Trip to NYC

Well, we finally did it. Jenny and I took a trip longer than two days completely "kid-free" for the first time since we have had kids. I had some meetings that I had to attend in NYC and with my AMEX card I can have a companion fly free so Jenny decided to come along. At first we were going to take Noah with us but at the very last minute we decided to leave him with Jenny's mom with the rest of the kids. We decided to travel a few days early so that we could spend some time with Jeff (Jenny's brother) and his family up in New Canaan, Connecticut. If anyone gets a chance to visit the north-east in the fall, TAKE IT! It was amazing. All the colors of the changing leaves narrow roads, stone walls and colonial houses is really a sight to behold. I posted a bunch of pictures on our Picasa Web Site for everyone to look at. The next day two of Jenny's brothers and their wives (Seth & Mandi, and Jared & Kelly) and her dad (Ken & Terri) flew in to join us for the rest of the week. From then on is was tourist central! We spent the next three days doing stuff in the Big Apple while I split off every now and then to attend meetings. Every day we would take the train from New Canaan to Grand Central Station (about an hour train ride) then walked, rode the subways, took busses, but mostly walked all over the city. It rained the entire trip but that didn't even stop us from taking the open-top double-decker bus tour all over the city. It was great to see in person all of the places that are always in TV shows or movies, or on the news. We spent time in Times Square, Rockerfeller Plaza, Groud Zero (where they have now started construction on the "Freedom Tower" an memorial reflecting pool), we went to the top of the Rockerfeller center that gave us a great view of the entire city, Jenny and her family went to see "Wicked" on broadway, which was amazing according to what she told me (I had to work - sniff!), we saw where many TV and movie stars have multi-million dollar apartments, and we even saw the "Soup Kitchen" from Jerry Seinfeld's famous "No soup for you! episodes). In fact, the only thing that we didn't see that we really wanted to was the Statue of Liberty. The ferry service that we planned on taking there was out of service for the season. Over all we have a spectacular trip. We did have a few mishaps to the tune of Ken getting on a Subway train without the rest of us. It was an interesting feeling seeing him on the other side of the glass being swept off into a dark tunnel not knowing how we were going to meet up again or if he knew which stop to get off of! Or the night that Jenny and I decided to stay in the city in a $250/night hotel room that was about 10'x12', dirty sheets and a shared bathroom. It felt more like a youth hostel than a hotel room, but it was the best price I could find anywhere is the city. Overall the trip was great and when we came home we found all to be well with the kids. It was so much fun we may just have to do it again.