The next day it was time to go home. We had a reasonable flight time, which mean we had to be leaving the apartment at about 7am. So we still were up at 5am, which is early but it especially sounds early when you think that it was 2 am Arizona time. Actually we were fortunate to get that time because the intial flight that we booked was cancelled at they put us on a ridiculously early flight, departing at 6 am. When you factor in getting to the airport early, leaving the aparment with a generous time, and getting up with enough time to finish packing everything, it wasn't going to work for us. John called the airline and complained, so they switched us for free to a later flight. The only downside was that this wasn't a direct flight anymore. We had a short layover in Chicago, which really wasn't a big deal.
The whole crew on the airplane. Not a spectacle at all with a stroller, 9 bags, and a transport chair. The kids were thrilled to find out that the return airplanes had screens in the seats where they could watch whatever they wanted. They loved this, but it definitely reinforced my belief that watching TV makes my kids grumpy. They definitely were so grumpy after.
Last view of the NY skyline.
One thing that was kind of fun about the way home was that we flew over some of the great lakes. Whoa, those really are huge! I couldn't see either shore at some points. That's crazy!
I loved this trip. Right before we left I told a couple of friends that I hoped I got to a place where I was glad we went on this vacation. (I was really overwhelmed by all of the logistics.) But despite what felt like a thousand hours planning and researching I really am so happy we made these memories together. Now we are just asking ourselves where we want to go next.
Day 10 was the big day! The whole reason we went on this long, expensive trip to New York was because our girls had an opportunity to sing in Carnegie Hall with their choir, Millennial Choirs and Orchestras. They were scheduled to be in the second concert which was a matinee on Saturday. Because of this, they had to be there nice and early for rehearsal and a run through. They also wanted to have extra kids sing in the Saturday night show, which we volunteered them for. So we got them up nice and early, did hair, packed lots of food, and John took them over to the city. Fortunately, there weren't any hiccups for that part of the day. Holland got to sleep in and it was kind of nice to relax for a few minutes before we needed to go over there.
We
made it over there was a well, and, boy, it was crowded getting through to find
our seats. Fortunately Holland found a nice place to rest.
But
we had awesome seats. John was in charge of getting our seats and he did a
great job. Front and center. Just a few rows back. This was my view.
Unfortunately we didn't realize that the girls would be singing on the balcony
exactly behind us. It worked out just fine, we could see them great. It just
took some swiveling in our seats.
Everything
was so fancy--I can't really believe that my girls performed in Carnegie Hall.
So cool.
I
was concerned that Holland would get restless and whiny, but we snuck in a
couple of snacks, and she made it through okay. Actually I am just really
grateful that we could take her. I was nervous that one of us would have to
stay behind to watch her. At the concert hall in Phoenix the age cut off
is 8 years old, but at Carnegie Hall it is 4 years old. So lucky!
The
concert was fabulous. The girls sang in four of the numbers. I think my
favorite was "A Mighty Fortress is Our God." Wow, it really blew me
away. Seriously so amazing!
They
had an amazing soprano and violinist come play with them too. It was
incredible.
We
feel so lucky to have had this experience. Once in a lifetime opportunity. We
actually almost weren't able to do it. In all of our planning and packing and
checking every detail, we left the girls security badges at home!! Fortunately
we remembered this right at the beginning of the trip, and Erica saved the day
by finding them in our house and mailing them to us at our rental in NJ. Thank
Heavens!
The
concert was very similar to the one that they did in April, especially the kids
songs, but I was surprised at how many new numbers they did especially with the
grand chorus. It was awesome! I don't know if I'll ever make it back to
another performance at Carnegie Hall so I took lots of pictures. The one of
above was of their poster advertising the concert. I can't believe that guy
stood right in front of it for me and just smiled. Seriously man?!
We were able to pick up the kids for a little while between concerts and
get them some food. We ate hummus, crackers, and pita chips in Central Park,
which is surprisingly close to Carnegie Hall. We saw a wedding party who
seriously all looked like models and chatted for a while with a couple who were
so impressed they our kids ate so healthily. :)
I
couldn't resist taking a few photos of the girls in the park.
After
John and the girls went back to Carnegie to get ready for the next concert, my
mom, Holland, and I walked around Central Park some more. We had to get a
couple of coconut ice cream bars. Then we walked over to see the Manhattan
Temple. It was pretty fun to see the Angel Moroni peaking through around all
the skyscrapers.
Pretty
cool! It probably would have been a better experience, but Holland was super
grumpy for some reason at that point. It made it pretty painful because she
wanted me to carry her and I needed to push my mom in her chair.
