Decorate Your Soul

Before we left for New York, Andy and  I both made lists of places we would like to visit with the girls in New York. Some of them made the cut, others of them got drafted to the next time we visit category (and we both hope it won’t be another 9 years before we visit again!). For me, visiting the spot where the Twin Towers once stood was a non-negotiable. I had visited this place in 2000, just one year before the tragic events of 9/11/01. I remember very clearly walking around the mall at the bottom of the World Trade Center debating whether to buy a purple pea coat from GAP that I would never wear for $89 or not. For those that care, I passed. And as silly as it sounds, that is my only recollection of the building pre-9/11, which isn’t much, but is some.

The area that remains is a large hole in the financial district where sunshine graces the floor. There are a few cranes, yards and yards of fences and many banners advertising the new memorial to come. I could not begin to fathom what that day brought to the city, to this area, to the families affected.

Down the street some, there was a 9/11 remembrance stop that we ducked into. It has a pictorial rendition of the events that occurred that fateful day. A moment that brought tears to my eyes was seeing the ephemera of notes and photos on this makeshift memorial representing many firefighters that had lost their lives fighting to free many more. When I saw a man’s wedding band at the foot of this statue, my tears welled over. It was well worth the stop to remember our fallen heroes.

While in the financial district, I made Andy visit the famous bull for his obligatory photo (all decked out for Christmas, nice!):

Since we were visiting the city right after the big blizzard, snow on the sides of the road were plentiful. Here’s Sarah enjoying a good old fashioned snowball fight- right there in the city!

In order to get everything in we wanted to do (and keep the girls warm!), Andy masterminded this great plan: travel, walk a little, do an indoor activity and then back to traveling. So, we’d walk, take the subway, walk, take the subway etc. The girls LOVED the subway.

And they loved being indoors! Each day we had at least one hot chocolate, but on this very special day, we waited (and waited) at the famous Serendipity for one of these special treats- a frozen hot chocolate:

Luckily Dylan’s Candy Bar was just down the street so we popped into there while Andy and Lolo held our places in the line for Serendipity. The girls thought it was fantastic. Okay, so did I.

Just around the corner off 5th Ave. was FAO Schwarz, a great distraction from the cold– for at least three hours. We gave it probably one, but there was an entire floor we didn’t even visit! We arrived there just in time for two employees to display how the BIG piano works. Then they welcomed the kids on to perform for us. I so wanted to strip my shoes off and jump on, it looked like SO much fun:

Around the corner is one outdoor stop I’d like to visit with a few more degrees warming the air, but we made do and the girls had a blast at Central Park:

This sign made me laugh out loud:Our only family photo that we didn’t pay for:

We were very touristy in our visit- neither Andy nor I had ever been to the Empire State Building, so we went to the 86th floor to see the city lights at night. Impressive, New York, impressive:

It sure was chilly on the viewing deck, so we headed back down to the street level and saw this on Christmas Eve Eve:

On the evening of Christmas Eve, we found ourselves at Time Square with about a million other people, eating from a hot dog cart and visiting Toys ‘R Us. It was pure craziness. This was our last sight from Manhattan as we headed back to our hotel on Staten Island. I didn’t even mention that we got to take the ferry in and out every day and pass the Statue of Liberty. No one minded except when we were five-ten minutes late for the ferry. Or as Andy said, just 20 minutes early for the next one. ha.

In the end, NYC is doable with three kids if you’re willing to hunt for bathrooms along your route, squash between hundreds of people and put up with long lines and sometimes, rude folks. We had an amazing experience and everyone we asked in the subway or on streets were more than willing to help with directions. New Yorkers get a bad rep, I think.

We absolutely can’t wait to visit the city again and check off a few more life experiences!