New York

Labor Day weekend I hopped on a flight to NYC with my parents to go visit my sisters.  Both of them live on the east coast (thought not in New York) so it was easy for them to meet us there.

We stayed an off shoot of Hilton near Grand Central Station that had a very cool industrial vibe. My sisters and I stayed in one room and my parents stayed next door in an adjoining room.

After we got all checked in we had some time to kill before one of my sisters got there so after having a drink in the hotel bar we took a walk over to the United Nations building. 

As you can see we had all kinds of fun taking pictures in front of the United Nations since obviously we couldn't go inside at 5 PM on a Friday night.

When the 5th member of the group arrived we took the recommendation of the hotel's staff and walked to a nearby Italian restaurant for dinner. This was probably the best Italian food I have had in my whole life and as soon as I remember the name of it next time I am in New York I will be going back! 

The next morning after a quick walk through Grand Central we all hopped on the train and headed to the Bronx to the Bronx Botanic Gardens.

Today was her birthday and you can tell how excited she was that I was taking a picture of her. In addition to all the beautiful plants and flowers there was also a Dale Chihuly exhibit in the gardens. Prepare for flower and glass picture overload.

Funny story about this boat: When my husband first tried to find me on Facebook (we had met in a class in grad school) my profile picture was a picture of a version of this boat filled with colorful glass balls so he wasn't sure it was my profile. This time I posed in the picture with the boat and sent it to him!

After finishing up at the gardens and taking a little rest back at the hotel we headed to dinner to celebrate the birthday girl. We had a fancy dinner at the top of the Marriott Marquee in the spinning restaurant.

After a delicious dinner complete with dessert with a candle we headed to Broadway to see Aladdin. While it was good both Lion King and Beauty and the Beast are better shows. After the show it was raining but we decided to walk back to our hotel anyway.  We figured we were going get pretty wet waiting for an Uber anyway so we might as well just walk.

We slept in the next morning and then headed out to have brunch at a German restaurant.  It is never to early for German beer!

After being all happy and full of German food we headed over to the MET to walk off all the food. After getting our fill of art we headed back to the hotel so that one of my sisters could head to the airport to catch her flight back to school. What kind of school makes you go to class on Labor Day??

Sunday night before we went to bed we looked out the window of the hotel and the Empire State Building was all dressed up with red white and blue lights.

On our last day before we headed to the airport we went up to the World Trade Center memorial and museum.  I had been to the memorial before but had never gone into the museum.  I was extremely impressed with the museum and could have spent an hour or two longer than we had to spend there.

My sister lives in Pennsylvania so she drove to New Jersey and then took the ferry over to the city so when it was time to head to the airport we took a ferry to New Jersey and she ended up just dropping us off at Newark on her way home.

After an uneventful plane ride I arrived home and was so happy to see my husband!