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!