Fun in NYC!

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My mom flew in on Thursday and her flight was 30 minutes early – off to a good start.  We had dinner Thursday night at Stella’s favorite restaurant – Isabella’s and then did a little Christmas celebration.

Friday it was off to NYC.  I love the fact that we can walk to the train from my house and if we catch the express we can be in Grand Central Station in 32 minutes.  It is  a beautiful train ride along the Hudson River. The weather was perfect.  I had a meeting in the city so mom and Stella went around the Christmas booths at Grand Central.  When we walked into the main section of the station we saw all these people in red shirts lined up along one of the staircases – we thought it was a choir, but we were wrong.  I had forgotten that the new Apple store was opening that morning – all the people were for the store and the one’s in red were Apple store employees, cheering the patrons as they ascended the stairs and went into the store!

The sun was shining as we made our way down 5th Avenue to Rockefeller center to see the tree.  We tried to see the window display at Saks but too many people.  We took our pictures of the tree and then went into the new Lego store.  It was incredible the things that they made out of legos.  Stella loves legos and will play with them for hours and she wanted some girl people – as we found out they are not easy to come by and legos are more geared towards boys than girls – I think they are behind the times.  We searched through the people making bins for girls, with no luck – so off to FAO Schwartz.  We found one building kit that had two girls – Stella was very excited.  I think I will write to Lego.

Off to the Pierre for an afternoon mocktail and of course a cocktail for us adults then to Dylans candy store.  Oh my, it was like walking into Wonka’s – so many different types of candy.  We spent a good 45 minutes – picking out all kinds of goodies.  My favorite, dark chocolate covered caramels with sea salt! We then met my cousin and went to dinner.  Lucky Stella was given a piggy back ride for part of the walk to the restaurant! A great pizza joint that makes their pizzas in a brick oven – yummy.  Stella especially liked the nutella dessert pizza.

Saturday morning we had tickets to see the Rockettes at 9am – so we decided we would get up and head to the windows and tree before the crowds.  We were all almost ready when I looked at the clock and it was 5:51am!  We were an hour ahead of schedule.  We headed out the door and made our way back to Rockefeller center, hardly any people.  We could walk right up the windows and to the rink.  We still had some time before the show so we headed into St. Patricks – love that church.  The Rockettes were fabulous, as always.  We went to Dock’s for lunch and then mom caught a cab to the airport.

Stella and I headed to Bryant park and went to all the Christmas shop booths.  Bryant park is located behind the NY Public library, since Stella loves to read we went inside to the kids section and hung out there for awhile.  We took the subway to Union Square and walked around the booths there and the farmer’s market.  We spent about 2 hours in the Barnes and Noble’s located there – 4 floors and a pretty decent bathroom.

I want to take Stella to a tapas restaurant in the area – so we went there for an early dinner, but they were still serving brunch – so left there and went into ABC Carpet and Home.  Back to the tapas restaurant where now they told us they were booked for the evening, but we could eat at the communal table, which we did.  Met a nice man and his sister, we thought,  offering to share our dishes.  Stella loved the sauteed spinach with fig, but the other dishes she passed on – but loved the chocolate dessert.  Back to the hotel to put our feet up and relax.

Sunday we were going to try and go ice skating at Rockefeller, but Stella slept until 9am.  She was not feeling well so we hung out for a couple of hours, pack our bags and were going to head to the Museum of Natural History and to meet a friend for lunch, but Stella really was not feeling well and so we opted to come home.  Last year Stella had strep 5 times, so when she said her throat was really sore all that ran through my head was, please don’t turn into strep.  We came home and I taught her how to felt soap and she made a felted soap for her teacher for Christmas.

It was a really fun weekend and we did SO much.  It is always fun being a tourist in your own backyard!

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