Welcome to New York...

So before I dive into our trip, I just need to point out that I stole the title of this post from one of TayTay's songs on her best album to date. She opened her concert with this song so it's only fitting that I open my blog with the same title right?

Okay, let the trip and the pictures and videos begin. And a sidetone of forewarning: it's a long post with lots of pics. Feel free to take a break in the middle and come back later, or if you are really up for it, grab a cup of cocoa and stay a while. Either way works :)

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to get to jet along with Brett on a "business trip" to Manhattan. Let me just fill you in on why I put "" marks around business trip. He had to go there to work at a firm to do an end-of-year inventory for 5 hours. 5 hours people! And his work was paying for his flight and hotel for this half-day work venture. And since we knew he would only have to work half of a day, we decided to take advantage of family being in town for the holidays who could watch Dylie, buy red-eye plane tickets because they were hundreds of dollars cheaper than regular flights, book an amazing hotel right smack dab in the middle of the city (and by the middle, I mean 2 blocks away from Times Square and one block away from Rockefeller Center), and make a trip out of it. I was planning on doing this with him next month when he has to go there for a solid week for work (now that's a business trip) but I didn't want to explore the city alone. I'll explore St. George alone...NYC on the other hand is a little scarier to me. And plus, this trip proved to me that my sense of direction in that place is worse than a toddlers. Brett and I were constantly bickering about which way to go to get to where, and he was ALWAYS right. Always. So after about the second day of this happening I decided to keep my mouth shut and listen because the boy knew exactly what he was talking about.

Anyways, so we found out Brett had to go on this trip in late November, and he had to be there on the 28th of December. So in order to make it work, we decided to leave Christmas night. Kinda sad for Dylan, but kinda not. We put him to bed at my in-laws before we left and explained we were leaving, and I almost wish we hadn't done that. There is nothing that will pull at a mom's heartstrings more than hearing your sweet 4-year old say "can i come wif you mama? I want to come wif you!" Heart wrenching, but also felt good knowing we would be missed. And after lots of cuddles, hugs and kisses we left him to drift off to sleep as we crept into the night to get to the airport for our 11pm flight.

Before we boarded our flight                                                                After we landed  

Day 1: 

Now, let me give you some advice. If you can sleep like a rock, anywhere you are, red-eye flights are made for you. Or, if you don't need sleep at all, take the red-eye! You will be so happy you did and happy with the money you saved. But, if you are like me and have to sleep in a place that's deathly quiet, with ear plugs and a head mask and you actually need to sleep laying down, this plan NOT for you. Well, let me clarify. If you have a nice hotel bed waiting for you at your destination, take the dang red-eye. If you don't and you have to wait until 3pm to check in, DO NOT TAKE THE RED-EYE. I repeat, do not. It's the worst idea ever. Sure, you get there at 3am your time and 5am NYC time and that means you have a few hours of a city that never sleeps to yourselves, but that gives you 10 flipping hours to kill before you can sleep and not look like a drunken rat who has lost its way. If we ever take a red-eye again, there will be a bed waiting for me when we get to our place of travel. Mark my words. We didn't book an extra night at our hotel to save money. Trust me, we were wishing like mad that we had bit the bullet and booked another night. It would've been worth so much more than any penny we saved. And just our luck, the hotel was completely booked so buying a room once we got there wasn't an option.

Ok, so I may be over-exagerrating a little. And once we got in our Uber and out on the town after we dropped our bags off it wasn't terrible. It was actually nice to drop our bags then walk the two blocks, passing Saks 5th Avenue and all their fashion windows to see Rockefeller Center and THE tree that I have always wanted and dreamed of seeing in person. We were walking there and I was so busy looking at the windows and keeping an eye out to make sure we weren't going to get mugged because the streets were dead except for a few creeper looking people, that I completely didn't look across the street. Then Brett pointed and told me to look and it was seriously the most beautiful sight! 

