I found out about a month ago that I needed to go to New York for work so Craig and I thought, why not make it a weekend trip? Craig's parents and his sister were so awesome and watched the boys so we could sneak a fun getaway in before baby girl's arrival!
We had the most amazing weekend and we absolutely LOVE NEW YORK!!! If you haven't been, go!! Not sure I could ever live there but an amazing place to visit!
We got in Wed night and we headed out to Long Island where my training was being held. Thursday morning Craig headed into the city while I worked all day in Long Island. Craig rode the Staten Island ferry to see the Statue of Liberty, walked to Wall Street, checked out SoHo and walked and walked and walked (with a few stops in Irish pubs for some Guinesses!) I arrived on a train Thursday night and we went back to our hotel, changed and headed to Little Italy for a late night dinner!
Our hotel, the Yale Club, was right next to Grand Central Station so it was absolutely perfect for getting around. Here we are on our way to dinner. It is Grand Central's 100th anniversary this year, such a beautiful place!
Friday morning we had to hit up this famous place... I must say we were both disappointed and really didn't like the coffee. Not sure what the hype is about? Oh well :)
Checking out Rockefeller Center
Giant Lego store right next to Rockefeller that Chase would have died over!
St. Patrick's Cathedral.
Under renovation but you could still go in and it was amazing! Felt like we were in Europe.
Lighting a few candles for baby girl!
FAO Schwartz, only $250,000 if you want to take home the life sized Big Piano!
We spent about 4 hours walking through Central Park and stumbling upon all kinds of things. It was beautiful and I think the highlight of the trip for both of us. The sun even came out a little for us while walking through!
Castle in Central Park
How amazing would it be to see a concert in that stadium behind me in the summer?!
After walking through Central Park we were dying to have a piece of New York pizza. Craig found this place on his phone and it is definitely one of the best slices of pizza I have ever had!!
The freezing temps made me crave some hot chocolate so we ducked into a little market and this is what we found. Craig was making fun of me for taking a picture but seriously, could their hot chocolate be any cuter? All of the markets are sooo nice! The hot chocolate was amazing by the way, spiced with cinnamon and chili powder - yum yum!
A market at Grand Central station, I couldn't get over how nice all of these were! Not sure if this is where people do their grocery shopping, that was one thing we couldn't figure out about the city...where did people buy massive amounts of groceries or diapers, etc, lol! I guess they don't?
After walking around the city all day, we went back to our hotel to get dolled up for the show we were going to that night. We got ready and then headed to the lounge for a quick cocktail (or mocktail for me!)
Walking through Times Square on our way to see Jersey Boys!
Craig got a glass of wine at the show and they give it to you in a sippie cup - awesome! Haha! We brought it home and Brady thinks it is the best souvenir ever :)
Amazing, amazing show - loved it!!
Saturday was the big St Paddies Day celebration in New York. We were going to head to Brooklyn early but while we were grabbing breakfast we got so intrigued by all the action in the city that we decided to stay and watch a bit of the parade before heading out. The city attracted a TON of young kids ready to party! We saw kids opening beers in the street and girls carrying around family sized jugs of orange juice, yea because that's normal and not obvious - haha!
Stumbled across some bagpipes practicing in the streets - seriously such an amazing sound of the bagpipes blaring off the buildings! I got a great video of the music too!
Parade Time
After watching the parade for a bit we headed to Brooklyn. Look at the madness in Grand Central with all the kids!
We took the subway a lot! So easy to use. Not sure I would ride it alone late at night but I felt safe with Craig the whole time we were there.
Once we got to Brooklyn, we found the bridge and started the hike across back into the city. I would HIGHLY recommend doing this and it was for sure another major highlight of our trip! The views were spectacular!
Had to take a picture of this random merry-go-round.....it's in a glass box, so weird!
After we crossed the bridge, we were close to the financial district so we headed over to Ground Zero to see the memorial. The memorial is beautiful and very touching but right now the process of getting in to see it is a bit of a pain. You have to go get tickets (for free) at the memorial building. Then you have to walk a few blocks to the memorial and get in line. They scan your ticket, then you go through airport security (metal detectors, coats off, bags in buckets that go through a scanner, the whole 9 yards), then you get back in line and they scan your ticket at 2 more checkpoints THEN you are finally in. It took about an hour for the whole process so it was a but much BUT the memorial itself is very beautiful!
New freedom tower being built
One of the two pools that sit on the footprints of the buildings. It is really hard to imagine as you sit there what it looked like on 9/11, such a sad and gut wrenching moment. They have done a beautiful job though and have the names of all the victims carved into the railings around the pools.
Garden between the 2 pools. They have planted a ton of trees and there is a museum building but it isn't finished yet.
After we visited Ground Zero, we hopped a subway back to midtown and found a pizza place right by our hotel and waited for Dan & Chandra to arrive!!! I took a picture of just the pizza but then the guy working there made me take another one with him in it - haha!
How cute is this guy?! So excited for me to take a picture of his St Paddies pizza :)
And they had green beer - score!
Then we got to meet up with them!!! Chandra, Dan & Ciaran made the trip in from Boston to spend the afternoon with us! It was sooo amazing to see them and we had a great time together, despite the horrible weather! We went back to FAO so Ciaran could play around inside!
Man I have missed this girl!!! xoxo
We headed to West Village to check out the neighborhood and ended up finding a cute Italian restaurant to eat in. We couldn't beleive how great Ciaran did at dinner, sat there for like 2 hours just entertaining himself and eating a truckload of pasta - such a cutie! West Village was a cute residential area, row houses like you see in Sex in the City :)
After dinner we got a nightcap at a bar near Grand Central before they had to catch the train.
The shot Craig was determined to make Dan take with him, against Dan's protests - lol! Who ended up buying it and making it happen though? Chandra! Lol - his own wife turned against him :)
We headed back to our hotel after they left but decided we still weren't tired so we headed to one more tourist spot to finish off our trip - Serendipity! We got frozen hot chocolates and although it was fun to try it, this is definitely a tourist thing :) As soon as we were sat we both felt like a truck hit us so we just kind of chilled, drank a little and then wanted to get to sleep!
We left Sunday morning and although it was hard to leave, it was great to get home to the boys! We definitely had an amazing time in New York and we can't wait to go back!!!
