Magic and Dinosaurs and Times Square, Oh My!

This sums up our last day-and-a-half in New York City at the end of last December before we went home. 

We went to an amazingly good illusionist show in Times Square. This was a treat!

Then we went the American Museum of Natural History. Similar to The Met the day before, we found a faster way to get in so that we didn't have to wait in line as long. The museum was crowded but fun!

This is one of the reasons I like birds. They're living dinosaurs!

The dinosaurs are cool but owls will always be my favorite!

There was a neat Christmas tree covered in origami animals. Sam was into origami so he appreciated this.

Photo opps with Teddy Roosevelt!

Teddy again!

Then we took a taxi down to Times Square. It was a hoppin' place as usual, but there was extra buzz in the air because it was the evening before New Year's Eve.

Stages and equipment for the New Year's Eve festivities the following night (it was rainy on New Year's Eve, but we enjoyed great weather the night before!).

We ate dinner at the Red Lobster in Times Square because Sam really wanted to. I hadn't eaten at that one since before John was born.
Here's John making himself at home in their window while we waited for a table. 😂

I walked around Times Square until our table was ready.

After dinner we walked through Times Square and went to the Hershey store.

Peter works at the Ernst & Young building in the middle of this picture when he works in the city (which is almost every week, unfortunately).

The next day was New Year's Eve and we went to the Empire State Building in the morning. There were hardly any lines! And the people who worked there were very nice.

Then we walked around Herald Square a bit and checked out the windows of the flagship Macy's store, which I'd forgotten all about and wished I hadn't. This is an area of the city that I really like, so the next time I go, I'm going there. I don't love the big exclusive department stores likes Saks but I do like Macy's; it's much more my style. I took good pictures of things with my phone but those pictures are lost and I'm still sad about that! 😭

I used this subway station a lot when I was taking classes at NYU or when I'd go into the city for fun. Mem'ries!


Back at our hotel while waiting for our car to arrive so that we could drive home.

What can I say, we have classy kids 😅

Then we drove home to Massachusetts, with a lunch stop at our favorite restaurant Gio's in the town we lived in in Connecticut from 2006-10. Their bruschetta chicken is one of my favorite dishes ever! It was a great way to end a fun trip to my favorite city!

So long, 2018!

Not Wet at The Met

We went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art the day after the rainy day. It was still crowded, but not as badly as the day before. Also helping matters was that we went earlier and we found a faster way to get in!

The Met is one of my favorite museums ever. I can't believe how many amazing things their vast collection has from history, not to mention the many beautiful works of art.

I was more excited about the Egyptian section than I'd ever been in the past, thanks to a fantastic new (to me) historical fiction mystery series about a female British archaeologist and her expeditions and misadventures in Egypt that I'd discovered through my friend Meredith. It's the Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters and it's very well-written, funny, and smart. Those books are bringing ancient Egypt alive to me (and also making me wish I'd gotten a degree in archaeology!)

Sam continued to refuse to smile normally for pictures...

The boys found a hippo! An ancient blue hippo named "William"! 

 A little hippo collection from ancient Egypt! 

Surrounded by antiquities! 

 This is one of my favorite spots in the museum.

Look at those etchings!

I don't know how they got this over to America but it's amazing that they did.

 This is a suit of armor that was worn by King Henry the Eighth! I couldn't get over that! I'd been watching shows and listening to a lecture about him, and when I saw this, it was like, there he is! 

 

The swords were rather beautiful.

The smallest and cutest coat of armor I've ever seen.

Here's John picking up strategies for wrestling. 😄

Washington and Franklin, two of my favorite people from American history.

A beautiful bed from the American Federalist time period. 

In honor of Christmas, which had been four days earlier.

 

I've always loved this painting of Washington and his troops crossing the Delaware. This is the actual painting! 

Famous painting of a young Queen Victoria 💜 

😍😍😍

 

I've always been in love with this kind of landscape art.

 

 This is a scene in western Massachusetts.

 

Sam needed a break from us for a little while. Do you see him?

 There she is! The famous Degas ballerina. 14 years old, same age as John.

 I got the boys a stuffed animal of William the hippo in the gift shop. That was one of their favorite things in the whole museum. 😄

 After spending most of the day at The Met, we went back to our hotel to rest and take it easy for a little while before dinner.

But the energy of the city had gotten to me and I didn't feel like resting, so I walked over to Saks Fifth Avenue to do a little shopping. Saks is nice but it's way too high-end for me. I'm not a big fan of huge department stores full of impractical, overpriced designer clothes. But they can be fun to wander through.

I liked this dress, and it wasn't as outrageously expensive as I expected it to be ($460!). 

 I liked this Cinderella doll that was specially designed for Saks Fifth Avenue. I may have liked it better than just about anything else I saw. I guess that shows how sophisticated I am. Ha ha!

 Walking back to the hotel. I can't get enough of the Chrysler Building! 

 

We ate dinner at a Korean grill. It was unique and really good! 

It was a fun day in New York!