The pictures honestly don't do it justice. And the longer we were in NYC, the more we came to really appreciate being out there that early and having nobody around so we could have a peaceful Rockefeller experience, because there was not one other time that we went passed that place or cut through it to get to somewhere else that it wasn't jam-packed with thousands of people. It is nuts how many people can fit in such a small radius there!

After staring and being in-awe of this tree and the ice skating rink and looking around and seeing the 30 Rock building, we saw that the Today show was filming (they film there and we had no idea) and we saw a crowd starting to gather, you know, like they do when it's on and there's people with signs and stuff outside the windows? So we decided that since we had hours and hours to kill, we may as well go over. We had to be security-checked, then we were led to where the barricades are, and since it was the morning after Christmas, and a Saturday, it wasn't too crowded. The regular weekday anchors weren't there, but it was still such a fun experience! We got on TV twice just waving as the camera went by (I cannot for the life of me find a video of it, I tried that same day and couldn't...bummer :() But it was so fun and a time-waster. 

We got a selfie with this anchor, no idea what her name is but she was on for the entire time they were filming so I am assuming she is on her way to take Matt Lauer's place when he retires :) She was very nice and she was wearing the shortest dress and I am not sure how she didn't freeze to death in it. 

After this we decided we wanted to eat so we went to a little bakery that my sister had recommended (her and her husband had gone to NYC just a month before) and got some banana pudding that was divine, then headed to a McDonald's because the bakery (and almost every other place we would learn on our trip) had zero seating. Zip. The McDonald's had a 24-hour security guy there just guarding the seating area, making sure you had purchased food to sit. If you didn't buy food, you didn't eat. So we bought just so we could sit. We had been standing the previous 4 hours straight. The tiredness started to creep in here a little bit. We both kept passing out while we sat in our booth eating, and we must've stayed there for an hour just trying to wake up and get the energy to stand up again and walk for who know's how long. I am surprised the security guy didn't kick us out, we totally looked like bums, and we basically were that entire morning. We had nowhere to go, it sucked. He must've noticed this and took pity on us. 

The rest of the time was spent killing time by going to The 30 Rock building where they film Jimmy Fallon (sadly he wasn't filming for 3 weeks and part of that time is when we were there) and they had a cool gift shop full of stuff from his show, The Today Show, Friends, and other popular ones throughout the years that have been on NBC. They had tours you could take of the studios, and I wish SO bad that I had thought about that before our trip. They were all sold out the entire time we were on our vacation. So sad, that would've been so fun. 

Then we went to a massive H&M that was just down the street and shopped for a bit where we found matching hats, and we both got gloves and scarves since we didn't bring any and figured we would need them. And luckily we found a massive ottoman that wasn't occupied that we could sit on and rest again. I am telling you, when I say there is no seating anywhere, there truly is no seating. It's pretty sad that this ottoman was the best seat we could find. 

After resting a bit we walked around to a bunch of stores they have around Rockefeller like The Lego Store, The Nintendo Store, we went inside Saks 5th Avenue just to see what it was like, and I am happy to report that there is no way, even if I was a millionaire, that I would shop at those places. I think the cheapest thing that was in there was a Chanel Lipstick which was $69, and all the stores ranged from Chanel to Jimmy Choo to Kate Sommerville etc. It was nuts, and we felt extra awesome because we looked extra awesome :) We were getting stared down left and right in that place. It was neat to go inside though. 

