Wednesday, January 7, 2015

NYC & Darrell's Birthday

For the New Year holiday (well, a few days beforehand) we headed up to Pennsylvania to my oldest brother's house (Darrell).  We left directly from the church the Sunday after Christmas.  We were able to drive to his house without any stops and made great time--4 hours and 55 minutes!  Our fastest yet!

We had previously talked about going into New York City with Darrell and Lois and families, but decided not to because of the possible cold and rainy weather.  Darrell looked at the weather again Sunday night and it looked as if it would be in the low 40s, high 30s with no rain.  He decided to go ahead and go in. Plus it was his birthday that Monday and the birthday boy gets a say! They live about an hour and a half from NYC, which is pretty cool!  So close! 

We took off Monday morning to head into the big apple.  Traffic wasn't bad at all!  One of our first glimpses of the city that particular day.  None of our kids have been to NYC, let along New York state, so it was fun to mark this state of their list.  (I have only two more states to visit! Got to get my kids to more states though!)
Dec 29 2014 NYC Trip

We headed to Manhattan via the Lincoln Tunnel, and exited that way too.  We were able to follow Darrell all the way to the parking garage, no problems.

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The main stop for the day was the Museum of Natural History.  This is the museum that was used in "Night at the Museum".  Though, I think the actual museum/building in the movie is a completely different place!  We did get to see some of the same displays found the in the movie, which was fun.
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We waited by this fella while Darrell purchased tickets.  Tickets are donation based.  The lady at the desk told Darrell he could pay $0.01 per ticket if he wanted.  He was more generous than that though, ha ha.  It was great that he went ahead and "bought" tickets for all of us.  Thanks Darrell!
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The museum is huge!  We saw quite a few displays but missed some too.  Just need to go another time, right? By the pictures I'm sure you'll get the gist on your own of what we saw without further explanation on my part.
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A model of a blue whale in one room.  It was huge.  Not sure what face Shanna is making, ha ha.
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Clark, your expression is priceless! Ha, ha, ha...
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Yep, I was there!
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A piece from a redwood tree or a sequoia tree.  I would love to go to the Sequoia National Park sometime.
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Shanna wanted me to take pictures of her if you hadn't noticed yet.....
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For lunch we walked a few minutes over to the local park.  Central Park actually!  There was a big boulder/stone/rock outcropping.  The kids loved it.
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In the pavilion right next to us a wedding was in progress.  We clapped and cheered when they were done with the ceremony and kissed (the other people in the party did the same so I didn't feel bad chiming in).  It was pretty chilly out.  I bet the bride was FREEZING!  There was a lady standing up on the rocks next to us that was engaged in that same area in Central Park.  She was there showing her girls the place she was engaged, so it was also fun that a wedding was going on too!  
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Great view of the skyline at this spot!
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Since we had our tickets with us we were able to go in a "back" door of the museum, after a short walk back from Central Park.
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We saw the replica of the Easter Island statue--another place I want to visit in person (Easter Island that is).  That and Stone Henge.
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The kids were pretty tired out by the end of our visit there.
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Darrell drove over to 5th Avenue so we could see some of the Christmas decorations. 
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Driving there was crazy, of course.  We had no problem following Darrell to the parking garage. But once we got over to 5th Avenue, that all changed.  Lee was a champ through it all and left the city in a good mood, even when I was bugging him about letting cars in front of us putting further space between us and Darrell, and later us and Lois.  We ended up loosing both of them. Fortunately, we had our handy atlas and didn't really have any problems getting off Manhattan and found our way over to the Lincoln Tunnel again.  I really wanted to see Times Square, but Darrell didn't want to drive by it.  Well, the way we left we ended up driving by it anyway!  New York City is definitely better seen on foot.  We took an anniversary trip there two years ago, and I want to do another one there!
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Leaving the city behind.  Funny enough, soon after we went through the toll station for Lincoln Tunnel, we saw Darrell again!  What are the odds?!
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On our way back we stopped by Halo Farm.  Talk about delicious milk!  Their chocolate milk and eggnog is heavenly!  I didn't get a picture while we were there.  We did buy pints of ice cream, letting the kids each pick out their own.  Thankfully we had been following Darrell after we saw him after the Lincoln Tunnel toll...it just made it so easy to follow him to the dairy farm than try and navigate ourselves with my phone.  Which we totally can do.  We done a bit of traveling if you've read my blog for awhile.  But I must say, I do like following people and letting them lead the way!

That night we celebrated Darrell's birthday as he turned the big 4-1! 
Dec 29 2014 Darrell 41st birthday

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Stacie bought him these fun slippers.  Darrell's youngest girl was having so much fun with them.
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Darrell donned the puffy orange slippers and his over-sized sunglasses.  No better way to end the birthday of a 41 year-old!
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That night we watched Night at the Museum.  It was fun seeing the same exhibits in the movie that we saw in real life.  Also, they shot a scene in Central Park with the same rock outcroppings that we were at for lunch! Pretty fun!  It was also so cute hearing the kids giggle and laugh during the movie.  They especially liked when the Roman soldier and western cowboy hooked themselves up with a remote controlled Hummer.  Or some sort of SUV.  Happy Birthday Darrell!  It was a fantastic day!

1 comment:

Nostrebor said...

Yeah, that picture of Clark at the sperm whale and giant squid is pretty funny!