NYC trip

We just got back from a trip to NYC. We took the boys and my mom. We stayed at "On the Ave", a hotel on the Upper West Side. It was very nice, with a large room and very comfortable beds. It is in a seemingly safe part of town, and there is a nice market across the street.

Pictures from the trip

Highlights of the trip:
Wed - We get into town and have Big Nick's Burger and Pizza Joint. The boys take showers (no tub in the room!) and think it's lots of fun.

Thurs - I take the boys to the Children's Musuem of Manhattan while Caroline and Mom go to the Martha Stewart Show. The guest is Jim Cramer. After the show, Caroline asks Martha two questions, one about banana pudding, and another about the cherry plants on her set.

Then Caroline and I go to a taping of The Late Show with David Letterman. The guests are Andy Samberg, Paul Teutel, Sr., and a performance by the cast of West Side Story. Caroline and I are seated right on the aisle, four rows from the stage. Before the show, Dave comes out to warm up the crowd. At the end, he asks if anyone in the audience has a question. Of all the people there, he picks Caroline! Her question is "After working so long with Paul, Biff, and Alan, is there anything they do that annoys you?" But she never gets the question out because she and Dave instead chat about Indiana.

That night, we eat at Vai, which is right across the street from our hotel. It was wonderful! I had a pork chop, and Caroline had Branzino, which is Mediterranean sea bass.

Friday - We take the kids to Toys 'R' Us in Times Square, and they have a blast looking at the Spiderman and Superman vignettes and all of the Legos displays. They ride the ferris wheel, and we see a real live Spiderman, and get their picture taken with him.

That night, Mom, Grant, and I go see Mary Poppins on Broadway. Grant LOVED it!! At the end, Mary Poppins flies away, out into the crowd. She came right at us and then over us.

Saturday - We take the kids to the American Museum of Natural History. We see the Butterfly Conservatory, and a show in the planetarium about cosmic collisions, which was really cool. We saw dinosaur fossils and a bunch of dioramas, and some very famous gemstones. Afterward, we took the subway down to Grand Central Terminal, and saw Melman's clock. We ate at the Oyster Bar. We also stopped at Crumbs cupcake shop on the Upper West Side. The Florentine cookies are REALLY good!

That night, Caroline and I went out and had dinner at BLT Steak. The food didn't blow us away. Then we went to Broadway, and saw a show called The 39 Steps. Our seats were in the second row, center stage. I joked before the show that we might get spit on, and indeed, Caroline did. The show was hilarious. I wish I'd watched the movie first.

Sunday - First we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and then to Sony Wonder, which is a free museum about technology and media. It was pretty cool, well worth the price of admission. Then Mom and Caroline went to see Wicked on Broadway, while I took the boys to Central Park. We saw the Bow Bridge, where Mary Jane Watson breaks if off with Peter Parker. We threw the frisbee, and Andrew fell down and got a mouthful of dirt. We saw some neat fountains and performance art, then walked down the Mall, and over to the carousel, which the boys enjoyed immensely. Then they played on a playground. We walked a long way, but it was a blast!

Sunday night, Caroline and I went out for our 12th anniversary to Tony DiNapoli's on the Upper East Side, and the veal parm was super! Then we went to an old coffeeshop M. Rohr's and just relaxed.

Monday - We went on a Circle Line cruise from 42nd street on the Hudson, down past Battery Park to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, and then up the East River past the 59th Street Bridge, and then back. We had lunch at Fraunces Tavern and saw the NYSE and Trinity Church. For dinner, we went to John's Pizzeria on Bleecker Street. The pizza lived up to the hype!

We packed a whole lot into just a few days, and the boys held up remarkably well! It was pretty cold most of the time, especially for us Southerners.