NEW YORK CITY

thanks to our cousin, heidi's, suggestions we had excellent food on this whole trip. we got dropped off by our taxi from the airport right at jaynie's apartment and then when it opened we walked just around the corner to the clinton street bakery. i had french toast with bananas. it. was. so. good. great way to start off our trip. it really weirded me out though how people just live right above restaurants and stores.

jaynie and jeff walked us all around the town to help us get the 'lay of the land.' it was great because they took us on the subway for the first time and helped us figure it out.  this is our very first time going on the subway. yes. i made them take a picture. jeff might have rolled his eyes.

our first stop on walking around was bryant park. it's right outside the new york public library.

this is us in the ghostbusters library! one of my favorite things.

grand central station

sidewalk pay phone with steam coming out?

times square.

very crowded and flashy. fun, as long as you're not trying to get somewhere at a certain time.

ellen's friends stayed with us for a day because they were in nyc for a day as well! jaynie and jeff took us to a delicious italian sandwich place for lunch that was cheap and way good!

laboratorio del gelato. mmmm. this is my olive oil (bottom) and toasted almost (top) gelato. the olive oil sounds disgusting but it was really good! so of course i had to get it because where else can you get that?

after i fell asleep walking because i was so tired from our flight and moving out of my apartment the night before we went back to the apartment and i slept for 4 hours and ellen and jaynie played scrabble for 2 hours, ellen and her friends and I went back to times square at night!

mmmm. M&M world in times square!

our first view of the empire state building. it was so foggy that day it made it look eery.

the next day we ventured off on the subway to coney island!!!! this is the giantest cemetery i have ever seen. it was on both sides of the subway track and it went on forever.

sweet sunshine bake shop. oh cupcakes. mmm.

in the subway by oursleves for the first time. we didn't get lost!

coney island

the boardwalk at coney island was just as fun as coney island itself

NEW YORK CITY #2

on the pier at CONEY ISLAND

I totally touched the Atlantic Ocean. No big deal.

Rollercoasters! (their wooden one, the cyclone, was so fun when we sat in front, but when we sat in the very back it hurt so bad! i can't believe we didn't get wiplash. ellen got a dead leg for the whole day and i got bruises on my arms. the whole time ellen was screaming: i hate thisss! is it over yet. 

coney dog at coney island! also. we had an ice cream cone completely covered in sprinkles. it was the best ice cream.

the neighborhood where we stayed

jaynie and jeff's building, cute apartment!

cafe habana. it was delicious. especially the corn. and... it was only like a 20 minute wait when we were expecting an hour so that was awesome.

the view from the bedroom window

love their apartment! the big windows were awesome.

we went to the top of the rockefeller center. it was way cool because we could see the empire state building, chrysler building, statue of liberty, and central park.

from the top of the rock

this was the moment i had dreamed about since i was 8 years old.

best day of my life. it was surreal. i could reach out and touch or just buy and go home with anything i wanted. it was all right there. my dreams came true. i am not kidding. i found the cutest cheap thing i could find to buy there: doll rainboots that in just a moment you will see on jaynie's cat.

central park

we had someone drive us around on a pedi cab so we got to see a lot more of central park than we would have seen otherwise. it was so worth it.

FAO Schwartz. where to begin. we were worn out. we were hungry.  we saw FAO Schweetz and we then spent all our dinner money on a half pound of candy, each, and ate it before the night was through.

this is kevin. wearing my american girl rainboots. jaynie was cracking up, hysterical.

yes. this is upside down. but. this is on the hop on hop off bus. ellen did not want to pay for a bus ride about history so she had to get bribed into it. and.... she (we) loved it! we saw china town, battery park, wall street, and lots of other stuff.

this is somewhere near wall street i think. but it was really cool there. the tall buildings were looming.

battery park. this world was in between the twin towers on 9/11

oh ma goodness. shake shack. the. best. hamburger. i've. ever. had. the concrete and fries were amazing as well.

i just liked seeing these on all the corners. they're cute.

rockefeller plaza

night at the museum, museum! aka museum of natural history

aka the dead zoo

in the subway at the stop for the natural history museum

highline park was cool- it's old abandoned subway tracks up above the city that they've turned into a park. we loved it.

we all slept with the windows open and their apartment has no screens so ellen got eaten by mosquitoes.

this was the chelsea market that's under the highline park. there were lots of cute little shops there. and delicious cookies.

broadway! (bert tap danced on the ceiling, how cool is that)

jaynie, ellen, and i went to see mary poppins, so fun. and we had excellent seats and that always makes it better.

dear fao schweetz. this is how you sucked me into starting to buy candy. no where, and i repeat, no where, do i ever just come across only banana runts. i heart them. i kinda freaked out and had to get them.

we walked the brooklyn bridge. it only took a couple wrong subway stops, a little bit of wandering around empty streets of brooklyn by ourselves at 9:30 p.m. completely lost, walking through a park where a line of people all dressed in long, black, flowing outfits were all standing in a line, but we made it. we were only terrified for a while and we didn't even pee our pants! i've never seen ellen giggle so much, apparently she does that when she's scared.

the bridge was really cool when we got there, and not a letdown, even after all it took to get there.

i don't know what this is. lots of other people were taking pictures there though so i thought it was a good idea.

staten island ferry to see the statue of liberty

this is how they park their cars. they stack them up. cuh-razy.