NYC

First, a funny piece of advertising in the mail from Walmart promoting their vision center and the independent eye doctors.  Pretty funny since Lee is an independent doctor there and Walmart spelled my name wrong!


Second, our trip to NYC!!!  This trip has been in the works since the beginning of the year I think!  My brother Darrell warned us not to go to NYC on a holiday weekend, but it couldn't have worked better!  Maybe it helped that we went on the Saturday before Memorial Day, and not Memoral Day itsself? The main thing I was worried about was getting a parking spot (only $8 for the whole day!) for the Staten Island Ferry.  We left pretty early--about 6:30 from Darrell's in PA. We were pretty beat as we didn't get to Darrell's till about 1am that same morning.  He is only about 2 hours from the NYC action.  There is a parking lot right next to the building to catch the free Staten Island Ferry, which would take us to lower Manhattan.  We arrived about 8:15ish--and got great parking!--and made the 8:30 ferry.  Nice!  That was my one requirement for the day...to get great parking.

We had a fun ride on the ferry.  Cal was quite apprehensive about going on the boat and worried about it sinking.  We are planning on a family cruise in a few years, so it was nice for him to see what it would be like being on a boat.  And the cruise ship would be even more smooth riding.




Something I love about the Staten Island ferry is that you can see the Statue of Liberty.  Someday we'll go there where everyone is tall enough to go to the very top.  But seeing it on a ferry is almost as good!  I remember visiting the Statue of Liberty when I was younger.










We made it! 




First stop, visiting the grounds at the 9-11 Memorial. 
















Selfie action!


Gathering in more people...


Next we got on the subway to head north to the Grand Central Station.  I am so glad Lee and I ventured around NYC by ourselves a couple of years ago.  It made the subway not too bad this time. By the way, DC's Metro system is much more user friendly!!!










When we exited the subway at Grand Central we went out this small exit. I was expecting something GRAND!  After walking around a little, we finally found the grand-ness I was imagining!




This Apple store was just up the stairs on a landing in the open atrium.  Pretty fun.




The Empire State Building.  We didn't go to it, but just wanted to see it. 


This place had an eye ball purse.  Should have taken a picture!


We ventured over to the Rockefeller Center. St. Peter's Cathedral.


After lunch we hit up the Lego store to browse.




They had some Mixels on sale for $2.50 each!  We bought all the kids one.








A familiar site--NBC studios.




Times Square!






We stopped at McDonald's for ice cream.  Can't beat a $1 treat in NYC.




We had a choice between Hershy World and M&M World (or whatever the names of the stores are...)  We picked the M&M store since we've been to Hershey, PA before. 


We didn't get anything here.  The M&Ms were $13.99 a POUND!  CRAZY!  We did get to sample some free hot chocolate--hot chocolate similar to what people would have drunk back in either the 1800s or 1700s.




We headed back to St. Peter's again.  When I saw that they were checking bags, I didn't want to deal with that so we just peeked in a little.






Back on the subway to head to PA!






Goodbye NYC!  We had a lovely time.






The kids were wiped out.