NYC {part 2}

One of my brothers got married here.  (That post is back HERE…such a beautiful wedding.)

(One of my favorite quotes is “If you let your children touch the temple it will touch them” or something along those lines.)

 When we got home everyone was tuckered:

But this smile is no fake!  One of Dean’s first and we got to be there to experience it.

Oh we love that little boy!

We planned to have a picnic at Central Park but it started pouring.  So we had a picnic at the apartment and headed out.

Not going to let a little rain stand in our way!

 …except that it didn’t end up being “little” rain, it was a LOT of rain.

We took shelter there for a while until we realized it wasn’t letting up any time soon so we continued on to the park.

Yow.

Still didn’t let up.

It was an adventure to walk around an almost completely deserted Central Park.

The downpour lightened up when we got to Bethesda Fountain so we reenacted one of the pictures we took at my brother’s wedding :

Ok, so this one is a little different but you get the idea:)

Love that place.

And love this girl!

I love this little pier by the bridge.

…and the fact that we could stow our umbrellas in the stroller for a little bit.

One benefit of the rain is that we got to check out Tom Fruin’s glass house that is the “traveling” art display there right now without any hustle and bustle of big crowds.

I guess they rotate art exhibits right here in the Brooklyn Bridge park and I loved that we got to see this one.  (more pictures of it here).

Cutest little family.

I love how as it got darker this little building lit up.  It looked so beautiful against the darkening evening sky.

After we soaked that in for a while we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge in the evening drizzle.

Again, so nice without so many crowds.  It was gorgeous.

…and sat down for Sunday dinner at 11:00.

On our last day we got up close and personal with the Statue of Liberty.

Once again, it was raining pretty hard and the temperature dropped so it was not the most glamorous time to see this great lady but I have to admit that we adored it anyway, shivering and all.

I had never taken the ferry to Liberty Island before, I’d only taken the one that passes it from afar.  I loved approaching that lady and imagining how all those immigrants must have felt when they finally held her in view.

(had to be replaced because of corrosion.)

Here’s her face to scale:

…and her foot:

…and her ear:

Interesting to see all this old paraphernalia and learn all the ins and outs of the relationship with France:

The Statue of Liberty was dedicated on October 28, 1886, and the women’s suffrage movement was in an uproar because women were not invited to attend.

Here is a view where you can see up into the scaffolding of the statue:

The view from the balcony of the pedestal:

…and then down below:

Waving goodbye to her…on to Ellis Island.

It included fascinating first-hand stories from people who came through this room in search for a new life.

Here’s that building from the outside:

Sweet Eli was shivering waiting for us when we got back.  He walked us through Wall Street:

…on to Trinity Church:

…and wait until we finally got on a flight they had told us was cancelled, then not cancelled, and we would have missed our connecting flight if that wasn’t delayed too.

Lots of crazy details in there that no one cares to hear, the bottom line is that the flights home were an adventure in and of themselves!

So grateful to soak up these three middle girls of mine as we got ready to send Elle off on her internship.