The Kitchen Family

Philly & New York 
Brock & Lis trip 
May 13-18

Brock had to take a very expensive clinical skills test in Philadelphia, had to, so we decided to make the most of it and take a quick trip to explore, just the two of us.

This was both of our first time being back EAST, and we loved it. One of my all time favorite things is to experience a "first" with Brock.

We flew into Philly {really late} had a mess trying to get our rental car that we reserved weeks before, ended up getting to bed at 2:30 am and Brock was up early to take him 8 hour test. What a man. We stayed our first night with my good friends from high school Lindsey and Russ Robinson. So fun to see them and meet their two sweet girls. While Brock tested, us girls PLAYED. Lins was the best host, she showed me her area of Philly and let me experience a Philly pretzel and water ice {like a snow cone but WAY better}, two things they are well known for. Both very tasty!

The weather was wonderful. So fun to explore nature....

 After Brock's test and Russ got home from work we went to Winnie's to celebrate. ;)

The Robinson's were so great to let us stay the night and be so kind to show us around. Such a sweet little family.

 That evening of Brock's test, Thursday, we headed to Jersey where we stayed two nights in our friends Stephen and Julia Wang's apartment. Gorgeous apartment, perfect view of the Manhattan skyline right around the corner. SO grateful that they were so generous and let us stay.

We arrived about 9:30 pm, and wanted to HIT THE TOWN. The night was just getting started in Manhattan, right?!

I rode on my first SUBWAY, sweet. And we experienced Time Square.

Fun atmosphere, LOTS of lights and entertaining watching people.

 We saw two men creating masterpieces on canvas, with only cans of spray paint and a scrap of paper. It was incredible. One of our only regrets was NOT buying one. Darn, maybe next time...

 This MAY have been my all time favorite thing I ate on our whole trip {maybe tied with frozen hot chocolate} We found this hole-in-the-wall .99 pizza joint at 11:00 pm and it HIT THE SPOT! We both have been craving it since.

 Morning before heading over to Manhattan again...

 Time Square in the day... Hershey's headquarters and store.

 CENTRAL PARK!

Possibly my favorite part of the trip... Gorgeous.

We spent 2.5 hours strolling on through....

 When you look at this don't you want to try and find Neil and Mozzie? {If you haven't seen White Collar the tv series, look it up NOW and watch every season ever made}

 We found our way through the "Rambler" multiple paths in sort of a maze to get to the Belvedere Castle.

 Cool buildings after Central Park...

 We didn't make time to go through the MET Museum, but we did hang outside to eat a snack and listened to this sweet jazzy group. They were selling their CD's.

 One of my favorite chick flicks, Serendipity.

Food was FABULOUS!! We got two of their famous frozen hot chocolates and an artichoke heart pasta dish to share. 

OH BABY YUM!

 More cool buildings, and the Apple is a glass box with an elevator in it that you ride underground to get to the Apple store. Pretty sweet.

 St. Patrick's Cathedral was under construction, but still very cool, very peaceful and well worth the extra walk to see.

 Outside the Rockefeller Center...

 Grand Central Station, couldn't get a good pic for the life of me. 

Brock eating a breakfast sandwich from a cart on the streets of Time Square, right before we bought our Phantom of the Opera tickets on Broadway! The show was awesome!!!! We bought cheap not so good seats, but saw empty very good box seats half way through, and asked an usher if we could take them, they gladly said GO AHEAD. SWEEEET!

 Before we crashed for the night, we walked to boardwalk along the Manhattan/Jersey coast line by our apartment.

GORGEOUS. Pictures don't do justice.

 Our last half day in Manhattan, we walked extra fast {I BARELY made it, being 11 weeks pregnant - more on that later} Quick story...We were jumping subway lines {WAY confusing for first timers} And at one shady stop we could not figure out what stop it was...Brock was looking at a map on my phone and very quickly stepped off to find a sign, I stayed on to wait for him to hop back on, the door shut and I was stuck on the subway, Brock was off with both our phones. BLAH!! I freaked for a sec, until a kind person made a little scene and the conductor did an emergency opening of the doors, and I hopped off. SCARY!! 

But funny now.

GROUND ZERO

What a moving experience. Much more than I expected to be honest. I knew it would be wonderful, very neat to see and honor, but very moving. Very well done. 

 Statton Island from afar...

 As close as we got to Lady Liberty. Next time I would for sure ride a ferry to get right next to it, but we ran out of time.

 Stock Exchange, Washington, Chrysler building...

 TOP OF THE ROCK

Rockefeller Observation

This was WELL worth the time and money. One of our favorite parts. So cool to see every side and find different buildings.

CHINA TOWN & LITTLE ITALY

Cool, glad we saw it, but thought it was a waste of time for this short trip. Would have gone to Statue of Liberty closer or Brooklyn bridge over this. But, we did have such tasty Gelato and found the boys a toy NYC tour bus here.

Back to PHILLY

Here in downtown Historic Philly. We didn't not know we needed reservations to Liberty Bell and Independence Hall days ahead of time, so we weren't able to go inside, but still walked around the square to see very cool historical sites.

Benjamin Franklin's family's house...

 INDEPENDENCE HALL

 LIBERTY BELL

 Ate dinner at Monkey Bar.

 LOVE park

 A homeless man {didn't know he was homeless} offered to take our picture....turned into a full on photo shoot! Then he asked for donation to help him buy food....we had NO cash or food with us.

ART MUSEUM

 running to the ROCKY STAIRS

I have my own personal Rocky, my Brocky.

 Acting out "the scene" along with every other tourist there.
It was great. Maybe the best part of my night...

Penn's Landing

Brock's Dad {who served his Mission in Philly} suggested this spot to check out, wish we would have made it there before dark and everything was closed. It was beautiful. But this bridge was pretty sweet at night. :)

Such an amazing trip, full of great memories, and much needed alone time for Brock and I. It was the first time doing a trip just the two of us since our honeymoon 7 years ago.

Our sweet boys stayed with our wonderful friends/family the Grajeda's. They spoiled our boys to pieces with a camping trip, movie theater movie, new church shoes and ties, and lots and lots tramp jumping and laughs. Didn't worry about them for a second.

 We are one lucky/grateful family.

I love my sweetheart - best travel and exploring partner ever!!