New York family vacation

A couple of weeks ago my whole family went to New York for a quick trip. My little brother lives in Ohio so we met him and Lacy there along with all the other adults in my family. It was a lot of fun. We saw a ton in only a few days and it felt like we were constantly on the go. It was great!

Our first day there we went on the circle line cruise that takes you all the way around Manhattan Island. It was fun to see everything from the perspective of the water. It gave us a good overview of where everything was.

Ben and I with the Statute of Liberty.

I have wanted to see this my whole life so it was amazing to finally get to see it.

This is Ellis Island. My grandma came through here many years ago when she first arrived in the United States. I would have loved to have stopped here and gone through this because of all of the history.

We went under lots of bridges. This is the Brooklyn Bridge...I think that because of the name of this bridge I have always wanted to see it as well!

The Chrysler Building

After the circle line tour we walked down to Time Square. We took this picture just for Ady and Emma. They love Dora!

Later that night we went to the U.S. Open. We had tickets for the night match and got to watch Venus Williams play and then Rafael Nadal. It was a lot of fun. We sat at the very top of the stadium and this was the view from the top of the stadium. You can see the Empire State Building and the Chrysler building in this picture.

Ben and I at the U.S. Open on Arthur Ashe stadium.

Venus Williams
The first match went by really fast. Venus Williams won in straight sets.

Rafael Nadal
The men's match was also won in straight sets but it was a lot of fun. I think that we were all so tired that everything was hilarious. We had all sort of funny comments going on throughout this match. The last two sets went into tiebreakers. We all talked like we wanted it to keep going but I think that secretly we all wanted it to end so we could get a little bit of sleep.

Doesn't this group just look enthusiastic:) Can you tell that we are running on about 3 hours of sleep the previous night ( and this match didn't get over until midnight)!

Ben & I in downtown New York. Our hotel is behind us to the left and the Freedom Tower (replacing the World Trade Centers) is the building being built behind us to the right. It is going to be 1776 feet tall.

We went to a Yankees game that afternoon. I can't say that I am a Yankees fan but it was pretty amazing. The stadium was awesome and they have a museum in the stadium. They have balls signed by every player who has played for the Yankees, uniforms of some of the famous players, and all of their trophies from winning the World Series.

After the game we walked around Midtown for a while. This is Grand Central Station.

This was the night of the first BYU football game so of course all of the boys had to find a place to watch the game. The girls all decided to hangout around Time Square. We went to this really fun restaurant on Broadway. It is just a diner but all of the waiters are people who are trying to make it on Broadway. They would sing songs all throughout the dinner. It was really fun and we even got serenaded!

This is me having my midnight snack!

Ben & I on the subway heading for church.
While we were on the subway two couples got on. When they saw us all in our church clothes they asked if we were LDS. I guess we are easy to spot. They were from Italy and were also heading to the LDS church.Home of the David Letterman show

Nicole, Brice, Lacy, Brian, Mom, Dad, Brooke, Ben, Natalie, Britt, Brenda, & Josh
Outside the New York city LDS Temple & Church. They are both in the same building.

After church we headed Uptown to go and visit the Cloisters museum, which has a lot of Medieval art and was formed out of 3 different Medieval castles. This is a carving depicting the Last Supper.

Walking down Park Avenue

We took a bike taxi through Central Park. Brenda and I were in a bike together and we thought that we were going to die. Our guy was riding over curbs, across the lawn and getting lost behind the others. Then he went out on the street (crazy New York streets) and was going the wrong way down a one way street (a busy street) then he swerved in front of an oncoming bus plus multiple cabs. It was scary but was definitely an adventure!Even though during the bike ride we were sitting we were still emotionally exhausted after thinking we were going to die. We sat down outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art to take another rest!

Later that night we headed over to Brooklyn to get a view of the city from across the river. It was beautiful and one of the highlights of our trip. We had planned to go to this amazing pizza restaurant, but when we got there the line was about two blocks long. There was a quiet little Italian restaurant that wasn't too busy so we decided to just give it a try.

We all ordered these 4 course meals...the thing that we didn't realize was that they would take about 20-30 minutes between each course. It ended up being a VERY long dinner. It was a lot of fun though despite listening to my brother complain about how long it was taking. It was after 8:30 when we got to the restaurant and we didn't leave until nearly 11:00. The best part was when we asked them if we could get our check and they seemed shocked that we didn't want to sit there any longer and have coffee. I guess this was our first experience with a REAL Italian restaurant.

