NYC

Chuck's sister, Joy, has a couple internships in New York City for the summer, so in early June we flew out there to meet up with her for a long weekend. His mom flew out from Texas to meet us as well. It was a fun-filled weekend that went by so quickly! We stayed in Manhattan at a hotel with suprisingly large rooms, although not much time was spent at the hotel! When we arrived at the hotel, we were greeted by Chuck's mom and Joy and a little pink present for our little girl!

Friday night, we browsed the neighborhood where we were staying (Murray Hill) and ate at Pompano, a deliciously modern Mexican restaurant with amazing margaritas- or so I'm told!

On Saturday we took the subway out to the Bronx to catch the Yankees game- we kind of felt like real New Yorkers!! With Joy's great subway-navigating skills, we never got lost! The Yankees put on a great performance, and while we couldn't bring ourselves to buy any Yankee memorabilia to replace our White Sox stuff, we did help cheer them on to a victory. Later Saturday night, we headed to Hell's Kitchen for dinner and then went back to the hotel for some much-needed sleep!

In the middle of New York, the first concession stand we saw once we entered the stadium was a place called Popcorn, Indiana!

The ARMY Golden Knights parachuted into the stadium!

On Sunday, family friends Stu and Sherri along with their daughter Danielle met us in the city for a late brunch. Luckily, the native New Yorkers didn't mind that the restaurant we decided to go to was a total tourist spot- Serendipity! It was their first experience there and I think they were a little overwhelmed by the large, sugar-loaded frozen hot chocolates! That was definitely a highlight of the trip for a pregnant gal! :)

Sunday afternoon, we headed to Battery Park to board a cruise headed to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. It was starting to rain at this point and we weren't going to have much time to visit both places, so we took photos of Lady Liberty from the boat and opted to use the rest of our cruise time by taking the full tour of Ellis Island. If you have never visited Ellis Island, I HIGHLY recommend it!! What an amazing experience...the number of immigrants who passed through the same building where we were walking around in order to start their lives in America is almost surreal.

There was money called "KRONE" in the currency section at Ellis Island! Unfortunately, I couldn't read the language on the note to see what type of currency it was.

It wouldn't be a complete trip to New York City without going to some kind of show! On Sunday night, we headed out to see Avenue Q. The Tony Awards were going on simultaneously a few blocks away at Radio City Music Hall, but we didn't have any cool celeb spottings. Avenue Q was hilarious- definitely appropriate for adult eyes and ears only!! We ended the night with a stroll- if you can call it that- through Times Square. I suppose it's not much of a stroll though when you're constantly being bumped and prodded by a hundred people within a 5-foot radius. Still, there's never a dull moment or lack of things to do, see, hear, or smell when walking around Times Square! Talk about sensory overload!

Monday morning ended our trip as we had to get up early and head to the airport. After checking in for our flight, we had some time to shop and made our first purchases for the baby!