New York-Part 3

Central Park was beautiful.  It was nice to see this huge park in a city of buildings.  We decided to rent a horse drawn carriage to be able to see part of the park.  It was really relaxing!

The next couple of places we visited were my favorites.  First we had to find Serendipity and have some frozen hot chocolate.  It was kinda hidden and took us a little while to find it.  Once we got there they told us the wait to be seated was about an hour and  yes we did wait.  While we waited we went back to Dylan's Candy Bar we passed on the way to find Serendipity.  Dylan's was probably one of Victoria's favorite place to visit.  It is a 3 story store with candy everywhere all types of candy!!!

There were lots of people waiting!!

Dylan's Candy Bar

We all enjoyed our frozen hot chocolate.  It was really good!!! It was worth the wait.

The second to our last day in New York was the day I had been waiting for the whole time.  I know Victoria was just as excited.  We took the Path Train that took us under the river and through the woods to New Jersey.  It literally did take us under the river.  It was kinda spooky to think we were on a subway train in a tunnel under the river.  Jersey was a nice city I really liked it there especially because we found heaven on earth.  Yes a bakery!!!  Carlos' Bake Shop - The Cake Boss.  We had to stand in line outside to wait our turn to go in.  The bakery show room is pretty small it sure does look bigger on TV.  Once we made it in it was kinda overwhelming cause there were so many goodies.  I wanted one of everything.  But I kinda had in mind what I was going to get from watching the show.  It wasn't that easy everything looked so good!!!  Victoria wanted to meet Mary the Cake Boss sister and to her luck Mary was the only one from the family there that day. Tori got to talk to her but she was a little star struck and was super nervous, it was cute to watch Victoria get all tongue tied. We started to order what we wanted and I was afraid I was getting too much so I kept telling the girl who was helping us not to show Bob exactly what I was buying.  He didn't find out till the end when I had to pay he couldn't do anything about it then, he was a good sport.  Cannolis were to die for, the lobster tails melted in your mouth, the strawberry short cake didn't even make it out of Jersey we ate it across the street on a bench. Ok I'll stop there, I did get more than that though. Yummy!!!!!  

Victoria talking to Mary

Down the street from our hotel room was a common area where we go and eat sometimes.  Robby loved getting breakfast from one of the cart vendors.  The breakfast sandwiches were delicious.  

We found a really good pizza joint, Sacco's Pizza. Thanks to Robby's coach, who told us about it.  Bob and Robert were enjoying meatball subs with their pizza.  New York was a blast!!!!

New York-Part 2

Bob, Robby and Victoria got to go to a Yankees game.  They really enjoyed it. They said they had really good seats and got to interact with Nick Swisher #33.  I stayed back and went shopping.

Yankee Stadium

Everybody knows you can't go to New York and not see a Broadway show.  We went to see Wicked!! Victoria and I were really excited and loved every minute of it (Bob really enjoyed it too).  Robby went with the Schombs' and saw Stomp he said it was one of the best shows he has ever seen.

After the shows we went to see the Temple.  When we got off the subway to look for the Temple I guess I except to see a traditional Temple like I have always seen but that was not the case.  It was kinda hidden between tons of buildings.  It was awesome to see a Temple in the middle of all that chaos.  We went inside and just sat there for a while enjoying the spirit you feel inside the Temple.

Time Square was crazy, crazy busy.  There is always lots of people, lots of lights, lots going on. But it was cool being there. 

Bob & Rob are in the middle of all these people
Can you find them?

New York!!!

I never thought I would have the chance to visit New York.  But this summer we had the chance to do so.  We went to NY for about a week.  We went with our good friends the Schombs' and had a wonderful time. The only sad part was we left Justin behind.  We just figured he was too young to come along.  My parents came and stayed at our home and took care of him.  I had a really hard time leaving him. Being in NY was kind of a culture shock even though we were still in the United States.  The flight there was a good flight we thought it would take us about 6 hours and we made it to JFK in 4 hours it was awesome everyone was amazed as to how fast the flight was.  We got there at night and we had a private car waiting for us to take us to our hotel.  When we arrived in NY it was raining which was no big deal yeah right.  The drive to our hotel was a crazy one.  I grew up in Southern California about 5 minutes from the Tijuana/US border. I have always thought the driving in Mexico was bad until we started driving to our hotel in NY at night in the rain.  I was so afraid we were going to cause an accident.  I thought we were going to hit a car, every car, everything in our way, people, sidewalks, street vendors, hot dog carts, etc... but nothing happened except my seat was a little wet when I stood up and I think I bruised Julie's arm from where I kept squeezing it every time I thought we were about to hit something. We stayed in a hotel in downtown Manhattan if you looked out our room window you would see the Twin Towers Ground Zero construction.  It was a site!

Our first day we headed straight to Mid Town Manhattan on the subway.  Talk about culture shock.  We always have heard about how dangerous and crowded the subways are and we were expecting the worst.  It wasn't bad at all, just a little smelly and dirty at times.  I had the whole subway thing down on our first time on.

When we got to Mid Town we couldn't stop looking around it was amazing.  One of our first stops was of course to get a hot dog from one of the carts.   

We went on the Circle Line boat cruise so we could see the Statue of Liberty and learn more about Manhattan, we were total tourist.  I was really glad we did, it was really cool.  We got to see tons.

California... Our next stop

So the next place we went to this summer was California.  Robby decided to play on a volleyball club team.  That meant he was off to Anaheim for 3 weekends in a row of volleyball games.  He had tons of fun and of course we followed and went to watch him play.

We had some free time and decided to spend some time at some of the amusement parks.  My parents came along on one of the weekends.  We took them to California Adventure at Disneyland.  It was great to watch them enjoy (and get scared) on some of the rides.  We took them to see Bug's Life and I don't know who was more scared Justin or my Mom.  

Justin hated every character.  He was so afraid of them and wanted nothing to do with them.

We also went to Knotts Berry Farm.  Justin had tons of fun on the rides.  It was so cute to watch him ride all the kid rides.  We thought we would freak out but of course he had a great time.