Livin' the Dream: New York Part 3

Wow...this was going to be the final chapter, but there's just too much! I guess that is the sign of a really good trip.

Saturday morning, I took P and E into the city on the train. We walked to Rockefeller Center, but first Parker had to show off his Rockette kick in front of radio city.

I don't remember a big Lego store in Rockefeller before, but here it was. Someone was pleasantly surprised.

I love the "Yellow Man Group"

After enjoying that, I did come across the shoe ferris wheel at Sax. Love it.

Stepped into St. Paul's Cathedral. I forget how amazing it is.

Had to take a "Breakfast at Tiffany's" shot for Grandma. I can't tell you how fun it was to stroll down 5th ave with my kids. So fun.

We rolled into FAO Schwartz to see the fun. They are super friendly, as they should be. They were letting kids make their own Lego soldiers to keep for free.

You can have a Muppet commissioned for a few hundred bucks.

Emi had her only "teary" moment in FAO as we were leaving. She really wanted to buy something with her allowance, but couldn't decide. So she found a small adorable stuffed monkey. Hallelujah. I talked the sales guy into giving her the big FAO bag. She really wanted to have a shopping bag on 5th Ave. I may love her more now than ever and it's nice to see my genes pop out on this kid.

Then we headed over to Central Park, stopping for some "dirty dogs" and pretzels for lunch. Oh yes...and a red gatorade. Remember this.

The leaves were floating down from the trees, the sun was shining, perfect temperature, not too crowded......Yum! One of my favorite New York moments ever ( I have a whole bunch, though). The kids spent a long time climbing rocks. Emi's got her hands up at the top.

I really wanted to get them up to Bethesda Fountain, but knew we were short on time and had to conserve our walking energy. So, I hailed over our new friend the "Serbian Pink-Shirt Pedicab Man" to help us out. Expensive, yes, but I could add that to our transportation list.

Fountain!

It's about now where the red gatorade hits Parker, despite my warning that there was no bathroom in the park. We had tickets for the 9/11 memorial and had to get down there. We exited the park and found no restroom. Hit the subway, no restroom. I could have sworn the kid was going to lose it right there on the train (probably wouldn't be the first). The train had to stop for awhile as well because of a problem at the end of the line. Luckily, we got off the train in lower Manhattan and found a coffee shop. He made a little bit of a scene getting to the bathroom. Oh well.

Lower Manhattan makes NO sense streetwise, but we found the 9/11 memorial. It's hard to get the free tickets, but I luckily got 3 for us. Major security, as you can imagine, but it was worth it.

It's extremely peaceful.

I thought this was sweet.

This tree survived and they've nursed it back to health.

So, after that, thinking it would be a quick jaunt to the Brooklyn Bridge to meet my bro's family, we started walking again. It wasn't so short and we were late, so I hailed myself a cab. Woohoo! Another transportation!

The Newman's...the perfect hosts.