NYC/DC Part 2

We're on day 4 now of our tour de DC/NYC. Day 1,2&3 are here.

We woke up the morning of day 4 and hit a fine local breakfast spot called Dunkin Doughnuts. That's right my friends, I went outside of my comfort zone, Starbucks, for the inferior DD. My sister kept pointing out cutesy, local breakfast eateries and I'm all like, "Do they have pink sprinkle doughnuts?" Like I said... not a diet conscious trip. We took our breakfast pastries and sugar water coffee to go and ate them underground in the subway tunnel. Clearly, one of my finer mom moments.

Killin' that blueberry muffin

Pink sprinkle doughnut.... a boy after my own heart

While riding the subway, Parker wanted to try holding onto a pole instead of sitting. I reminded him not to let his head whack the pole so he rode like this:

We fit right in. No one could tell we were tourist.

We rode the subway back to Central Park where it was our quest to find the Belvedere Castle and carousel... which not a single person who works in Central Park seems to know of it's existence. The walk to the castle was beautiful! Shakespeare's garden surrounds it which makes for pretty pictures (even if they choose some strange posses)!

The castle itself is tiny but the views are breathtaking! I high recommend the quick walk up the narrow stairwells for the views of the amphitheater, duck ponds, ball fields and NYC skyline!

Before we went to NYC, I asked each kid what they wanted to do. Parker wanted to see Iron Man and Spiderman which we checked off on day 3. Avery wanted to ride the carousel so that was today's mission. After a few mile walk and being misdirected like 5 times, we found it... and Avery cried because the horses are all boy horses (red, green & blue) but dammit, we were riding the carousel. It's OLD and beautiful and plays the quirkiest carousel music. We soaked up the quaintness of the experience despite a little toddler drama. It turned out to be one of the funniest parts of the trip. We've all experienced the built up of a dream only for reality to not meet our expectations....this was the 4 year old girl version of that! #toddlerproblems   I didn't even take a picture because in the moment I was all like "YOU WILL LIKE THIS! GET ON THE HORSE AND SMILE!"

After the carousel, we went potty, along with every other woman in the park. 45 minutes later, we had all relieved our bladders and acquired some new body art. SMART entrepreneurs had set up face painting stations by the potty line and they were making BANK entertaining potty dancing kids.

Iron man.... shocking, I know.

Happy Unicorn

We played in the playground for a while before heading to Starbucks for some fuel! We weaved our way around the Puerto Rican pride parade to Rockafella Center. The LEGO store was a big hit! I always enjoy seeing the news stations. What up Hoda and KLG?

At this point, the city was becoming overwhelming and the Puerto Ricans were being super super loud in their adoration of their nation so we retreated to Brooklyn for some downtime. On the way there, a passerby gave Avery a "selfie reflector," as in, a small reflective disk to reflect good lighting to your face for a selfie. Who knew there was such a product?! Well, she thought it was a frisbee and tossed it in the middle of a busy intersection. When Kelly and I refused to retrieve her selfie reflector we ended up with a sad unicorn. 

Unicorn Tears

That night, Kelly made us dinner...

... and then we called for Thai food take out. The kids were WIPED. We packed a bunch of NYC into 2 1/2 days!

Using Avery's face as a pillow

Once again, I was too verbose in my recap so now there will be a part 3 to recap our mini tour of DC and NYC with little kids tips. My kids still talk about this trip daily! We read our "NYC/DC road trip" Shutterfly book almost every night before bed. I'm so thankful to have had these precious memories with the kids and my sister!

As for "what I'm listening to"... my kids are obsessed with the website worship house kids. I think it's meant for churches to buy the videos and songs for kid's ministry but you can view them all from this website for free. Their favorites are "Super Wonderful" and "My God is Number One." They've been on repeat lately. There isn't a sweeter sound than hearing your children worship!

The videos are animated on the worship house kids website but here's the best I could find on YouTube. If you like the popular song "Oceans" by Hillsong, Yancy did a kid's version! Enjoy!