Last weekend we took our daughters to New York City. Since our oldest turned 18 on December 1st, and our youngest turned 16 on December 3rd, it was a “once-in-a-lifetime” type birthday trip for them.
We’d all been to New York City before, but never at Christmas time. It was nice to see the city all decked out in holiday decorations.
Our younger daughter wanted to go up in the Empire State Building at night, so we headed there after walking around Times Square on Thursday night. Beautiful views, but cold and SO windy!
On our way to Rockefeller Center Friday morning, the girls recognized this setting from several Hallmark Christmas movies.
We were headed to Rockefeller Center because the girls wanted to go ice skating there. Mission accomplished!
After ice skating (and a bit of shopping in Times Square), we walked around Bryant Park. If you’re ever in the city during the holidays, I highly recommend this. There were all types of vendors set up around the park, and there was an ice skating rink there as well. Our older daughter and I got empanadas from one of the food stands for lunch, and they were delicious! (I’m sure partly because they were piping hot and both our outsides and insides were cold!)
On Saturday, we visited Freedom Tower and went up to the One World Observatory. We’d been to the 9/11 Memorial before, but the 9/11 Museum hadn’t yet opened the last time we were in New York. Even though we spent a good deal of time there, I felt like there were still things I didn’t see. It was quite crowded, which made it difficult to navigate through some of the exhibits. That day still stands out so vividly to me, and it was very moving to be taken back in my mind to those events.
We popped into Macy’s briefly late Saturday afternoon. It was beautiful inside, but what a zoo – people everywhere! We did ride the escalators up to the eighth floor, but no shopping was happening for us there!
We also caught a couple of sh
Now on to some good posts I found recently.
Cyndi has 10 Small Ways to Bring Peace into Your Home.
Sara tells us How to Thrive When You’re in a Season of Waiting.
Nancy lists 10 Ways to Enjoy Your Kids During Christmas Vacation.
I know a number of families who will be spending their first Christmas without a loved one. Chara shares words of hope in Christmas Mourning.
I enjoyed Christina’s Farmhouse Plaid Christmas Tour.
And here’s a bit of advice for teenage girls from Samantha Ponder’s Instagram stories that I shared with
Hope you have a wonderful weekend!
What a neat trip! Maybe one day we’ll make it up to NYC; I hope so anyway! You got some great pictures of your daughters, and I bet they will remember this trip for the rest of their lives!
I enjoyed the post about bringing peace into our homes. I can definitely use more of that!
I’ll second that “more peace in my home” idea! 🙂
I lovelovelove your NYC recap! We have decided that we are taking our family vacation there the first of July this coming year, instead of going to the Carolinas. It’s kind of like the final thought you posted: we know our people in the Carolinas love us, but the world is so wide, and I feel a great responsibility and desire to share as much of it with my children as possible! Our friends and family are more than welcome to come with us and share the NYC magic together with us this summer, but I only have a few years left with Will, and I want our kids to see as much of the world with us as possible – life isn’t about our same, safe bubbles all the time. ❤️
I hope y’all have a wonderful trip!!! We actually took a summer trip to NYC with the girls several years ago, during which we did some of the major tourist attractions like the Statue of Liberty, Top of the Rock, Grand Central Station, walked the Brooklyn Bridge (in pouring rain ;), etc. As you know, there’s SO much to do and see there. It was also hard to choose which Broadway show to see, as there are several good (aka family friendly 😉 ones playing right now. We saw The Lion King on our summer trip; this time the girls chose Phantom of the Opera, and they loved it!