I shouldn't complain though, honestly we were so lucky that day. If we
had been counting on viewing the evening concert instead of the afternoon
concert we would have been disappointed. There was a freak power outage that
started in the late afternoon and went for 5 hours! John was volunteering, and
the girls were rehearsing when the power went out. That was when he took the
little video of the singing in the dark. So cool. Unfortunately the power
didn't get restored quickly. It was so sad that everyone had to be evacuated
from the building, and they couldn't even grab their bags with all of their
things to do in them. They were stuck on the street for a couple of hours
before the conductors called it and released everyone to their families. This
was stressful for John because he had 13 kids to keep track of just sitting on
the streets of New York. It was insane. When the kids finally did get released
I am so glad that no kids got lost because it certainly wasn't the orderly release
that they normally do. The kids just left and found their parents.
I feel so bad for the families that sacrificed and paid a
bazillion dollars to bring their whole families to New York, and not get to see
them perform in Carnegie Hall. The only kind of cool thing about it was that
they gave a somewhat impromptu performance outside of Carnegie Hall. It was all
over the news and a ton people saw this choir sing songs about Christ. Kind of
amazing. Unfortunately though there was no way to reschedule the concert. It
was just a loss. So so sad. I am incredibly grateful that we happened to attend
the afternoon concert.
My mom, Holland, and I were
over at the apartment where I was looking at the darker skyline and just
stressing about keeping everyone safe and how my family was going to get back
to us. They ended being able to take a bus down to Port Authority where they
could take a bus back to Jersey, but it was still a bit stressful. Thankfully
though everything worked out.
On Day 9 we spent the day in Central Park. Wow, that place is huge. It was so fun to see the places that I have seen as the background of movies. I can think of several movies that have had that fountain and bridge area in scenes.
One fun aspect was the street entertainers. We sat for 20-30 minutes and watched one group of acrobatics. They were funny and talented, and sure guilted everyone into giving them money which is fine.
It was so hot and humid that day. Whew! We were definitely feeling it. We had to stop by a cart and buy some ice cream. I think it is funny that almost our whole family has learned what the best option is for something like that. If you are going to get a fruit bar, always get coconut. It is always the richest and the yummiest.
I don't know if I had seen from the movies what it looked like under the archways. Really beautiful!
There are so many different paths around the park it was impossible to see it all. We did find some fun bridges to look at the lakes. Everyone in the choir was supposed to wear their tour t-shirt that day, so it was so fun to see so many "MCO NYC" blue t shirts around.
This bridge was so beautiful.
Of course my girls loved spotting chipmunks and squirrels. And there were many huge rocks to climb on.
It was definitely one of those days that my girls wanted a picture on top of every rock. They are such sweet kids. I really appreciated how kind they were to Holland helping her keep up with them. We made our way to Belvedere Castle in the middle of the park. What a fun structure.
I didn't really get a good photo of the whole thing, but the view was pretty.
It is kind of unbelievable that this huge park is surrounded by so many skyscrapers.
On the inside of the castle there were air conditioning units!!! I though it was so funny when my whole family bent their faces over it and just stayed like that for a good 5 minutes. It was so hot and humid.
We love a/c!
Outside the castle we rested on a bench and ate lunch. They were some ducks that enjoyed some of our offered lunch too.
I don't know if I have mentioned this before in my previous posts about NY, but one of my favorite things was the wild lilies that grew everywhere. These beautiful orange lilies grew on the sides of roads, in grassy areas, all over upstate NY. I was glad to see them in Central Park too.
As we made our way over to the Met, we ran into this obelisk. I love stuff like this. Here is some info about this obelisk. It is so interesting!
The Obelisk, nicknamed Cleopatra’s Needle, is the oldest man-made object in Central Park, and the oldest outdoor monument in New York City.
It is one of a pair of obelisks that were commissioned for Heliopolis on the banks of the Nile circa 1450 BC by an Egyptian pharaoh who wished to celebrate his 30 years of reign. The monuments were then moved to Alexandria in 18AD. They remained there until one obelisk was moved to London in 1878. The second one, erected two years later in Central Park, was offered by the Egyptian Khedive to America in exchange for funds to modernize his country.
Transferring the 69-foot, 220-ton granite monument from Egypt to New York was an arduous and delicate process. It took 112 days from the time the Obelisk touched upon the banks of the Hudson River until it reached the Park. Laborers inched the monument on parallel beams, aided by roll boxes and a pile-driver engine. Thousands turned out on January 22, 1881 to marvel as the obelisk was turned upright.