 Then we found one of the most gorgeous cathedrals I've ever seen. St. Patrick's Cathedral. It's just right by Saks and it is beautiful and huge! You could walk around inside for free and it was beautiful! A bunch of people were lighting candles for loved ones and worshipping, but there were tons of visitors like us just walking around looking at the architecture, the gorgeous stained-glass windows and the massive nativity they had in there. For some reason we didn't take advantage of sitting down in there, not sure why. We left after an hour of admiring and kept window-shopping, then I started to get extremely sick and tired (pregnancy will do that to you, as will lack of sitting and sleeping) so we decided we needed to sit and rest. We went to Rockefeller and inside where the shopping was and down to the second level where they have tons of fancy schmancy restaurants with a big open area full of tables you could sit at. Not one place to sit in there. Not even the floor. It was crawling with people. People everywhere! I wanted to die and so did my back! So we thought and the only place we could think of was the Cathedral. So we made our way back to it and just went inside and found our own little bench and rested. I fell asleep while Brett kept an eye out for a good while. That Cathedral was the worst part of the trip. I had a massive headache and stomach ache and just wanted to lay down and sleep. I don't think I have felt that tired since I gave birth to Dylan. Then after a while we decided we should probably eat because we hadn't eaten since 8am and it was now 2. One hour to go before check-in and sleep time. The only place that was around that was close was a TGIF's. We gave in and went. Most ghetto and disgusting TGIF's ever. We shared a meal and it still cost $40 and, as Brett puts it, it tasted like thrown-up Spaghettio's with burn chicken in it. Not good, but it satisfied my stomach enough and killed time. 

Then the time came! The moment we had been waiting for! 3pm!!!!!! We booked it extremely quickly to our hotel, checked in, and immediately crashed for 4 hours. We were exhausted! Then after we both got in a good snooze, we decided to go the opposite direction a couple blocks of our hotel and hit up Times Square.

I am not sure if I mentioned this but, as it so happened, the East Coast was going through a huge warm-front that is not normal at all for this time of year. It was warmer there than Utah was (NYC: 45 degrees, Utah: 15 degrees), so that was really nice. A couple of the nights it got super chilly, but this night wasn't one of them. We were really lucky to be there when we were. I don't think I would've wanted to leave my hotel had it been as cold as home was. 

And of course, Times Square was just as crowded as everywhere else. It was really neat to see though. They were busy setting up for New Year's Eve so there were a bunch of stages being put up and there were barriers everywhere already. It was cool to see it all being put together. And we went shopping at the American Eagle there at 11pm since I accidentally only brought the pair of pants with me I had been wearing all day. Gross. I needed another. We walked up and down it and saw a bunch of things, but we knew we would be going back and we were starving so we made our way to an Irish Pub we saw on our walk to Times Square, and it was sooooo good! And way cheaper than TGIF's. We really liked it a lot. Then we went back to the hotel and crashed for the night. We did so much in one day that it was awesome, but being that tired is no fun at all. 

Day 2: 

We woke up super early to go see the 9/11 Fountains and the Memorial Museum. That was the #1 thing I wanted to do while we were there, so we didn't waste any time. We woke up, got ready, grabbed breakfast at the Dunkin' Donuts that was right next to our hotel (the #5 on the menu was what I got every single morning...so yummy) then walked the few blocks to get our subway passes at Grand Central Station to head to lower Manhattan.

Grand Central Station is super gorgeous! It's amazing how many people were there, and especially how many armed soldiers there were all around that place. From when we walked in to when we got on the subway (which was only an hour since we got lost in that place 4 times before we actually found the right way to go, it's deceivingly small but it's HUGE!) we saw at least 30 of them standing around, with huge guns, and most with dogs too. It made me comforted and super nervous at the same time. Not sure if that's how it is all the time there or if it was just so close to NYE that they were taking extra precautions? The entire city was like that but with policemen. There were literally cop cars and armed cops on every corner. But anyways, I loved how historic this building was and how beautiful it was to look at, especially the ceiling! We kept talking about how much Dylan would've loved it because it had a ton of different star constellations on it. 

Then once we finally had our tickets and finally found the right subway, we hopped on and rode the 15-minute ride to our stop. It was a small walk from there to the 9/11 site. It was so crazy being there and seeing all of it completed. The first time I went to NYC I went with my mom and my sister, and that was in 2004, so not too long after the attacks. Where the fountains are now there was just one massive hole in the ground, it was fenced off, most of the buildings surrounding the hole were under construction from 2001 still, and there were still signs family and friends had made to find missing loved ones from attacks. It was devastating being there the first time. I remember bawling as I read all the papers and seeing all the pictures. 

