NYC trip

Yesterday we got up and headed to New York City for the day.  It was about a three and a half hour drive to get there and then about a two hour drive to go 2 miles once we were in the city.  It turned out that there was some sort of festival and parade going on that we didn’t know about which made traffic even worse than usual.  Our first stop before we hit the traffic was to see the Statue of Liberty.

The city skyline.

By the way, New York traffic makes my butt pucker.  It is far worse from D.C., Boston, and Philly.  The cab drivers are CRAZY too.

And…there are a lot of them.

We finally got to a parking garage so we could walk our way around the city for the rest of the afternoon.  It was 2:00 and we hadn’t eaten lunch yet so we were not only amped up by all the puckering going on, but we were cranky too.  Okay, maybe that was just me.  Adilynn makes me do it (baby’s name).

After we inhaled some gyros and I snapped at Derek for not sharing the other half of Braedon’s hotdog with me ( I told you I was hungry) we checked out Rockefeller Center.

I like the Today Show and usually watch it while I am running on my treadmill in the mornings.  It was a lot smaller than I expected it to be but fun to see where the action takes place.

From there it was on to Time Square.

Time Square was pretty cool.  The amount of people and tall buildings that surround you is just flat out crazy, not to mention the smells.

From Time Square we walked about a mile to Central Park, not without Derek getting a couple high fives and “good work, man!” from a couple street vendors for knocking me up and, “popping them out left and right.”

We spent most of our time in Central Park.  It was a nice day and there was a lot of people out.  We came across a big playground and I think that was the highlight for Braedon.  He got to play in the sand.

Swing.

Slide.

Climb….consider this your 24 week baby bump picture as well.

And just run around like a crazy man.  This kid loves to run!  He will just take off and go.  Actually he has given me about three heart attacks just in the last couple of days.  I think he has noticed I’m getting huge and so he thinks he can outrun me, so the other day we were at the park and out of nowhere he just takes off running towards the busy street.  It catches me off guard and though I still may be faster, I am slowing down and I feel ridiculous because I’m sure my running frantically doesn’t look too graceful.  I try so hard to let him know that I am very mad and running from me, especially into the street, is a big NO NO.  It’s hard though because truthfully I’m more freaked out and shaking than I am mad.  Yesterday was my biggest scare to date.  We were getting ready to leave the restaurant is New York and I was filling up water bottles.  I had Braedon standing with me at my side and kept telling him to stay right there.  He was and I was almost finished when he decided to take off, run straight out the door and onto the sidewalk.  I ran after him and thanked God that he decided to turn left onto the sidewalk instead of go straight into the street.  I wouldn’t have caught him in time if he would have gone straight and my heart still sinks thinking about that situation.  His outcome would have been the same as the squirrel that I saw the other day.  (Anybody have any helpful tips?)

Anyways, now about that restaurant that I mentioned.  We were told by a couple of people that we had to eat at the Shake Shack.  I am so glad we did!!  The best hamburger I have had!  There milkshakes are so good too!!  Now I am probably not the best person to ask for recommendations for good hamburgers though because I rarely eat them and don’t have many other restaurants to compare them to, but they seriously were so good!

Braedon, my almost vegetarian, devoured his if that says anything.

That pretty much sums up our trip.  After dinner we headed back to our Jeep and thankfully it didn’t take nearly as long to get out of the city as it did to get in!

Go

When we were on vacation last week we hit up a lot of the cute local shops since not much else was open.  There were a lot of fun ones so it was pretty enjoyable.  Numerous stores also had a lot of things that Braedon really liked like stuffed animals and other fun toys. 

Whenever Braedon found something he liked he would grab it, take off for the door and say, “go!" 

He did this multiple times and then we would try to explain to him that you can’t just walk out of store with whatever you want without paying first.  That didn’t seem to put a stop to his shoplifting antics.

The makings of a thief?  I sure hope not! 

Unexpected gift

For those of you who follow our blog on a regular basis know that we have had a buffalo living above us for the last year.  Well, he surprised us with a graduation gift today!  I know, nice of him right?  What is this gift you might ask?  Well, I’ll give you a couple hints.  It includes a moving truck and boxes…..

That’s right people!!!  He is moving out today and gave us the gift of quiet for the next two weeks!!!  I don't think he could have gotten us anything better:)

East coast trip

Number of days: 5

Miles traveled: 1200

Hours spent driving: 25

States Visited: 8

Number of toys thrown from the backseat of the car to the front by Mr. Baeo: I don’t know…too many. That kid has a good arm

Spent a couple of nights in Kennebunkport, Maine. Had the best crab cakes ever, a phenomenal lobster roll, and the best fish and chips to date. Got to run along the beach two mornings in a row and explored a few towns (and saw the George H. W. Bush compound aka summer home).

Braedon did a little shopping.

Coffee and juice break. Don’t let this smile fool you. He was a cranky pants.

Derek and Baeo played a little basketball while waiting for lunch.

A little fun in the jetted bathtub.

Second half of our trip was to Cape Code and Martha’s Vineyard.

Stopped in Plymouth on our way and checked out the Mayflower II (replica of the original Mayflower) and Plimoth Rock.

This was a rather short stop because it was very windy and cold and Braedon made it well known that he was not up for a boat tour.

We took the long and scenic route to get to our destination and drove the coast of Massachusetts including a detour up the cape. Along the way we stopped at an awesome beach.

Braedon loves the beach!

We spent the first half of Thursday exploring some of the towns on Martha’s Vineyard, but it was so COLD and WINDY that we cut it short. Not to mention, we were visiting in the off season so a lot of things weren’t open. It was a nice experience though and I’m glad we got to see it. We took a ferry over and walked/rode public transportation around the island.

This is what four days in a row without a nap will do to you.

Not too tired for some cow hugging though.

Don’t we look cold? Too bad I can’t zip up my jacket.

We stayed in Falmouth, which is a town on Cape Cod close to the ferry to Martha's Vineyard so we went back and explored that for the rest of the afternoon. Luckily the clouds disappeared and we were left with sun for the rest of the trip! As a side note, we ate some of the best Mexican food ever which was served by Eastern Europeans without a Mexican in sight and we ended up eating there two nights in a row it was so good.

Braedon tried to steal the flags from the WWll memorial.

The next morning I got up to go for my morning jog and I found a trail that ended up going right next to the ocean. It was the sunniest and nicest day we had so far so I called Derek to have him bring Braedon down to the beach so he could finally put his feet in the Atlantic Ocean for the first time.

Do you see the chip in Braedon’s hand. Yeah, that was from dinner the night before. He carried it around with him the rest of the evening and then asked for it when he woke up the next morning. He finally ate it a little later.

After collecting rocks and shells, we hit up a Starbucks (we had enough fine cuisine and heavy meals so we opted for Starbucks' lighter offerings) and then started our journey back home taking a route through Rhode Island. We are so glad we decided to go that way because it was beautiful. I think Rhode Island may be my favorite eastern state.

We were just way too excited to find another gorgeous beach.

More shell collecting occurred.

We stopped and saw a The Breakers, which was a summer house that the Vanderbilt's built in the late 1800s, along with many other beautiful and gigantic homes.

A very fun detour to Rhode Island!

After going through a couple more states and about 6 hours later, we made it home.

A very fun vacation indeed!