New York City Random-osity!

As of this morning at 8am, my summer break is over and I am officially back in work mode :( This is always a hard week for me to go back because the teachers, other staff, and even the principal, are still off this week, so it's just me and the custodians in the building. However, I am trying to maintain a positive attitude so while I'm adjusting to being back at work, I'm going to be blogging about our family summer trip. It was so great to have so much time to spend together as a family for the two weeks we were on vacation together. (Sidenote: I realize I am very fortunate to have a job which allows me to have most of the school breaks off to spend with my family as not everyone has that opportunity. I don't take that for granted and recognize that many of my readers have been working all summer while also trying to juggle their kids' needs.)

We woke up in Philadelphia for our last morning with our friends. Rachel and Aaron get along so well so I had to take this picture of them.

Glimpses of New York City from the thruway.

We stayed with Dave's cousins and enjoyed getting to spend an evening with them.

On Friday we spent the whole day in the city. I had planned an entire day, with very little input given from the rest of my family (I gave them a chance to give input -- they just chose not to), and as we were driving to the train station, the kids rebelled. Gah. So with some suggestions from a friendly local (who overheard our somewhat heated discussion in the train station), we changed our plans for the day on a moments' notice. Arriving in Grand Central Station always makes me sooooo happy and excited!!!

One plan which didn't change is that Rachel wanted to visit the flagship Capezio dance store again. (We stopped here on our mother-daughter trip last summer.) We found a soccer store (and the MLB store) for Sam to check out while Rachel shopped for bodysuits.

Then we took the subway down to the lower tip of Manhattan and caught a New York City Ferry to Brooklyn. We hadn't taken the ferries before and it was super fun. I always love being on the water.

The Brooklyn Bridge (I think) and Manhattan from the water. 

We ended up walking through Brooklyn, and discovering some fun artwork, as we headed to our lunch destination.

We went to Russ & Daughters, a bagel place, at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. This bagel was sooooo good! Oh my word.

More art I discovered while waiting for the ferry.

I love being on the water and we enjoyed discovering a part of New York City we hadn't spent a lot of time in before.

On the way back to Grand Central, we walked by the United Nations. Sometime, I'd like to tour that with the kids. We spent the evening with Dave's aunt and uncle and other cousin and her daughter. It was good family visiting time.

On Saturday morning, we got to meet up with Tamar who blogs at Random-osity. Find her here. This was our second time meeting up and we really enjoyed visiting with her.

And we got to meet Judah!!! We wished we could have visited with them more but we had to head off. I'm so glad we got to meet up though, even if for a short while.

 

So that was our time in New York -- I'm glad we were able to find something fun to do and have some good visits with family and friends.