It was Alex & Mimi’s first time in New York City, but we had 2 very specific things Alexandria requested to do in the city: Have a Picnic in Central Park and visit the American Museum of Natural History. We were able to stay at some of our amazing friends’ house in the Upper East Side, a few blocks away from Central Park and it was the most perfect place! We took a quick trip up to the roof top deck for a view of the city and Chech was in AWE – Mimi wasn’t thrilled. We also found a fake $100 bill on the floor and Alex was excited to be rich (haha).
We dropped all our things, grabbed Alex’s scooter and headed straight for Central Park with our awesome friends!
We settled for an ice cream picnic in front of Belvedere Castle vs. a full blown picnic in order to keep it simple – and I don’t think they really minded much.
We scoot scooted our way out of the park, and into my girls’ very first Uber ride to dinner!
The next day we were off to the Museum on a VERY rainy New York Day. It seemed the rest of the city also felt it was an awesome museum day because the line was down stairs to the end of the block – in the pouring rain! Once we finally got in, we were all so enthralled with wonder that I literally forgot to take photos through most of it! We also regretted not having a full day to see the entire building because – WOW.
Dum Dum – you give me GUM GUM!
We found “Sacagewea”! We did the “Night at the Museum” self guided tour – and it turns out theres no labeled Sacagawea in the museum. We were directed here – to a woman in the “Dakota” tribe – even though Sacagawea was a Shoshone woman.
Then, it was time to make our way to the Dinosaur Floor!
Stegosaurus!
They touched a real dinosaur egg!
Papi showing the girls where Colombia is on a globe showing dinosaur extinction.
The Meteor Crater!
Triceratops!
Touch a fossil time!
Alex learning about how elephants and other “large mammals evolved”.
We touched a space rock!
We didn’t even really have time to see the space exhibits – but it looked really cool!
After the museum we had to book it to try to make it out of NYC before rush hour – and to Virginia in a reasonable amount of time. 6 hours later after traffic and tiny bladders, we pulled into a city where Alex’s name was on EVERYTHING and we were only a stones throw from D.C.
Overall, these kids did great in New York City and I think it had a lot to do with the activities we had planned for the time we were there. They got to run wild in the park and explore the museum freely – and overall had a blast in New York City!
Road trip update
At this point we’re all getting pretty exhausted from driving & exploring and I still can’t even believe we’re actually doing this Road Trip! We absolutely positively underestimated how long we’d be able to drive before the minions had to use the bathroom or eat or need to stretch their legs. We’ve added between an hour and two hours of drive time for each destination point and the drives have been LONG. I also underestimated how much fun Milena would have on this trip and thoughts of unmanageable meltdowns and public outbursts consumed my expectations for her this trip – but she’s been great. Instead, I could use words like excited, patient, curious, observant – all words I’m not sure I’ve ever described her as! I’ll leave on this note, until next time:
Our kids can really surprise us if we give them the space and means to do so.
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