But this time around, it was beautiful and had the most sacred feeling. I will never forget it. We felt it as soon as we walked onto the grounds.

It was so surreal being there. It makes it so much more real when you see all the names that are engraved on the sides of the fountains. Seeing them made my heart ache, and seeing some that had "and her unborn child" next to them made me tear up. And seeing that someone had put a rose inside one of the names...these were all someone's sibling, friend, son or daughter, spouse and co-worker. So heart-wrenching. 

Once we were done looking at the fountains we headed over to get in line to get our tickets for the museum. We finally got our tickets after an hour, and we had 2 hours to kill before our call time. So we went and got hot dogs at one of the bazillion stands that are in Manhattan, then walked down to Trinity Church and Wall Street. 

Trinity Church is known not only because it's extremely old and beautiful, but because it wasn't really affected when the attacks happened. It didn't need to have any cosmetic work done to it after the attacks like most of the buildings surrounding it, and it's just beautiful. It was cool to walk the grounds there. Wall Street was pretty neat too. I am not sure if you can even find "The Bull" in that last pic above, that thing was constantly surrounded by tourists taking pics with it's head and it's behind. this is the best shot I could get of it. We walked passed it a couple days later a few times and it was still just as nuts. 

Then we headed back to the museum and got in line. That place is seriously stunning. And of course, it's extremely eerie and amazing all at the same time. 

We spent a full 8 hours in there, and it wasn't enough time (and my back was killing me by hour six, so much so that I literally laid down on the floor at one point and did some lower-back stretches a couple of different times. I looked like an idiot, but I honestly didn't care by the time I actually did it). We had to rush through the last few rooms because they were going to close soon, so if you ever decide to go (which you NEED TOO!) I suggest going in the morning so you can have all the time you want. It's just incredible. 

I will be forever haunted by some of the stories, voicemails and manuscripts I heard and read while we were in there. It was just tragic what those people went through. Words could never describe it. I loved how they put it together though. You could either go with a group that had a guide with it, or you could download an app that the museum had and follow along that way. We chose to do our own thing and just walk together. The way they have it set up is so perfect. I can't believe how many things they had from the attacks there. We weren't expecting to see and hear so many tangible things, much less expected to listen to voicemails from loved ones who were on the planes and in the towers. I just kind of thought you would see some things then mostly just hear narrations of everything from a third party. No no. they make it so real and so sobering that you can somewhat imagine being there and being in some of their shoes just for a small second. It's amazing and extremely heartbreaking. 

After we were done it was 9pm, and it was pouring. And we had no umbrella's. And I was starving! A side of me came out that evening that has never made itself known before. I didn't realize I could be such a monster when I am tired, wet, hungry, pregnant and have an extremely achy back that needs relief. I apologized profusely to Brett later that night. Poor guy. I became extremely onry extremely fast. I blame my pregnancy hormones for my impatience and behavior of being grouchy. It didn't really happen until after we got off the Subway at Grand Central Station.

We got on the subway and got to our stop, then couldn't decide where to eat. There was a pizza place that looked good, but after standing inside of it for 20 minutes and being completely ignored by the hostess, we decided to leave and I was just pissed. We found a small cupcake shop and bought some bite-sized cupcakes (literally, you will see below) then decided to just get McDonalds because we just wanted something fast before I ate a person off the street. BIG mistake. We ended up waiting a flipping hour in line at the dang McDonalds, AN HOUR! And we were soaked and exhausted and I was ready to murder someone. But we finally got our food then headed back in the pouring rain to our hotel. It wasn't a good couple hours, but at least we didn't starve to death and my back was grateful to finally get some relief. And once we were laying in bed watching Friends and eating all our food, I was okay again but SO tired (as seen in my face below). Sorry again babe.

