New York, New York!

You might remember from my NYC post about my December trip that we were supposed to take a trip to New York with Michael & Christine the weekend after new years but a blizzard kind of ruined our plans. We rescheduled our trip for the end of February and luckily snuck in between snow storms!!

We left Thursday evening and after a delayed flight in Houston finally made it to NYC around midnight and arrived at my Uncle's apartment (that he graciously let us stay at!) around 1am.

The forecast for Friday wasn't looking too good...rain/fog/cold but we powered through and had a really great day! We started the morning at the 9/11 memorial. This was my 3rd trip there and it's equally as sad every time you go. The fog was intense - you couldn't see halfway up the freedom tower.

After the memorial we headed over to ChinaTown and made a few purchases (scarves, sunglasses, etc). It wasn't too busy around there so it was nice. Then we headed up to Times Square and had lunch at John's Pizzeria. We were crossing our fingers there wasn't a long wait and were shocked to find out there was no wait at all! The pizza was delicious as always!

Yep the 4 of us polished off these 2 pizzas!

After lunch we walked over to the Intrepid. Justin and I have a friend from our first fish camp that works there and was so nice to get us tickets (Thanks Ashley!!) into the Intrepid and the space shuttle exhibit! I had never been to the Intrepid but would highly recommend it - it was super interesting!

After the Intrepid we were pretty tired but had some time to kill before we met one of Justin/Michael's co-workers who lives in NY and some of Christine's friends. We ended up just going to Mercury Bar hung out there for probably 4 hours! We sampled a lot of their food/drinks and were pretty impressed with everything and had great company!

Saturday morning we slept in a little since we knew we had a long day ahead. It was a beautiful day so we went straight over to Rockefeller Plaza to go to the Top of the Rock. What a view!! It was an absolutely gorgeous day!

Next we made our way up 5th Avenue and made a visit to FAO Schwartz and then spent a little bit of time in Central Park. 

We had lunch reservations at Serendipity 3 and while we were waiting we explored Dylan's Candy Bar which was on the corner.

After a loong lunch (super slow service but yummy food) we took the subway down to Chelsea Market and then walked up High Line. Still one of my favorite things to do!

After High Line we walked over to Macy's and spent some time exploring the 8 floors of shopping heaven! After that we took the subway over to 5th Avenue to go to Build-A-Bear to make a birthday present for a friends baby. It was super busy in there and we were tired and ready to get back but everyone was troopers waiting with me!! We picked up Chinese food from a place around the corner from my uncle's apartment and ate it (it was SO GOOD) while we watched the Olympics in our PJs. It was nice to have a sort of low key evening after such a busy day.

Sunday morning we had a little bit of a slow start but made our way to the Statue of Liberty. It wasn't too crowded because we were able to get right on the ferry so that was nice. It was a chilly boat ride but we had beautiful views of the city!! Another gorgeous day!

Unfortunately we had to skip Ellis Island because of time constraints. We had decided we were going to go to the "fancy" McDonald's on Wall Street for lunch...only to find out it was closed for renovations, ugh! Sadly we all craved McDonald's until we had it for lunch the next day haha. We went up to Times Square to meet my cousin Emily, her husband Ryan, and their little boy Drew for lunch. We ended up at a Pub and the food was awesome!

Silly Drew @ lunch

Even though we had to rush through lunch it was really nice to visit with everyone. We went to see the matinee show of Cinderella on Broadway! Carly Rae Jepsen was Cinderella and Fran Drescher was the evil step mother. Our seats were in the very last row (you gotta do what you gotta do to see a Broadway show!) but we were able to move up to the front of the mezzanine after intermission because the show wasn't full at all. The show was amazing, I'd highly recommend it if you are in NY.

After the show we had dinner reservations at Carmine's but had a little time to kill so we took a visit to Toys R Us. I don't' know which is more of a nightmare for parents of young children...there or FAO Schwartz?! Dinner at Carmine's was soo good. It's family style Italian and since none of us were starving we just got 1 plate of food...and thank goodness because it was HUGE!

The plate might not look that big but it was about a foot & a half long!

Just when we thought we were too full for dessert we decided to head over to Magnolia Bakery and split cupcakes...good call!

Pretty sure we went back to the apartment and crashed after this...Walking 8+ miles a day will really wear you out!

Monday was the coldest day we had and brrr was that wind cold! We took a stroll through the middle of Central Park since we didn't get to see much of it on Saturday. It's so so pretty with all of the snow!

After the park we took the subway back to 6th avenue to find the "LOVE" statue. We took a couple pictures and then walked to the nearest McDonald's to cure our cravings! 

Sadly it was time to leave Manhattan for the last time and head back to Queens to pack up our suitcases and go home.  We had a pretty uneventful trip home except for being delayed on the runway at LaGuardia because of "winds." Come to find out winds actually meant Air Force One was there and it screwed up the take-off schedule. 

Lineup of planes waiting to take off

It was such a fun trip!! I hope Michael & Christine loved NYC as much as Justin and I do! Maybe there's another trip there in our future?? Which would definitely include a trip to the Bronx Zoo and Coney Island ;)