Saturday was a girl v. boy day! Samantha and I had a date at the Ice Cream Museum and she was pretty darn excited!!

There was more ice cream than we could eat, tons of fun rooms to walk through, a giant slide, and even…

a sprinkle pool!

A successful girl’s morning!

Meanwhile, the boys were hitting up more shoe stores, the NBA store, and Nike!

Samantha and I took the subway up and met GJ at Bergdorf Goodman…

where we introduced Samantha to the very best lunch in the city! She had chicken salad but I’ll teach her to love the Gotham salad someday!

We then walked down 5th for a bit…

and then, much to Samantha’s delight, hopped in a pedi-cab to get us over to Bloomingdales!

We tried really hard to find something to buy for Samantha at Bloomingdale’s but the best we walked away with was a perfume sample! But she was pretty excited about that!

On the way back to the hotel we did a carriage ride through the park!

That night the boys had an appointment to make custom hoodies at Nike! We met them at Serafina for dinner after their own pedi-cab ride!

They were pretty proud of their creations, as they should be!

We then saw Wicked which was phenomenal!

Another really full and really fun day in NYC!! Sadly, it was our last full day. We said goodbye to GJ that night because she was leaving early Sunday morning.

We had time on Sunday to have one last NYC meal…

and then we all flew home with no flight delays or issues at all! That is indicative of how the entire trip went – everything just worked out better than we could have hoped. I have to believe my Dad had his hand in that. I know he would have loved to have taken my kids to NYC for Thanksgiving. Since he can’t do that, he did the next best thing and orchestrated the most epic NYC trip ever! He loved the Christmas season and since this is our first Christmas season without him, I think this was his way of letting us know that everything is going to be ok even if he’s not here with us. Merry Christmas indeed!

Friday morning was our only bit of bad weather. It was raining but it worked out well because we had tickets to go to the 9/11 museum. GJ took the morning off to rest her knee at the hotel. We all took our time going through the museum which was really well done.

By the time we got out of the museum, the rain had stopped and we walked around downtown a bit. We saw the fancy train station…

the NYSE…

the Brooklyn Bridge from the deck of Robert’s old office building….

and the Statue of Liberty from across the river!

The kids found a playground…

and then we headed up to Union Square to a shoe store I had found out about called Flight Club.

Maxwell was in heaven! They had some really cool and rare sneakers. The boys checked a bunch out…and got some sticker shock on some!

Maxwell ended up walking out with a pretty cool pair of Jordans!

I then took my city kids back uptown…

where we stopped into Nordstrom!

Samantha found plenty of things to add to her Christmas list!

We then got ready to hit up Madison Square Garden to see the Knicks take on the Portland Trailblazers! Of course the boys visited the store as soon as we got there!

It was the most fun night! We had fantastic seats with no one blocking our view. Damian Lillard on Portland was injured and didn’t play so Spence decided to cheer for the Knicks and that was the right call! The game went into overtime and we saw some really good basketball. There were lots of famous people there too – Edie Falco, Tracy Morgan, Noah from Stranger Things…even Flavor Flav and FloRida! So fun! The best part though? Spencer caught a t-shirt that was throw into the crowd!! Yeesss!

Even better? Samantha was on the jumbotron!!!! Amazing!

It was just an epic night!

We love NYC!

First, today is my dad’s birthday. Missing him even more today but it helps to think about him up in heaven standing tall and surely tinkering with something while watching over us all. Happy Birthday Daddo. We love you and miss you.

Day 2 of NY started with a subway ride over to Grand Central!

We then had tickets for Summit One Vanderbilt which ended up being SO cool! Incredible views, mirrored rooms, glass floors – it was amazing!

Maxwell and Samantha were not so sure about getting on the glass bottom balcony!!

But they all did it!

What a view!

They also turned us all into clouds. ??

We then went on the glass bottom elevator that took us up even higher! Me, Spencer and GJ had no issue with it…

Maxwell and Robert on the other hand! ha!

It was a really cool experience and I’m so glad we did it! After that, we headed over to Times Square to check it out and get lunch at Dos Caminos.

We also made a stop into Foot Locker…

and the M&M store! Note: When in the M&M store, don’t let your kids – mainly Samantha –  have free rein to fill up a bag of M&Ms that will be charged at $8.99 per 1/2 pound. We learned that the the hard way and $81 later! hahahaha!!

We then trekked over to Central Park to climb on the rocks and let the kids run out some energy!

It was a pretty spectacular day in NYC!

But we weren’t done yet! After a quick stop in the hotel for a refreshment…

we headed over to Hudson Yards. The shops were just ok but the decorations were incredible!

We finished the day with dinner and a brownie sundae at PJ Clark’s. A VERY full and VERY fun day in the city!