This crazy idea had been brewing for a while in my mind. Honestly, it's been brewing for 8 years after a not so great go around for Jimmy's 40 birthday. I read back over my blog post from 8 years ago and while the pictures painted a fun, relaxed time what I didn't say was I was 14 weeks pregnant and started "spotting" the night we got to NYC. I panicked (shocking) and called my doctor who told me to locate local hospitals just in case and then spent the next few days terrified and hardly moving. We cancelled all of our dinner reservations, and changed our plans from miles and miles of walking, to riding and seeing the sights of Manhattan on a double decker bus and a horse and buggy in Central Park. So many things we just weren't able to do after that little scare. Wasn't quite the baby moon/ 40th birthday celebration we had planned, but THANKFULLY 8 years later, the little nugget that caused all that trouble is a healthy, beautiful 7 year old that couldn't wait to see the big city from the outside this time.
I have been wanting to take the kids back and while Jimmy would have rather gone and done ANYTHING else, he obliged. Safe to say that was most definitely Jimmy's last trip to the big apple. ha!
This was the first time Keatyn remembers flying. She was a baby when we flew to Disney. Alarms rang loud at 4 a.m. on Monday morning and we flew out of Chattanooga airport (SO easy!!) at 6:10 bound for Newark, NJ.
The kids always complain that the only states they've been to are Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. Well... now they can add New Jersey and New York to that list!
I told them before we left, we would probably take every mode of transportation at some point on this trip. We rode the AirTrain into Manhattan from the Newark airport and actually went under the Hudson River. We popped up right in the middle of it all at Penn Station during Monday morning rush hour and walked out to see Madison Square Garden. Let the games begin...
Check in wasn't until 4p.m. and it was 9 a.m. so I figured we would leave our luggage at the hotel and head out to see the sights. When we walked into the Kimberly Hotel she said, "It's your lucky day, your room is ready!" Nice! We got settled, rested a minute and then the kids and I hit up the rooftop deck for some free pastries and tea. (Anything you come across in NYC that's FREE is a must do! :)
The beautiful fish tank in the lobby.
We set out and took a cab to the Empire State building. Before noon that day we had been on an airplane, an airtrain, and a NYC taxi cab.
It was hot. HOT. Apparently, NYC was having a rare heat wave with humidity off the charts. Shew... we were used to it in the south but I kept thinking the north was supposed to be cold! We knew we had to pace ourselves and took taxis when we probably could have walked due to the heat.
When we got to the Empire State Building we saw the line... oh the line. And the AC was out in the waiting area. Jimmy asked a guard and he said the line to go to the top was at least 75 minutes and that they had apparently lost power to the air conditioning. Well, dad came through and promptly upgraded our tickets to VIP and we were whisked into an elevator and straight to the top. This was the 86th floor, the one you see in all the movies.
And then, we got to go to the very tip top, the 102nd floor. Uh, dad, do I even want to know how much you paid to upgrade our tickets and skip this line?!? I warned the kiddos not to get used to this VIP treatment because we WERE NOT doing this at every sightseeing stop. Anyway, a fun way to kick off the trip and Jimmy scored major cool points for making us VIPs.
This was a teeny tiny view area that was air conditioned and offered amazing views of NYC!
Trace had a major crush on Emma Watson, so we had to get a picture of him with her at the Empire State Building. Ha!
Then we took a taxi down to Chelsea Piers where we saw the golf ball driving range that you hit into nets on the Hudson River. Pretty cool place!
I had been told that if we get to Chelsea, we have to walk the Hi Line. It's now a walkway/park built over the old train tracks that run through Chelsea. We were in desperate need of food and AC by that time, so we walked for a while and then finally found a place to eat.
The Cookshop in Chelsea... $120 later for 4 hamburgers, we decided 4:00 a.m. had come early and we were ready to head back to the hotel and crash.
We got back to the hotel and hit the bed early. It was a fantastic but HOT first day in the Big Apple!
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