Brooke in Brooklyn
After dinner we walked across the Brooklyn bridge. The section of the bridge that the cars drove on was actually underneath of us.

Ben and I in the lobby of our hotel with the Big Apple.

On Monday we did a whole tour of downtown. We started off with this beautiful Statue of Liberty in Battery Park (my mom).This monument is in Battery Park. The plaque next to the statue says this. "For three decades, this sculpture stood in the plaza of the World Trade Center. Entitled "The Sphere," it was conceived by artist Fritz Koenig as a symbol of world peace. It was damaged during the tragic events of September 11, 2001, but endures as an icon of hope and the indestructible spirit of this country. The Sphere was placed here on March 11, 2002 as a temporary memorial to all who lost their lives in the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center. This eternal flame was ignited on September 11, 2002 in honor of all those who were lost. Their spirit and sacrifice will never be forgotten."
This is Fraunces Tavern. It was a place where the Sons of Liberty met to talk before the Revolutionary war.

All of the boys in front of the first fire station that responded on 9/11. It is across the street from Ground Zero.

On the side of the fire station is a memorial that takes up the whole wall. It was pretty amazing to see. They also have pictures and names of all of the 343 firefighters who lost their lives trying to save others. It was such a vivid reminder of what happened that day and very sobering to see all of those pictures of the men and women who gave their lives.

After a bit of an emotional start we then headed to Wall Street. The girls stopped by Tiffany's on our way (but it was closed)...they probably wouldn't have let us in anyway.
This is the place where George Washington took his oath of office after being elected as the first President of the United States.
New York Stock Exchange

Outside of Trinity church.

Ben outside of St. Paul's ChapelOn 9/11/01, St. Paul's cleared out it's pews and set up cots and was a rest place for all of the first responders. They could come here and get food and have somewhere to rest. The back of this church is across the street from where the World Trade Centers stood. Miraculously there was no damage done to this church when they collapsed. This church was the place where a lot of pictures were hung as people were searching for their missing loved ones. There was also a spontaneous memorial that went up on the fences surrounding this church in the weeks following the devastation.
This church was also the church that George Washington attended.

I gained some new insight on this trip - I never knew that the Statue of Liberty smoked
and that Spiderman plays the saxophone...but I saw it with my own eyes!

The Rockefeller Center

The 'Top of the Rock'
We decided to go to the top of the Rockefeller Center instead of the Empire State building so we could get a good view of Central Park. It is amazing to me that in the middle of all of this chaos there is this HUGE park. It really is beautiful.Ben & I with the Empire State Building.

View of the Empire State Building

After our long walk around town we stopped for a little refreshment. We were willing to sit anywhere we could find a seat!

We then headed to our Broadway plays. Most of us went and saw 'In The Heights'. It was excellent. I had never heard of it before but the dancing was awesome and I really liked the music even though I was unfamiliar with it. Jordin Sparks is normally the lead girl but the night we went the understudy was doing the part. It was still really great. I would definitely recommend it to anybody!

Ben in Time Square
After the play we realized this was our last night and there were still a lot of things that we had wanted to see. My brother Brice, Ben & I decided to go on a long walk. We walked from Time Square that is on 48th Street all the way down to 4th street and over several avenues. We walked by the Empire State Building, Macy's department store, the Flat Iron Building, Washington Square Park, and through Greenwich Village. It was fun just being out that late at night and seeing what was going on around us. We were definitely not the only ones out there! I didn't get pictures of everything though because I was a little nervous to be flashing my big camera around...some of the people made me a little nervous:)

This is a monument in Washington Square Park and in the middle of it is the Empire State Building (with the blue lights).

On Tuesday we got up early and walked through Chinatown, Little Italy, and Soho before we left for the airport. Little Italy
I loved this bike. This wasn't the worst one that I saw, believe it or not. There were some that literally only had the frame left...this one still had its pedals and seat!
This is a picture of Ben standing in front of a basketball court known as the Cage.

We had an excellent time. We got to see so many things that I have heard about my whole life. We got to go to the U.S. Open, which was definitely a highlight, and just spend time with family. We enjoyed the few days of being away from our girls but were really excited when we finally got home so we could see them. Thanks to Ben's family for taking care of them and keeping them entertained while we were gone. There were a few days that I called to talk to them and they were too busy playing with their cousins to want to talk to us:)