New York City

*Updated post.

This past weekend our family took the Amtrak train to New York City.  I have wanted to go to NYC at Christmas time as long as I can remember.  When we found out we were moving to Boston I immediately told David we were taking a trip to NYC in December.  My oldest brother lives there so it made visiting NYC even more exciting.  Christoph started making plans and we got more and more excited about visiting.  Our good friends from residency, the Benners, are living there for a year as Rodney completes his Fellowship so we stayed with them.  They were so hospitable to us and we had the best time visiting with their family during naptime and after the kids went down at night.  (I am so sad that I never got a picture of all 5 of the kids together).

We took the train on Saturday morning and arrived around lunchtime.  After driving and flying places, I would take the train anyday.  It was so easy and nice.  No security, no long lines, comfortable seats with plenty of room, cafe car filled with good food close by.  Traveling by train is the way to go.  Of course Austin loved it.  He loves his trains!

My brother met us at Penn Station and helped us get our stuff to the Benners.  We then headed to Grand Central Station where there was a train exhibit.  Uncle Toph knew that the boys would love seeing all the trains and he was right.  They loved it.
You can see their little faces looking through the glass in the background.
Uncle Toph then picked them up so they could see better.
We then headed towards Bryant Park, Macy's, and Old Navy because I lost their hats and mittens on the train so we had to buy new ones. We unfortunately couldn't find mittens so my kids wore socks on their hands. =) I just wanted to see Macy's decorated for Christmas. We didn't plan on shopping because it was crazy.

We then grabbed a quick dinner and headed back to the Benners because the boys were exhausted. They didn't have a nap so they were ready for bed.

We woke up on Sunday and it was freezing. 24 degrees when we started walking towards 5th Avenue. The boys were really cold so it we couldn't spend a lot of time walking around outside. We walked to the Park Plaza Hotel which was decorated beautifully and then headed to FAO Schwartz. I LOVE this toy store. It is so great. It was so crowded but still fun. The boys loved playing with the toys and seeing the toy exhibits.

Of course they found the train exhibit and loved it.

We walked to Rockefeller Park so the boys could see the tree and ice skating.
We then ate at the food court down below with the ice skating.

 After naps we headed back out and met up at Times Square.  (Terrible picture of me but great picture of the rest of the crew.)


The boys loved the red steps in Times Square.  We climbed to the top to see from up high and then Austin wanted to jump down the steps.

We then headed to eat at a little diner by my brother's apartment and then headed back to the Benners for the night.  I had plans to meet back up with my brother for drinks but our littlest man had other plans.  He fell while brushing his teeth and cut the back of this throat.  There was a lot of blood and a lot of tears.  I felt like it was best that I stayed home in case it wasn't a good night and it wasn't a good night.  Miller just didn't want to sleep.  I think his throat was hurting and he was cold.  We tried everything to get him to go to sleep but he only wanted to be held.  He didn't want us to lie down either so it was rough going for a couple hours but we finally got him down around 1:00.  I was on my phone looking at train trips back because I felt so terrible about keeping the Benners up.  They live in 1000 square feet so I knew they could hear him crying but didn't know what to do.  He finally calmed down when we covered him with extra blankets and laid down right beside him.  Thankfully he slept from 1:00-8:00.  Sweet Austin the next morning told us he slept great and that brother never cried.  We aren't sure how its possible he didn't hear him since all 4 of us were in the same room but very thankful that he wasn't up as well.

I'll end the post here but I still have Monday morning to post about...stay tuned!