NYC {part 1}

While our boys were out of town, my middle girls and I dropped Lu off with her beloved Nana and took off…
…through some turbulent skies
…over our old homeland of Washington D.C.
…to be greeted by my brother and a gorgeous sunset in NYC.
We were all so excited and the girls got Taylor Swift “Welcome to New York” blasting in the car as we drove over the bridge into the city.
Elle has been dying to get back to NYC since this trip back here, and Grace and Claire had stars in their eyes about seeing that great city.  My Dad served his mission there and has somehow instilled this tremendous love for that place in all of us…enough that three brothers have lived there.  That love has filtered through to the grandkids and they were head-over-heels in love at first sight.
Eli took us on a little night driving tour of the city while he had a borrowed car,
…swung us by for a late-night dinner at Shake Shack,
…and whisked us into his awesome apartment where we got to meet our newest cousin/nephew, Dean:
That may have been the highlight of the trip right there.  These girls begged me about 427 times through the trip to please have one more baby ;).  He is a dreamboat baby I tell you, so sweet and calm and good-natured and we all fell in love.

The girls fell in love with the New York living arrangements too and thought it was awesome to have a wall-to-wall sleepover every night.
(Yes my brother and his wife are saints to host us all with their toddler and new baby in tow…the same ones who traipsed all over Japan with us a few months ago pregnant and with a toddler {here}

…I’m telling you these guys are good.)

We got up the next morning and headed to eat our New York bagels in Central park.
Then the girls and I took off on our own little adventure.
We went to the 9-11 memorial and were mesmerized by it’s beauty and reverence.The newly completed building was beautiful and had a line all the way around it for the new observation deck but we had other places to see the view in mind, so we headed to Grand Central Terminal to check it out.
This idea was spurred by Elle who had seen it in “Gossip Girl.”  Sometimes I wonder how my kids know what the heck stuff like that is because we don’t watch much television around here but then I remember we are infiltrated by social media in every direction these days.  I had no idea what it was and after Elle pulled up the clip with Grand Central Terminal on her phone I’m sure it’s about as good as it looks, but I have to give it the thumbs up that it made my teenager daughter so interested to see a cultural and historical landmark 🙂
We read up a little on the history of that gorgeous place and did a little bit of super interesting “people-watching.”

Then we took off and made our way, through so many streets that look like this…
…to meet my brother at Bryant Park.
That place is gorgeous too, and from there we headed up to our family favorite place to observe New York.
Two of my brothers got engaged in this spot, and it was so fun to have the girls there.

Quite honestly we could have stayed up there all day long it was so gorgeous and exhilarating.

But alas, all good things have to end so we soaked in the views one last time and headed over to St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
We marveled at it’s beauty and how the stained glass casts such beautiful light.
And then went to the MoMA for some serious art. We missed the Met (which we visited last time) this time around, which I love, but the MoMA is pretty darn awesome too.

Claire and I were especially excited since there were a few works of art we had just studied for Art Masterpiece in school (a program I volunteer for each year).

I mean, how cool is it to get to see Starry Night up close and personal?
And we just barely did Picasso’s “Three Musicians” recently (at the end of the post back here).
Loved seeing some of my favorites from my Art History class at Boston University.
Oh boy I love hanging with these girls…
…and sharing them with my great brother.
Eli took my favorite picture of the day:
We had to have a little bit of Magnolia:
…here’s a better pic.
Explore Rockefeller Center a little bit:


…take a picture of these gigantic lego creations for Lucy:
…and head back to snuggle up Dean as much as possible.
Day 2
Julie and Eli live on the fourth floor of a four-story apartment building with no elevator.That means they need to get those two little babies up and down those stairs over and over each day, plus everything else they have to lug all over town. 

They kind of rock.  Have I mentioned that before? 🙂

We had breakfast at this awesome place right next to their apartment,
…then stopped for the world’s best cookies.I am not kidding, they are pretty much the best thing I have tasted…aside from Thai food and Japanese curry and Chicken Tikka, BUT oh boy those babies are dreamy.

We took the subway and headed to the “High Line.”

We all love that little Zara so much!
Then the girls and I headed off to catch “Wicked” at Times Square.

I’m telling you, we were as giddy as could be heading into that thing.
Elle and I had seen it when she won the “lottery” for tickets in Boston years ago:(more on that back here)

We adored it so much that I’ve been dying to take the little girls.
They were definitely not disappointed.  This picture of them being excited about the candy at Times Square only shows a fraction of the “Wicked” excitement 🙂

After we soaked in Times Square for a little bit we met up with Eli and Julie and headed to Washington Square Park (in Greenwich Village) to have a New York pizza picnic dinner.

That is an awesome place for people watching.  There was everything from super talented street performers to a very drunk guy taking a bath in the huge fountain.

We were all mesmerized by a big group of guys who could do flips and jumps like nobody’s business.

We headed out as the sky got darker and all the city lights started to light up the night.
If you look closely you can see the Empire State building through this arch. 
Congrats if you made it this far…yowzas that’s a lot of pictures, and I still have more!

To be continued…(part 2 is HERE)