Mr. & Mrs. Vandebilt + kids

A trip up the east coast wouldn’t be complete without a stop in the Big Apple. Cities are not necessarily my thing, but NYC has always been one of my favourites. There’s just something about it. It’s not even necessarily the recognizable landmarks or the stuff you can do, it’s the energy and the feel of the city. Plus it’s my birthday! And NYC seems like a fun place to spend the day.

We arrived in the city quite late at night. Our hotel Im was only a few blocks away from time square. So despite the kids being exhausted and it being quite chilly we set out to see the lights. After about 10 minutes even Charlie had had enough of the lights and tv screens and we headed for home.

We had a relatively full day planned for NYC. We wanted to show the kids the major recognizable sights. We headed out first thing in the morning to grab some cookies for breakfast! Back to Times Square to appreciate it in the daylight and then we spent some time at the M&M store. By the time we were done there it had started to rain. We still wanted to check off a few more places (Central Park, Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building) but wandering around getting soaking wet didn’t seem like a whole lot of fun. Instead we bought passes for the big city bus and toured around to try and catch a glimpse of some things.

We hopped off at battery park to try and see lady liberty through the fog. It didn’t seem worth the price of admission onto an Ellis island tourist ferry or the couple hours it would take to sail to staten island and back to get a slightly closer look. So we trekked down in the rain waved at her in the foggy distance and hopped back on the subway.

By now we were all pretty hungry. We had originally thought about going to a Benihana for supper. We thought it would be something fun and different for the kids. Instead though, we realized that since there is a pretty significant Korea town in NYC we would be able to go out for Korean bbq. I can’t think of anything I would want more for a birthday dinner! I was like a child at Christmas. Completely giddy. We left completely stuffed to go have a little nap at the hotel before the final festivities.

The birthday celebration ended with us heading to Broadway to see the phantom of the opera. Ironically, Jacob and I had talked about how much I wanted to see phantom someday. So it just seemed fitting that since we happened to be in NYC on my birthday that now was as good a time as any to make that wish come true. The kids were definitely the youngest in attendance but they did great. There were a lot of questions, Nora in particular was very concerned with the ghost was. So concerned in fact that she shouted a few times when she finally did spot him, much to the amusement of the family in front of us.