A time capsule was buried beneath the Obelisk and included an 1870 U.S. census, the Bible, Webster’s Dictionary, the complete works of Shakespeare, a guide to Egypt, and a facsimile of the Declaration of Independence. A small box was placed in the capsule by the man who orchestrated the purchase and transportation of the Obelisk. He will probably be the only person in history ever to know its contents.
We eventually made it to the Met. Wow, what a beautiful, HUMONGOUS building. We only saw the exhibits on Ancient Egypt, Greek and Roman sculpture, and the European paintings. And it took us hours to see just that. I can't even imagine trying to see the whole thing.
One thing I really love and appreciate about Eliza is that she is so interested in so many different things. She really loves learning and was constantly reading signs and wanting to tell us all about them.
I thought the Ancient Egypt exhibit was phenomenal. They have whole tombs in there which hieroglyphics on the walls. So impressive.
We got to see so many interesting artifacts, including real mummies!
What a neat exhibit. My inner history nerd was ecstatic!
My family was so patient with me wanting to see all of the Egyptian things.
Are you kidding me? How cool is this! Just thousands of years old.
Once again I have to stress how huge this place was. Just the Egyptian section could have been a whole museum. I loved this huge room with all of the windows, water features, and amazing Egyptians sculptures and even a temple!
Baby Sphinx!
This picture of the sign is harder to read than I would have thought. But I looked it up and it says the Temple of Dendur. It has been at the Met for 50 years.
I love all of the statuary. I think it is interesting that even though the Egyptian artifacts span so much time (thousands of years), it remained so consistent in style and form. It is fascinating that their heritage and culture could be passed down throughout the years and remain so similar through that length of time. I feel like that is really unusual.
The difference between a ten year old and a four year old. Holland was pretty bored and wanted to be carried. Eliza was delighted with it all and wanted her picture taken with the wonderful things she saw.
These were the oldest things in the building. The archeologists estimated that these rocks were once tools to people from about 10,000 BC to 90,000 BC. Somewhere in there. That is quite the year span that they are suggesting.
We loved the Egyptian section but once again we kept getting into trouble. First it was because the girls could quite resist touching the sculptures that are out on display with no ropes or signs saying not to touch. And later they got in trouble for touching the stands that they artifacts were on, of course. Just can't win.
After Egypt we made our way over to the Roman and Greek areas. Wow, it was impressive!
This was a sculpture of Zeus so Eliza needed a pose. And with all the statuary around, Holland decided that she wanted to be a statue.
In various poses.
Seriously beautiful! We didn't linger as long as we did in the Egyptian area but it still took a while to go through. After that we briefly walked through some European paintings. I am pretty sure that the painting behind me in this photo was in my AP European History textbook. I spent a lot of quality time with that text book so it seems to have stuck with me more than other AP classes did.
I thought that they moved this entire choir gate from a cathedral somewhere and put it in the museum. I seriously can't believe how huge this place was. We only saw a fraction of it, and we spent hours there. The artifacts were amazing but I also really just enjoyed seeing the building. Look at the ceiling of the lobby. It's beautiful.
We sat down behind this short wall on the balcony to have quick bite to eat. We didn't even get in trouble for it, but we did try to eat discretely. After that we headed back out in to the humidity to enjoy some more time in Central Park.
We saw the little pond with all of the little sail boats. It felt like I was in the movies!
We saw the Alice in Wonderland statue.
The girls wanted a picture on Hans Christian Andersen statue.
After that it was more time playing on the big boulders in the South Eastern corner of the park. My girls like climbing on the rocks.
After the park we grabbed dinner at the Subway under the Rockefeller center.
Then we made it up to the Top of the Rock. Can you believe these guys sitting on the beam? I would be terrified!
We wanted to go up at Sunset. The light was so pretty. Here is looking towards Central Park. So huge!
Family pic with Central Park.
There are several different viewing platforms and the one that had a great view of the city was definitely so crowded. I couldn't believe that they had timed tickets because it really seemed that the whole place was packed. But it was worth the crowds. We just had to be patient, waiting our turn to make our way to the edge.
The girls kind wandered around while I held our place at the viewpoint. Miriam took some good photos including this cute selfie. That was as close to a sunset picture that I got.
I played around with the panorama setting on my phone. So many beautiful lights.
This was the money shot. I love it.
Beautiful city lights. I love that it is such a good view of the Empire State Building.
Central Park looks so dark compared to the rest of the city. The elevators had a clear ceiling with lights through the elevator shaft so we could see how fast and far we went. Pretty awesome.
We took the bus home and kind of cringed because of how much cheaper it was than taking an Uber. Oh well. Our bus stop had an amazing skyline view! Whoa!
