Vacation Day 8 a.k.a. How to do as much as humanly possible in New York in one day.

Last Wednesday was our day to explore the city. We had a list of places we absolutely had to go to and were determined to make it to all of them. Let me just say, this was NOT an easy task. Three children walking the streets of New York City correlates to a lot of whining and complaining. Truth: my kids are lazy.

We began the day going to the Museum of Natural History. Temera had a great history teacher who shared her love of this particular museum often in class so she was really excited to go. Although some of the exhibits that I remembered as a kid weren’t there any longer, (hey, it’s been a few hundred years) it was still pretty cool seeing some of the scenes my kids remembered from the movie, Night at the Museum.

Seriously! Who doesn’t love dinosaurs?

So after we were good and tired of the museum, we figured we needed to be completely across Central Park for the rest of our day. The problem was that we had parked our car near the museum in a very expensive parking lot and we didn’t want to keep moving the car. The other problem was that there really isn’t any good way to get from one side of the park to the other… except to walk. Yes, we could have taken a cab (or a pedi-cab) but we were really trying to not spend ridiculous amounts of money on transportation. We had souvenirs to buy.

We decided to walk. The kids were not happy.

I think my kids ended up being impressed at the enormity of the park. After all the whining and complaining, we finally emerged on the east side of the park.

The Plaza - think “Eloise at the Plaza” and “Bride Wars”

Amanda and Lauryn enjoying the Giant Piano at FAO Schwartz.

Lauryn just purchased a Barbie Doll with her own money. This was what she really came to New York to do.

Enjoying some refreshments at Dylan’s Candy Bar.

Dylan’s Candy Bar’s Frozen Hot Chocolate. Sorry, Serendipity… you’ve got competition.

Somebody was sure enjoying his Root Beer Float!

View of Times Square from the car. I am NOT driving, that would be wrong. And illegal. And dangerous.

Our day still wasn’t over yet since my husband (at 8:00 pm) decided we should drive down to Little Italy and have dinner. It might have been nice if we had known that a huge amount of streets were CLOSED at the precise time we needed to be driving on them. And yes… it did really take us about 2 hours to get down to Little Italy. Oh the things we do for our husbands. David… I hope you were happy with your Italian dinner? Yes, it was very good and Little Italy is awesome.

For some reason we don’t have pictures of our visit to Tiffany’s. Yes, we went in so my children could experience the grandeur of an over-the-top jewelry store. FYI to all their future fiancee’s… I’m pretty sure they won’t settle for less than something super big and shiny in a turquoise box. Just giving you fair warning.

End of Day 8!