Day 3:

So we planned on waking up early to go to the Statue of Liberty this day. Didn't happen. That day of walking for 8 hours in the museum really did us in. We ended up sleeping in till' 10am (8am our time, we never fully adjusted to EST) then just took our time getting ready. My feet KILLED! I was extremely glad I only packed my white tennis shoes. They aren't the most stylish but I would've died in anything else. 

So after getting ready and grabbing our usual breakfast, we headed back down to the Wall Street stop to go get tickets to get to the Statue of Liberty. Before we did that we stopped at a little Asian cuisine restaurant right on Wall Street and it was super yummy. And we were super lucky to find a seat in there since there were only 4 tables and there were at least 50 people inside eating...

Once we were finished eating and we got to where you buy the tickets, we waited in line at one of the places we looked up online, and they wanted $40 per ticket. It didn't say that price online (it said $27) and we tried telling them that but they didn't care since there was an entire line behind us willing to pay the $40. We didn't want to pay that, especially since we had both done it before on previous family trips. So we ended up bagging that idea and went to the Brooklyn Bridge. I have always wanted to walk it and see it, and it was so fun to walk hand-in-hand with my sweetheart and see the city from a far. 

This day was super chilly, probably the most chilly day of all the days we were there. But, it was still so fun. But, be warned if you ever walk on this bridge though. There is a lane for bikes, and a lane for people on foot. There were multiple people we saw get run into by bikers because they were in the bike lane, no joke. It was hilarious but super sad at the same time. So I was paranoid and made sure we stayed inside our lane. Another thing you may notice if you go to the Brooklyn Bridge, or any part of New York City for that matter is that everyone and their dog owns a selfie-stick. Everyone but us that is. I actually wanted to get one the first day we were there because I thought it would be helpful, but Brett refused. I am glad we didn't now because they got super annoying to be around and that everyone had them, but it was pretty amusing. We ended up only walking halfway on the bridge because it's massive and I didn't want to go the whole way, and I wanted to warm up, so we headed back to go to our next destination.

China town. That place is one of a kind. I don't really understand why there's an entire "town" that is full of the same 5 shops that just keep repeating themselves? There were purse and bag shops, perfume shops, jewelry/belt shops and little trinket shops. That's it. Pretty funny and EXTREMELY ghetto. Brett says that's the place he felt most unsafe, which is odd because I didn't. I mean it was pretty darn ghetto, but there were so many people that I was okay. We got a Starbucks hot chocolate then set out to do some shopping. I can't tell you how many times I got hounded to buy a purse as we walked down the street there. At first I was totally cool saying "no thanks," but after the 22nd time being asked to buy brand-name purses, I got a little curious. So I finally told the lady that asked that I wanted to see them. She pulled out a huge pamphlet and inside were Calvin Klein and Michael Kors purses. Anyone who knows me knows I LOVE Michael Kors. And the bag I have been wanting for 3 years was in that pamphlet. She said she wanted $60 for it, and I am surprised at how well I bartered with her. She wouldn't budge below $50, so I said I didn't want one and we walked away. An hour later we were getting ready to head back to the subway and the same lady came and I said she would do $40. Sold! So I said I wanted to actually see the purse in person before I bought it. You would think I told her I wanted to buy drugs...because the next thing we knew was she was taking us to a small corner that was somewhat secluded and she called a number and we waited for 10 minutes. Then all of a sudden some dude in all black came with a bag in hand, handed it to the woman as he walked passed her and slid into the night. It honestly looked like a drug deal. It was bizarre. Then she pulled the purse out of the bag and sure enough, it was legit, or at least it felt and looked exactly the same as the one I have been coveting. The name was spelled correctly, the coloring of everything was the same as the ones I had seen in the store, it was heavy-duty. It was gorgeous. And it had to be mine. It's now siting in my room and it's my favorite. I don't care if it's not legit, it looks like it and I just love it.

And that was our fun experience of the day.

