Thanksgiving in New York: First Two Days

This year we spent our Thanksgiving break in New York City!  We were all excited as we had never been.  Brian loves to read and had even done research on some of the  major points of interest.  He cracks me up.

We arrived in Newark midday and a driver picked us up to take us into the city.  We stayed right in the thick of things at the Sheraton, Times Square.  Once we were settled into our room, we headed out on our first adventure.  We took the subway to Seaport area where we boarded a boat to see the Statue of Liberty!  It was a chilly day, but we were inside once on the boat, so it didn't matter.  It was amazing to the see statue up close!  This was on Brian's must see list and he was so cute taking pictures on his own camera.

Yay!  Subway!

A pretty tree in the Seaport District.

Brooklyn Bridge.

Ellis Island.

Pole dancing on the ride back.

Later that evening we headed to an Asian restaurant that our driver had recommended.  It was clearly not a kid friendly location but they couldn't have been nicer about accommodating us. Everyone got a good meal and it was a lot of fun.

Thanksgiving Day meant it was time for the parade. We had reservations at a restaurant right along the route for brunch.  Brunch was yummy and even though the restaurant was made up of pretty much all windows, we decided we'd get more of the experience from the street, so we headed outside.  We were pretty far back from the street so it was hard to see anything on the ground, but we could still see the big floats and feel the excitement in the air.  We had just about decided to head back inside when a very nice woman approached Shawn with VIP badges to a private party on a veranda near by.  This enabled us to watch the parade from a raised location and the view was amazing!  We were treated to more food, water and HOT CHOCOLATE.  Awesome!  Lilah may or may not have eaten every last marshmallow they had...

The parade was an awesome experience.  It's something we have watched our entire lives from our homes, so to see it in person was just amazing.

After the parade we headed to Rockefeller Center.  We saw the tree, although it wasn't lit yet, went to the Top of the Rock and saw the ice skaters. We found out American Girl and Lego are closed on Thanksgiving, but happily, Magnolia Bakery is open!

Brian had a very wiggly tooth on our trip. He ended up swallowing it in his sleep. Oops!  

We went on a window sight seeing tour Thanksgiving night.  It was unbelievable to see the artistry and thought that goes into each window.  One store had scented displays...every window smelled like something different...peppermints, pine trees. It was cool but kind of strange!!

Smelled like peppermints.

Smelled like roses.

Stopped by to see the Rockefeller tree.

Light show at Rockefeller Center.

All of the windows opened.

 We were worn out, but Shawn and I decided to make a quick trip to Times Square at night just to see the lights.  We also found the Hello Kitty store!