Our first day in NYC! Our hotel's courtyard had this giant watering can and these huge pillows to sit on, it was cool! We went to play in Central Park. After our overnight flight we were very tired, the boys are so cute napping on the bed. They had a nice long nap while I met with a journalist from New Yorker Magazine for an interview about adoption. She is not sure yet if she is going to do a feature article in the magazine or a book (I think I gave her WAY more information than she knew what to do with :0). The writer (Larissa) was so cool, if we ever moved to NYC (which I would love, but can't afford), we would totally be "buddies".
TIMES SQUARE
It was very warm in NY (they had to "de-ice" the plane here in Utah before we could take off). I checked the weather report and was prepared for the nice weather, the boys on the other hand did not believe me and packed long sleeves and sweaters. We did what any self respecting NYC tourists would do... we bought I love NY shirts from a street vendor :0) My kids walked around definitely looking like tourists, it was very funny. Whenever I go to NYC I ride the subway almost everywhere, I only grab a cab when I am to lazy to walk to the next subway station :0). The people at the agency in NY were so impressed that we rode the subway everywhere, I thought that was funny. I guess visitors usually take taxis everywhere, if you ever visit NY take the subway! It is cheap, simple, and goes almost everywhere (we rode it from the Upper East Side all the way to Brooklyn). It really isn't scary at all, the picture of the boys in front of the Alice in Wonderland tile mural is on one of the platforms... how scary can it be? :0)
No trip to the big apple would not be complete without a hot dog from a street vendor, a trip to Bloomingdales, Dylan's Candy Bar and Serendipity 3 for the famous frozen hot chocolate... yummy! We went to the adoption agency for a visit with Josh's birth mom. The lady in the picture holding Josh is the social worker at Spence Chapin that placed both Hailey and Josh with us, we LOVE Gretchen!
We took a ride on the Staten Island Ferry, best deal ever! You go right past the Statue of Liberty (which by the way is very cool, but if you don't like stairs, I would just ride by it on a boat :0). The Circle Line boats do tours but the Staten Island Ferry is FREE! You just go to Staten Island, get off, walk around to the other side, get back on and ride back. When the ferry boat drivers are not running the boats into the building :0) it is great fun! We went to Grand Central Station, FAO Schwarz, The Upper West side (my absolute favorite part of Manhattan!), Zabar's, Chinatown and Rockefeller Center.
Cody Joe just HAD to go to the NBA store on 5th Ave. It is like his "mother ship" :0). This is the day that we went down to Brooklyn to visit Josh's birth mom, her sisters, and her mom. It was funny to walk through the area of Brooklyn that she lives, we were THE ONLY white people, I am not exaggerating! I was raised in a much more diverse environment so I actually have been the only white person in a room before :0) but I think that it was REALLY good for Andrew and Cody Joe to look around and see what it feels like to be the minority for once. It gave them a slight taste of what it must be like to live in Utah County and be black :0). When we got home, Krista and Hailey had to go through all of our suitcases to make sure that we brought back plenty of souveniers, we did. I had to buy a suitcase in New York to get everything home and this did not include the giant FedEx box that I sent home all of our dirty laundry in :0) We had a very fun trip!
