NYC

Several months ago, Austin started talking about a friend of his.  He called his friend "Miller."
I thought,  "What an interesting first name to give a child."  It took a while, but it came out that Miller's first name is Jacob.  Apparently, Jacob was a common name the year that he was born, so friends at school have taken to calling the Jacobs by their last name.

Several months ago, I got a call from  Jacob Miller's mother.  She was thinking ahead to his birthday in April.  She wanted to take him to NYC and wondered if Austin and I would like to join them.  We thought that sounded like a lot of fun.  Plus, they were wanting to do some things that we did not get to do when we were there last July.

Yesterday, was the day that we had been planning for.  We got on the bus at 4:45am.  Luckily, we were able to sleep a little on the way.  We got dropped of in NYC around 11am.  We thought we would go and do some of the things that were a little farther away from our bus stop first.  We got taxi and went to battery park. (At this point the weather was a bit drizzly, but our cab driver assured us that by 2 it would be clear and a lovely day.  Looking back he was exactly right!  At 2 it had quit raining, and was a really nice day weather wise.)  We wanted to see the Statue of Liberty, but really did not want to spend so many hours on the tour, plus that would have been another ticket to buy.  We went to battery park and we got a decent view of the Statue.  It would have been better if the weather had been more clear, but Austin and I had the Statue of Liberty experience in July, so we were fine with this choice.

After the Statue, we wanted to go see the Freedom tower.  It was a reasonable walk from one area to another, so off we went.

Jacob's mother, Bobby Jo, and I thought we should have at least one picture of the boys together.  They were not excited about that, but humored us.

There is the Freedom Tower.  I think it is such a beautiful building.

Near the Freedom Tower, there is a wall memorial about 9/11.  It has different scenes from the horrific terror attack that NYC had experienced 14 years ago. There was a really interesting man that was cleaning the memorial.  He would answer questions, and tell facts that few people knew about.

This was not the boys first choice of a place to visit, because it is "depressing," but we thought that this is a part of the boys life history, one day they may appreciate that they had been taken here.

Then we went to site where the twin towers had stood.  They have a really nice memorial there.  They have names of those who lost their lives along the edge,

a double waterfall fountain is in the center.

When we were at the fountain, we were able to get a really great view of the Freedom Tower.  It is just amazing.

We were fairly close to the Brooklyn Bridge.  So, we headed over there to see that.  Since we are not there day in and day out, we decided to take a short stroll of on the bridge.  The boys got bored with that, so we had to cut it short, but at least we got a good look at the first pillar.  (It was a bit unnerving to walk on this path and have traffic flying on both sides of the dividers.  I guess New Yorkers gets used to it!)

Several years prior to ever going to New York, someone told me that we should visit Little China, and Little Italy.  We had wanted to eat in Little Italy, but in order to get there we had to walk through Little China.  It truly was like tiny replication of what I imagine those countries to be like. 

After lunch, Jacob and Austin wanted so true Italian Gelato.  I thought, "Well, we might as well make the most of this experience."

After lunch, we headed to Central Park.  We weren't sure what we should see (Central Park is a very big area).  This guy started talking to us about bike tours.  It was a tour guide that has a 2 seat carriage on the back.  The tour guide tells you things about the park, that would not know otherwise.  Plus, we got to see a lot of more the park this way.

Jacob and Austin got a carriage, and Bobby Jo and I got another.  The tour guides stayed together so that we would be able to experience this with our boys. 

One of the first thing they pointed out was the building with 2 towers in the background.  That building is the building they used in the movie Ghostbusters.

The bridge in the background here is the bridge they used in the spider-man movie.

Then we went by the fountain that was used in the beginning of the show Friends.

Then we were taken to another area in the park, where there is a memorial for John Lennon from the Beattles.  It is just a short distance from the apartment building where he had lived.

Had to get a picture of Trump tower in case he would be our next president.

There is a Christmas movie called Elf.  In that movie there is a snowball fight scene.  This bridge is where the snowball fight took place.

One of the things the boys really wanted to do was to go to the top of the Empire State Building.  We bought tickets prior to our trip that allowed us to go to the 86nd floor and the 102nd floor and not have to wait in lines.  The only condition was that the boys wanted to see the city at night.  So, this was the last thing we did.

This is the view of the 86th floor.

And the 102nd.

Shortly after we did this we headed back to our bus to come home.  

It was a busy day.  But it was filled with experiences that I hope Austin will remember to many years to come.