We usually plan big vacations about a year in advance, sometimes a little less. In January, when my brother said he was going to meet my mom and Jim in NYC over spring break, I was all over that! Then, my sister was on board with most of her kids for a grand reunion of 20 (thanks mom!)The only thing was that their spring break is going on now and ours was last week, but it worked out for us to make the day's drive last Wednesday and see a few sites Thursday. My mom and Jim met us in the city after their short drive from Philly, and the Utah crew flew in that night. That gave us Friday and Saturday to tour the city and enjoy visiting with family. Saturday evening we made a start on our drive back so we could make it home for part of General Conference at least. The rest rode in my mom's car or took a bus to Philly for a short visit there.
Here's a picture journey through our trip.
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| West Point Tour |
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| It's right on the Hudson River. |
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| We went for a fun hike, minus Jason who had to park the car closer since the kids were tired of walking from the car to the trail head (we did walk about 15 minutes on boring sidewalks before getting there!) So Jason got a really good tour of that side of campus! |
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| Grandma's view from her room at the Marriott where we stayed in NYC. |
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| A little color at the front of our hotel. |
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| First subway ride, but it never looked different than my mom's pose here, "Come here, Erik!" Amazingly, we never lost a kid the entire trip! Pretty good for traveling the biggest city in the US with 13 kids! |
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| Brooklyn Bridge |
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| Empire State Building- down the street from where we stayed. |
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| Great breakfasts at our hotel. |
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| This was before Calvin got sick, so he and Karina had to stay behind for a little while :( |
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| Subway with cousins is even more fun! |
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| Ground 0 |
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| New World Trade Center |
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| On Wall street. |
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| Waiting to get on the ferry. |
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| Luckily, it didn't rain as much as it was supposed to! |
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| Derek's youngest, Izaak. I didn't get many pictures of this cutie on his dad's back most of the trip! |
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| The Fab Four (oldest McDonald kids) |
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| The best we could do for a family shot... |
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| Ellis Island. The kids were being sworn in as Jr. Park Rangers. The guy said they were the "family of the year"! Victoria and Natalie earned theirs at Liberty Island. |
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| China Town for dinner. |
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| Grand Central Station |
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| Times Square |
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| Stupid characters... They were the first we saw. We were so excited to see them and take a picture, then they whip out their "I work for tips", badges... We saw a ton more after that and avoided them! Some of the same characters too, like five Mickeys in one group... |
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| We hit the M &M store for a pit stop. Someone was excited to be there... |
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| Rockefeller |
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| Balto Statue in Central Park. The one thing Victoria wanted to see besides the Statue of Liberty |
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I wanted to spend more time in Central Park, but it was on the second day and we were all worn out by then! Especially since earlier that day we tried to see all the midtown sites and spent half the time taking kids to the bathroom so they could rid their bodies of all the hot chocolate they drank that morning! Luckily for me, I got to run with Karina and Mariah in Central Park that morning. My phone had a charging problem that night, so I couldn't bring it on our run that morning for pictures. Karina texted me some, but I couldn't get them on my blog from my phone. It was fun and there was a race going on when we were there, so tons of runners! We didn't run long, but now we can say that we ran in Central Park!
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We got home in time for some General Conference and look forward to watching more of it each night this week.
Such a fun trip!
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