walked through little Italy and China town, which almost feels like you are in a different country.  We headed back to the Brooklyn Bridge area to see the courthouse and city hall.  We (Rachel) also reenacted part of Newsies near the statues of Pulitzer and Hurst. "Do they got us? NO!"

After a video chat with the kids back at the Hotel, we headed back over to the Empire State building to see the city in its glowing glory.  It was a bit windy, as in you saw clouds swoop past you in seconds.  A bit more crowded, but still didn't really have to wait in what looks like Disneyland-type lines.  

Whew, that was a fun filled but long day!

New York, New York

It seems that we are not very good at planning our daily activities as we criss crossed the city today to do everything. It was cold and overcast again so we tried to do more things inside to stay out of the weather. We also tried some good food and have decided to polish each day off with a trip to a dessert place. There are many to choose from here, so we should be in good shape at the end of the week (it may be a round shape but it is a shape none the less).

We started at Union Station which was very large. There were lots of parts off the main hall with shops, stores, and other stuff.

There was some great scenery at the train station!

We also went to the Natural History Museum. We looked for Teddy Roosevelt and finally found him in the basement. It was an amazing museum that had a little bit of everything.

Including dinosaurs!

They had lots of different dinosaur bones that we almost missed. We started on the bottom floors and then as we were about to leave we looked at the map and realized the top floor was where the dinosaur bones were. Good thing we looked, since this was the coolest part of the museum.

A new friend we met. Looks like he waited a long time for us to come around.

We also went back down to lower Manhattan to go to the 9/11 museum. When we got off the train we realized we were right next to Trinity Church so we stopped by to look around.

Outside of the church was a very old cemetery where Alexander Hamilton was buried along with many others. There were lots of very ornamental statues and gravestones like this one.

The 9/11 museum was very large and took the most of the afternoon. The site was getting ready for the opening of the new tower next month. This was one of Rachel's favorite things to see. 

After the museum we walked by Wall Street. There are a lot of neat historic buildings down there (not pictured, but still cool) like where Washington gave his farewell after the Revolutionary war ended and where he was inaugurated as the first President.

It was a long, busy day. We walked all over and had lots of fun. 

Welcome to the Big Apple

Welcome to New York City! The happy moment has finally arrived (a trip without children)! This week we get to go on a big adventure in the Big Apple while the kids spend some quality time with Melanie and Grandma Shaw. It was very overcast and cold today flying into the city so we couldn't really see the city from the plane. However, once we got into the city you could tell it was huge. Completely different from Phoenix. Everything goes straight up and seems to go for a very long ways. There are also, so many people. 

We checked into our hotel and then started walking around. We went to Times Square first since it was close and we wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Lots of billboards, lots of weirdos, and lots of shopping (three things that are sure to draw a crowd).  

We even ran into a dinosaur! He was inside the toy store on times square and really moved and roared! It was pretty awesome.

Overall we walked around to a bunch of places close by to try and get a lay of the land here. Now we have to catch some sleep to prepare for the adventures of tomorrow (in New York!).

Here comes Peter Cottontail

This was our regular Easter egg coloring adventure. While the children love to color the eggs, it is a bit more stressful for us as we play defense to keep from redecorating the kitchen. This year Miles really wanted to get involved so we had to let Allie do her own thing, and she managed to create some beautiful eggs with minimal mess. 

Miles was really excited too be part of the fun this year. He always wants to be involved in anything we do as a family, and often pushes his way into the middle to make sure we don't leave him out.

Hadley was wanting to do lots of fancy colored eggs and use all the neat extras from the box. This egg was going to be stripped for awesomeness!

Allie made a bunch of very deep colored eggs. She had the most patience to let the eggs rest in the potion the longest.

Miles had more fun trying to crack the eggs (which he managed to do for two or three of his). He always has a look that shows he enjoys the mischief a little too much. We might be in trouble with this look for years to come.

Happy Easter 2015!