Goehner's Visit - Day 3 - NYC!

We had been in DC for 1.5 days - it was time for a change :) We decided to go to New York City for two days and one night. We left Union Station on the 5:15 am train and arrived into New York around 8:30 am on Monday, April 1. It was an early morning but we were all troopers and had to walk to Union Station in the wee hours of the morning - it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. 

When we got to NYC we went to our hotel to drop off our bags and our room was already available! Per the recommendation of the front desk person, we went to a diner around the corner from our hotel for breakfast and then we took our first subway ride to Battery Park so we could go to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island! 

It was a cold day in New York - but not surprisingly, I am cursed with cold days at the Statue of Liberty. 

When we were planning the trip, one of the area of topics we had was could we climb to the crown of Lady Liberty. I said no, but Ash was like, I think we can do it. I said okay, but I wasn't going to do it after I explained it was an additional 22 stories. Once we got there, they were super appreciative that we did not go past the base of Lady Liberty. You still get really good views of the city and we would also be going to One World Trade Center and Empire State Building. 

Of course we did the standard tourist photos where it make is took like we are holding something. 

We spent more time at the Statue of Liberty then we had originally planned for so we had to breeze through Ellis Island and then back to Manhattan so that Ashley and Marty could go to the 9/11 Museum (if you are are in New York City you need to go, but I don't think it is suitable for young children). So, I took Liah and we did our own little exploring for a few hours. First we found a restaurant (I had been there before) for some huge milkshakes and food. Funny story, Liah ordered from the adult menu and I ordered from the children's menu. 

After our "healthy" snack we wandered to a local bookstore. Liah loves to read and I thought it would be fun to to go to a local bookstore. We had fun sitting on the floor looking at books. It was one of my favorite moments of our New York City experience. 

A few hours later we meet back up with Ashley and Marty and walked over to the globe. It was originally part of the the World Trade Centers and then during the attacks it was taken to Battery Park and now with the completion of a plaza they brought it back. 

Next we went to the tallest building in the United States - One world Trade Center for some amazing sunset views of the city. I love the New York City skyline. 

This was my 4th time up here, so as I mentioned before there are many photos, but we have seen it before. As we were resting and charging our phones at One World Trade Center we were discussing food. I'm not a food - shocker, I know. And Ash last minute told me that they wanted New York pizza - cool...I have no idea what to do. As we were looking at Yelp reviews and how close it was to us, another tourist told us about this place in Brooklyn that was voted the best pizza in New York City in 2016. We hadn't planned on going to Brooklyn - but this was going to be an experience. It was amazing! So, thankful that we did this. We got to venture through a neighborhood in Brooklyn. We got lost (another shocker ;)). But the restaurant was at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge - how amazing is that! We went to Juliana's and I would go back again and again - it was fantastic! We got pizza's (they had a cheese-less pizza!), meatballs and dessert. 

By now it was after 9pm (remember we got up at 3:45am), but we needed to take the subway back to our hotel. We had one of many subway performers. At which Ash needed to remind Liah to not stare :) 

Our hotel was close to Time Square, so we were able to walk through Time Square at night - which is a must and watched this amazing street performer create this entire piece of art in like 5 minutes. Such talent. 

We got to our hotel room a little bit before midnight. It was a busy day, but we did so much and made so many awesome memories! 

Goehner's Visit - Day 2

Our first full day in DC. We know I am a planner and I had an entire spreadsheet of what we would do. However, on our very first full day I decided to change it because the weather was suppose to be good. I had originally planned for us to go to the Air and Space Museum at Dulles (it's one of my favorite, there is a Spaceship out there). But if the weather was going to be, then we needed to be outside. This is spring after all and DC is very bipolar with the weather. 

The day started off with rain but it turned into a sunny day. We started the day going to Lincoln's Waffle House for some cheap and really good food. Then we went to Ford Theater and then the Petersen House where President Lincoln died. Next we walked over to Archives to see the Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights and Constitution. It was already lunch time, so we stopped at District Taco and then we headed to the Zoo. The Zoo is one of the best zoo's in my opinion and it's free and huge! We were able to see majority of the animals - which was super amazing, because that usually never happens. I think the Panda's and the big cats were the highlight of our zoo experience. 

Disclaimer - I have posted a lot of photos during my DC time, so the photos I have decided to use in this blog posts are really just the ones I like of the family in them. 

We had a really good time at the zoo. For dinner, I had planned to go to Tand Thai - our favorite Thai place in Northwest DC so we trekked up there only to find out they had closed - no!!!! So, we decided to go to Chinatown for some Chinese food. 

This is the best picture and I think sums up our trip. I had tried to prepare Ash that we will walk a lot in DC. She said we walk. I said okay, but DC walking is different. And it was proven on our first day, Sunday, March 31 when we stopped at CVS after the zoo and bought insoles for their shoes. They were however troopers the entire time and we walked our shoes off and karma is a b*&^@ sometimes because it will come to bite me soon. 

Liah and Marty collect coins - another thing we did a lot on our trip was looking for coins and Liah was super excited for her giant penny!