The Big Apple

Even now I am blown away by the size and the number of people roaming the streets of New York City. We spent four days there and it was quite an adventure. We were so excited to be able to go with the Parkinson family. They definitely made the trip more fun! We left on Saturday morning and didn't get home until about 1:15am Wednesday morning. We did so much while we were there. I think we made great use of the time we had there, seeing the sights and experiencing city life.

We did so much that I don't want to bore everyone with all the details, so here are some highlights of our trip:

• Times Square
• Rockefeller Center
• Empire State Building
• Statue of Liberty
• Carriage Ride in Central Park
• Jekyll & Hyde Club (this is a themed restaurant, not a night club. lol)
  
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art
• The Guggenheim
• The Museum of Natural History
• Battery Park
• Riding the Subway
• Grand Central Station
• and everything in between!

Here are some photos from the trip (these pics are out of order, sorry):

We were at Times Square and I really needed to use the restroom, so we stopped into the Charmin Restroom, that turned out to be so much more than a restroom. lol They had a slide and a faux campfire to sit around and lots of places to take some pictures. By the way, it was the cleanest restroom in the entire city.
After finishing in the Charmin restroom, you could go into the Duracell Lodge. There you could ride these bikes that are supposed to use your force to generate energy that they will be using to power the ball drop on New Year's Eve. If you didn't want to ride the bike, you could lay on a bean bag or play a Wii.


Here we are at Times Square!


These were at the Toys R Us at Times Square. Can you believe they are completely made out of Legos?

This T-rex was at Toys R Us, too. He moved and roared!
Here we are at Grand Central Station. I know I look really upset in this picture, but that's only because we had just gotten off of an overly crowded subway and I don't do well with large crowds.
This was in the lobby of the Guggenheim. It was one of the best exhibits they had there. Oh, and if you haven't been to the Guggenheim, don't bother. We were really disappointed with it.

This is Brandon at the Met, in part of the Egyptian exhibit.

We were strolling across Central Park and came across this bridge with a gorgeous view.

Here's Brandon at the Museum of Natural History.


Jared was trying on hats at this craft fair. I think this one suits him. ;)

Here we are in Central Park again. That was one of my favorite places that we went to.
The Parkinson's in Central Park.


We took a carriage ride through Central Park and Heather and I agree that it was the best part of the whole trip. Our driver was Irish and very friendly and his horse, Gypsy was a trooper for pulling all of us around a mile and a half.

This horse came by to say hi to Heather.

Anyone who knows me well knows how excited I was that he let me feed Gypsy.

This was a shot I took from the carriage.

We had lunch at the Jekyll & Hyde Club. It was so much fun! They had a show with Frankenstein in it...

...and a really great band called the Flesh Tones that played the Monster Mash.

We saw so many people dancing and/or playing music in the subway and on the streets for money. Some people asking for money didn't do anything but shake their cups at you. I've never seen so many people looking for handouts.


Here we are waiting to get out onto the observation deck of the Empire State Building.
We made it to the top!

What a view!

It was a long way down.
Here are the Parkinson's about to go to the Observation Deck.


We all got to take a picture with Santa at Macy's!
If you look closely at this escalator (in Macy's) you can see that the steps are made of wood. It must be a very old escalator.

We ate at Lombardi's, which is a pizza parlor in Little Italy that claims to have invented the pizza. I don't know if they invented it or not, but they sure perfected it. It was, by far, the best pizza I've ever had!





How often do you get to see Lady Liberty's rear end? ;)

And I thought my feet were big!
Brandon couldn't resist digging for gold. Classy.
We had tickets to get onto Liberty Island, but not to get into the statue (well, at least the base of the statue since that's all they allow these days). We asked a couple of park rangers to point us in the direction of the path that lead to the front of the statue and they offered us tickets to go in for free! They were so nice!!! The security check to get into the Statue of Liberty was crazy! It was way more thorough than the airports.


It was so cold that day and it snowed a little while we were on the ferry on our way to the island. That's snow on my pant leg.


Here I am in Battery Park.


The Parkinson's on the subway.
Brandon was thumbing for a ride.

Our first ride on the subway.
The ceilings there were pretty low, so Brandon had no trouble reaching up and touching the signs. lol

This is for all those Project Runway fans out there. You know what this is!

Heather and Mackenzi (who is THE perfect baby)
Here I am in the Fashion District.

Thank you Parkinson's for letting us tag along! We had so much fun!