After China Town we hopped on the subway to another place my sister recommended called Eataly for dinner. It's an Italian shop/restaurant that's massive and it was AMAZING! It's right by The Flat Iron Building and had an awesome view of The Empire State Building. After walking around inside of it for a while we decided we were starving, so we sat down and ordered what the waiter recommended, which was a meat and cheese platter with unlimited bread. It was cheaper than any of the other meals we had ordered (besides the pub) on our trip and it was BY FAR the best thing we had eaten yet. Fresh, yummy, filling and divine.

The waiter kept asking if we wanted wine, and he thought we were super weird because we kept saying we were okay with just water. It was so good though. Mmmmmm. Then after that we were pretty pooped so we headed back to the hotel to chill and FaceTime Dylan until bedtime, especially cause Brett had to go work his 5 hours the next morning.

Day 4:

This was my favorite morning. The morning I got to sleep in and just watch reruns of the Kardashians and Housewives while Brett went to fulfill his work duties. I didn't love wasting time in the hotel, but my back and feet were in dire need of a break at this point. We were wishing we had saved the museum until one of the last days of our trip so our feet had time to get used to all the walking...I think by doing it our second day our feet were never the same. So it was nice to just chill in my jammies, watch some of my favorite shows and eat Peanut Butter M&M's that we had brought from our Christmas stockings. I did end up going down to grab lunch at a little cafe that was a little down the street from our hotel. All alone. I felt like such a New Yorker doing it all by myself :) And the cafe was Delish!!! It was like Zupas but about 10x as fancy but the price was the same. I was pleasantly surprised by the food. I took it back with me to my hotel to enjoy while I finished up an episode of RHOBH before I got ready for the day. And by the time I was ready, Brett had come back. It was just the perfect morning/early afternoon. 

Then from there we left to walk down passed Times Square to go Ice Skating in a place called Bryant Park. Oh! This night was one of my favorites! Ice Skating in New York City has always been a fantasy of mine, and it was so fun to live it out with my sweetheart. We decided to skate here because A) it was close to us and we could walk there B) because it was only $20/person to skate and C) Bryant Park is amazing and the rink was surrounded by the most quaint little shops and a carousel. It was amazing!!! 

And we didn't know this until after we filmed the videos below, but it was super off-limits to do that while skating. We saw 2 separate people get kicked off the rink for filming videos while they skated...not sure why? It was extremely crowded but I don't think it called for getting kicked out. Luckily we were sneaky and we didn't even know it. And ps sorry there are a billion videos, I just wanted to add them because I am journaling this trip for us to look back on :)

It was honestly the funnest 2 hours! We weren't cold and we just had so much fun! Afterwards we walked through some of the shops then decided to get sushi for dinner. There was a pretty famous sushi restaurant across the street called Koi, and we decided that since Brett had perdiam that day that we would splurge. The place was super fancy and the sushi was divine! 

Afterwards I was still hungry, and there was a super yummy waffle pop-up shop that was blended in with all the Bryant Park shops that I had spotted before dinner, and I wanted to try it. It was exactly like Waffle Luv and extremely good! I got the Apple-Pie waffle. Yum!

And these are our matching hats. Nerdy? Yes. Warm? Oh yeah. It was pretty darn cold but we didn't even notice until after skating, so we put on our matchy matchy hats and we were instantly warm. 

After dinner and the waffle we went back to Times Square to wander and shop. We wanted to find Dylan something but we never did, well at least not something that could fit in our suitcase. But walking around was fun and we loved it.

Countdown to the Rockin New Year's Even party

And what was really cool about it is that there was an entire massive section that was full of the LDS church saying "A Savior is Born" and had the links people could go to to find out more about us. It was so cool! I wonder how much the church spent to have it there. It wasn't part of the electric signs, it stayed the way it looks below 24/7. Most of the signs there are either for the Broadway shows or they are electric billboards that shuffle through a bunch of different ads and videos. Not these, they were there to stay. It was awesome!

