Weekend in NYC..final post!

 We had a late flight on Monday so had some time to spend in the city before we had to go to the airport.  Thankfully, we could leave our luggage at the hotel while we were out.  We went to the Museum of Natural History and walked around there for a little while, the place is huge and we only saw a fraction of all that was there.  It was really impressive. 

 Of course we stopped at our usual bagel place for breakfast and also went to the Broadway store and took some hokey tourist pictures on our way to the subway to the museum...

 After we left the museum we bought some snacks from a street vendor, I finally got a knish and it was great!  Then we walked around another section of Central Park that we hadn't been in yet.  The snow was melting but that didn't stop the kids from having a snowball fight.  The weather was overcast but about 50 degrees so it was very pleasant which was good since Hannah fell in a pond while we were there. 

 We found this beautiful place to sit and look at a view of the city and an iced over pond.  Hannah thought she could stand on the ice and very quickly found out that she couldn't.  She fell in about waist deep and had to walk back to the subway in very wet pants and shoes.  Thank goodness it wasn't freezing out.  It scared me to death but we quickly recovered and had a good laugh about it.  Grace has the BEST video of it!

After Hannah fell into the pond at Central Park it was time to go back to the hotel and change clothes and begin our journey to the airport.  We were a little less sure of what we were doing this time but managed to figure it all out.  We took the subway to the station closest to the airport and then got a cab from there. 

It was a wonderful weekend and I am so thankful that we were able to do this.  While on the plane I made a list of what all we did over the weekend (see below), we definitely made the most of our time! 

Weekend in NYC...continued again

 Sunday morning we slept a little later but eventually got up and went to the bagel shop again for breakfast and then to Times Square to meet up with Hannah and Grace's cruise friends that were joining us in the city for the day.  Hannah had three friends, Sam, Lauren and Meghan that rode the train into the city and Grace had two friends, Nick and Isabel (twins) who drove into the city with their parents.  We all stayed together for a little while and walked to Rockefeller Center (where Anabel and Tobi caught up with us) and then into St. Patrick's Cathedral and then over to Central Park.  It eventually became too stressful to all stay together so Hannah and Devin went with her friends and Grace, Chris and I went with Grace's friends.  It worked out great and we all had a great day.  Hannah and her group at lunch near Lincoln Center and hung out at some of her friends' favorite places.  Ralph and Laura (Nick and Isabel's parents) turned out to be great tour guides.  All of the pictures below are all out of order but oh well...

 Above is Big Bird just sitting alone in the park.  He had a couple of puppets and was playing with them at one point but mostly he was just sitting there...Below, a couple of selfies of our group walking through Central Park before we all split up.

 Ralph went and got the car and picked us up and we drove to Greenwich Village for some New York pizza that did not disappoint!  After lunch we walked to a pub called The Slaughtered Lamb.  It had some very interesting decor and apparently is a super popular place at night.  Chris and I had Irish coffees (coffee with Irish cream) and we enjoyed the atmosphere and chatting with Ralph and Laura.  From there we got back in the car and went to Max Brenner's chocolate restaurant where we got the best hot chocolate ever to drink while we drove over the Brooklyn Bridge.  We made it to Queens just in time to see the sun set over the city and it was just beautiful!  We stayed about a half hour and in that time saw a beautiful sunset and then the lights of the city.  Then they drove us back to Times Square where we met back up with Hannah and Devin for dinner at Ellen's Stardust Diner.  The waiters and waitresses are all incredibly talented people hoping for their chance to be on Broadway and in addition to serving food and all that waiters and waitresses do...they also take turns singing show tunes.  We were totally entertained and had a great time.  They were all so good!  After dinner, we decided to try to get into Black Tap again so we found our way there (we got very good at navigating the subway system!) and the wait was only about an hour and a half so we decided to stay.  The milkshakes were totally worth the wait, they were huge and delicious and just fun as you can tell from the pictures!  We made it back to the hotel around midnight but before the sugar crash and fell into bed exhausted after another day in the city.