NYC - Day 4

Day 4

Started off our day by heading back to FAO Schwarz.

Why?

Because Shell decided that her souvenir/thank you gift

to Dad would be a Muppet :)

(Dad watched Shell's kids so she could go on the trip,

and so that Mom could come too. My Dad is awesome!)

We did our best to get the Muppet to look like Dad,

and I think we did a pretty good job, the only problem

is that they were out of the right hair color.

 Now Dad can sing "Am I a man, or am I a Muppet?"

I think it would be fun to make one of these for Mike and I and the kids :)

Then we stopped by St. Patrick's Cathedral

then we dropped "Dad" off at the hotel.
We saw this car with eyelashes as we were walking :)

Then we headed to Little Italy.

We stopped for some delicious gelato.
I had mango...super yummy!

 Onto Chinatown

don't think I had seen dragon fruit before...
fruit ninja doesn't count :) 

I know I hadn't seen this fruit before, but Shell had.

It is rambutan, she bought a few and showed us how to open it.

I thought it was really good. Yay for trying new things!

 Next stop The Financial District
We took a little break from our walking in front of the New York Stock Exchange.

Me doing wall squats on wall street :)

Next we made our way to the September 11th Memorial

It was reverent and emotional there

 Someone had left this rose by a name,
heartbreaking to me...so many people died.

The Survivor Tree

This pear tree survived the attacks of that day

Shell's friend Jan took this picture from her hotel room,
I thought it was a great look at the entire memorial.

Two of the new buildings that are being constructed.

I'm pretty sure that the tallest one on the left was called the Freedom Tower, but is now called One World Trade Center.
I think I remember reading that there will be a total of 5 new buildings.

We were so glad that we were able to go into the memorial.
I would have hated to miss it!

After we left there, we headed over to dinner at Les Halles.

Shell's friend Jan met us there.
She stood in for our sister Jan who couldn't come on the trip.

me, Mom, Shell, Jan, Constance, Shannon and Marcy
*My thoughts on Las Halles*
very good food
reasonably priced
great service, though our waiter did try to lick the table at one point, ha ha!
...my only complaint was that it was too cold in there.

NYC - Day 3

Day 3

We started the day off by going to church.

It was a very nice Sacrament meeting,

one of the talks was particularly good.

The local wards meet in the same building as the temple.

After church we headed back to the hotel

and changed for some more sight seeing.

On our way to the Empire State Building
we stopped to show our Rockett-ness
in front of Radio City Music Hall.

On to the Empire State Building

Our souvenir photo

Various views from the top

 Central Park

 The Chrysler Building
...or it could be the Empire State Building if you are Shell :)
(sorry inside joke!)

 Don't look down!!

Some sights from our Harbor Cruise
The Brooklyn Bridge

 The Freedom Tower or One World Trade Center under construction

 a driving range where Tiger Woods practices,
took this picture for my Dad :)
not necessarily because of Tiger...just golf.

 this interesting building is used as the headquarters in Men in Black.
It's actually just the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel Ventilator building.

The Statue of Liberty

Random picture from our walking.

 I just thought these buildings looked cool,
especially with the clouds reflected in them.

So after our sight seeing we went back to the hotel,
changed again and went for dinner.

We ate at Alfredo in Rockefeller Center

 It was Shannon's 18th birthday

and the waiters made it very memorable.

*my review of Alfredo*

This was probably my favorite dining experience.

The food was delicious...

but the service was excellent!

Rockefeller Center

 We went back by Times Square
...because we felt like it

Mom and I got on the jumbo-tron :)
Here's a picture with me in it...
can you find me?

NYC - Day 2

Day 2 

Breakfast at Tiffany's :)

I even remembered to put on my Tiffany bracelet

that Shell gave me for my 40th birthday last year :)

me, Marcy and Shannon
Mom and Shell

FAO Schwarz

 We loved all the giant stuff they had

My kids were mad that I didn't buy these Pez dispensers

 They had a cool Muppet workshop 
where you could make your own Muppet
(more on that in a later post)

 we had to see the cool lego stuff

  and of course the famous giant piano featured in the movie "Big"

we also found an Etch A Sketch worthy of Marcy's skills!
(seriously...you should see her on an Etch A Sketch,
she is amazing!)

Central Park
This guy was really good!

 We got to listen to him play 
while Shannon got a pencil portrait done

 "our" artist was amazing.
It was so fun watching him draw...he is super talented!
...and so much better than all the other ones we passed.

I kind of wanted to get one done...

but I was too chicken...

The fountain in Central Park

...couldn't help thinking about that big musical number in Enchanted :)

Shannon wanted to visit the place where John Lennon was shot.
...so we did.
One of several tributes to him that we saw. 

On the way back through Central Park we saw this guy
making gigantic bubbles
Mom gave him a tip and he handed her a wand (or whatever it was)
She did pretty well

 so well in fact that he took a break
(can you see him in the background)

we thought it was funny that people were taking pictures
of her making the bubbles
she even made a few tips, ha ha
...but she let the guy keep them :)

Passed this in our walkings today.
"You're Fired!"

After some rest
(we had a pretty full day already)
we got ready to go back out for the evening

First stop was dinner at
Chez Josephine

*review of Chez Josephine*
It was a cute little place named for Josephine Baker.
I think the food was very good, I had a delicious Filet Mignon.
The service, however, was not great.
We waited a long time to order, and a long time for our food.

After dinner we headed over to the Gershwin Theater

Yes, we saw Wicked on Broadway.

Walking back to the hotel we passed Lindy's and stopped in for some dessert.
It was a great, and somewhat exhausting, day!