New York

This past weekend our family took a weekend trip up to NY. To say we had a phenomenal time would be an understatement. We caught the Amtrak train out of Baltimore and took a lovely 3 hour train ride into Penn station. Catching a taxi, we headed to our hotel in Times Square. After checking in and dropping off our bags, we headed out to grab some lunch.

I had read the scathing reviews  on Guy Fieri's new restaurant, Guy's American Kitchen & Bar in Times Square and decided I had to see for myself if it was in fact, the worst food ever. We were seated immediately and perused the menu. Connor got the Bacon,Chicken,Mac and Cheese. This of course, is because it contains 3 of his favorite foods; pasta, cheese, and bacon. We all sampled and agreed it was delectable. Scott got the Unyawns Cajun Chicken Ciabatta, which I tasted and thought was yummy. Jessica ordered the Pulled Pork Trio plate as it was served on Hawaiian rolls. The rolls are one of her favorites. I ordered the Pulled Pork Bahn Mi and it was delish. Bottom line, we loved it and thought the food was great. I guess even bad publicity is still free publicity.

After lunch, we strolled around Times Square. We went to Toys R Us, The M&M store, the Hershey store and just enjoyed the sights and sounds of downtown NY. We found a Capezio dance shop and purchased some jazz shoes Jessica needed for her play. Then we made our way to Radio City Music Hall where we saw the Radio City Christmas Spectacular Featuring the Rockettes. It was a great show. Surprisingly, the theatre was mostly empty but I guess that is because it was still considered "off season" since it was before Christmas. After the show, we walked around and made our way back to Times Square. We had some hot chocolate and pretzels and just people watched for a while. We saw a Naked Cowboy, not to be confused with THE Naked Cowboy. My kids just laughed at the sight of this guy with his boots, guitar, hat, and tighty whitey undies standing there in the freezing cold. I admit, I laughed too. It's one thing in June but the middle of November is another matter completely! BRRRRR!!!

Saturday morning we grabbed some McDonald's breakfast on the go and made our way down to the pier via the Subway for our 10:00 boat tour of NY. We, and about 400 tourists from China, piled onto the boat for our one hour harbor cruise. The sights were nice but the trip itself was not so enjoyable. We found seats at the very top on the back row facing the back of the ship so we'd have a nice unobstructed view. However, the tourists treated our aisle as a major thoroughfare and after getting our feet stepped on, tripping over our legs, and sometimes falling into and on us, we ended up having to stand so we could see past them. At times it was infuriating being physically pushed out of the way so they could take photos. But we got to see the NY skyline, the Brooklyn Bridge, Ellis Island, and The Statue of Liberty.

We headed back to Times Square and grabbed some NY city pizza for lunch and then proceeded to our show Mary Poppins. It as fantastic. The songs, the set, the singing the choreography was fabulous. We all really enjoyed the show. We had great seats and it was an enjoyable afternoon at the theatre. After the show we walked past Rockefeller Center and came to FAO Schwarz where we went in and saw the Big Piano that Tom Hanks danced on in the movie Big. We made our way back to Times Square and had dinner at The View Restaurant on the top of our hotel. Scott and I had been when we were there in June and he wanted to show the kids.

We came back Sunday morning. Since we aren't having a McLaren Family Thanksgiving this year, we met to do our family gathering on Sunday at Kristi's. Everybody was able to make it except Allie and Aunt Laura. We missed them but it was great being able to all be together and catch up since Oma is in town. It's harder and harder to get the whole family together anymore as "life" gets in the way. So we are thankful for the times when we can all be together.
And, the guys have been trying to get the Charger running for a few months now and they finally were able to get it running and Oma drove it for the first time in a lot of years. It still has some work to be done on it but it was very exciting to hear the idle of the engine and brought back a lot of memories for them.  Opa would have loved it.

Thanks Seets and Todd for hosting and for taking care of Roxy for us.