Last weekend was the long anticipated Mommy/daughter weekend in New York City! This was Avery's Christmas gift from Mommy this year. We had SUCH a great time!
We took the bus into the city. It's a pretty short ride (~1.5 hrs), but man, this girl did not stop talking the whole time! So much anticipation and excitement!
(Please pardon the quality as these are all iPhone photos!)
Here she is relaxing in her bus seat. When we approached the city and saw some tall buildings, she said "OMG...I have never seen this part of the world before! I am actually in heaven right now!"
Here she is posing at Port Authority, looking like a cute tourist.
And riding a taxi for the first time! It was a short ride to my friend Leslie's apartment, but Mommy was super nervous about not having a booster seat for Av.
Leslie, who lives in NYC, was very kind in showing us "tourists" around for the weekend! Especially on one of the rainiest days! It rained pretty much from the moment we got there to when we went to bed that night, which is why we took the subway a lot (Avery's favorite part of the trip, I think!)
Here are Leslie and Avery looking in the windows at Macy's.
Leslie actually works for Macy's. Their holiday decorations were absolutely beautiful!
This is just a sampling....
One of Avery's requests was to go to M&M world in Times Square.
Here it is in the background. It was just chaos inside (as were most places in the city!), so she was over it pretty quickly.
Then on to the much anticipated tree in Rockefeller Center. Avery watched the tree lighting on TV, but that just doesn't do it justice. I ran ahead of Avery and Leslie so I could catch Avery's face on camera as she took her first glimpse. Here she is as they turned the corner and caught sight of it....
**magical**
We, of course, had to go to FAO Schwarz! The line to see Santa at Macy's was WAY too long, but check out this awesome Santa we found at FAO...he is made out of legos!
Our trip there would not have been complete until we danced on the "big piano!"
After a long, wet day, we had a lovely dinner at an Italian restaurant just a short walk from Leslie's apartment. It was probably the nicest place Avery has ever eaten (read: no kids menu). She ate a meal off of the adult menu, was very well behaved and let Mommy and Leslie enjoy some wine.
We came back to Leslie's, got into our PJ's and had a slumber party! I was changing in the other room and came back to see Avery like this....with a mouthful of whipped cream! Yes, Avery this is what girls do at slumber parties ; ) We also had hot cocoa and watched "Elf."
The next morning, we had tickets for the bright and early 9:00 am Radio City Christmas Spectacular Show with the Rockettes. But not without having bagels delivered for breakfast first (both of our minds were blown by that! Bagels, juice and coffee delivered to your door - what?!?)
The show was even more incredible than I remembered it being...maybe because this time I was watching it through Avery's eyes. Everything was fascinating to her and I couldn't stop watching her face and reaction to everything...especially when the big snowflake balls come out into the crowd!
We took our final subway ride back and said our goodbyes.
Avery picked out an I <3 NY snow globe as her souvenir and was simply obsessed with it!
She took it everywhere with her for the next two days.
Sadly, she forgot it was in her dance bag (because really, why would it be in her dance bag?!?) and it broke when she dropped her bag at the studio two days later.
We were so blessed to be able to do such a fun trip like this, something different than we've ever done before. I am blessed to still have a best friend from middle school who was up for the challenge of hanging out with a 5 year old for the weekend and acting like a tourist in her own city! Thank you Leslie for being an awesome hostess, tour guide and friend! And thank you Avery for being you!