After walking and shopping at the Disney store and Toys R' Us (which had a massive ferris wheel in it by the way) we headed back to our hotel to pack and plan our next and last day adventures.

Day 5:

This day was SO fun! I mean it was all fun but this one sticks out to both of us. We woke up, checked out of the hotel (they held our luggage for us for the day) then we headed on the subway down to the Staten Island Ferry. I read the night before that if you wanted to see The Statue of Liberty but didn't want to pay, to take the Staten Island Ferry. It's completely free and you sail right passed the ol' broad. So that's what we did. It was so fun and a quick ride there and back, about 20 minutes each way.

Then after our little ferry boat ride, we booked it up to The Freedom Tower because we had a call time on our tickets for 11am. If you don't know what it is, it's a tower that was built on the 9/11 grounds and you go in and you can go to the very top and see the entire city from the top. It's the tallest building now in NYC. And it's gorgeous!

It kind of stunk because it was pretty darn cloudy that day, and they kept warning us that it was and that we could exchange our tickets for a less-cloudy day, but since we were flying out that night, we didn't have a choice. And we could still see, but not nearly as far as you normally can (which is 30 miles out by the way). 

After this we went and ate at one of the places I've always wanted to eat: Shake Shack. I see it on movies all the time but have obviously never been because it's not in Utah. It was worth the 40 minute wait in line. It was SO good!!!!!

After this we went and jumped on the subway to do our last and final rendezvous but one of the funnest things on our trip: A petticab around Central Park. This, my friends, was worth every penny. It was so fun, extremely informative (our guide was awesome) and we saw SO much of the park we wouldn't normally see because that place is HUGE! It was so fun to be able to sit and ride around while we learned about so many monuments and saw so many historic and famous sites and places. And our guide/driver was awesome and made us jump out and wanted to make sure we got pictures of us at all the sites he thought were the most famous and beautiful. It was so great! Sorry for all the pics in advance, it was just so beautiful and we loved it!

We only paid for an hour, but it was perfect, and our guide was nice and took us for 80 minutes and didn't charge us more (so we tipped him extremely well to make up for it but it was worth it). And if you didn't recognize that last pic, that is The Plaza, the hotel from Home Alone 2. It looks the exact same, at least on the outside and where the guests go in and out. They have security guarding the entry and only those staying at the hotel are allowed inside. But it was so fun to see it! And, if you couldn't tell from the pics, the park is just insanely gorgeous. It was nuts how many people were running there and just how many people are there in general on such a chilly day. I guess it wasn't cold for NYC though so that's probably why. It was so fun and one of the highlights of our trip.

After this we had to go back to our hotel and get to our Uber to get the JFK in time for our flight. It was so fun to make the most of our last day and not have to worry about traveling until later, although by the time we got back to the hotel and picked up our luggage and were driving to the airport I was more any than ever just to be home and see Dylan. We left on the 30th, and the streets were completely packed with people gearing up for New Year's Eve. We were so happy to be getting out of there by that point. It took us 40 minutes to walk to our hotel from Rockefeller Center (where we got off the subway) when two days prior it took us 10 minutes to get there. The streets were NUTSO! 

Then our flight took forever because we were both just to crazy sick to see Dylan. It was good it just felt extremely long. But it was nice to have the little tv's on the back of the seat so we could keep ourselves somewhat occupied (thank you JetBlue!). And that night at 1am we finally were able to cuddle a sleeping Dylan and be able to see our baby boy, and we spent the next 4 days together before our same old routines of school and job kicked in again. 

This trip was one that both of us will never forget and one we are so grateful we had. Not only was it fun to do so much in so little time and see so much and experience so many things, but it was fun to have a little baby moon before our second little one comes. Although we missed Dylan like crazy, it was such a blessing knowing he was in good hands and having fun, and that we were able to have so much fun with just each other for a few days. 

And if you are still reading, you are a champ! This post took me forever to put together from editing all the pics to just writing down all we did, it was over the course of a week (just little bits each day) so thanks for sticking to the end if you did!