New York City and Cruise

NYC

Brady and I went to New York City and a 7 day cruise this month. We had an amazing trip! We only had two days to spend in NYC so we kept busy trying to do and see everything. 

The first night we went to The Museum of Modern Art and saw some beautiful (and some interesting) pieces. (We seriously saw a stool on the ground and snow shovel hanging from the air called "art".)  Anyway, we saw some work by some favorites: Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet, and Dali.

We also went to see Wicked. It was excellent. The cast was awesome!!!

 It was definitely a highlight of the trip. 

Brady in Times Square...

The Dakota Apartments

 (Where John Lennon lived and was shot outside the building)

This statue reminded us of Despicable Me 

(if you've seen the movie, you'll know why)

The clock in Central Park by the zoo.

Where Alex, Marty, Gloria, and Melman lived.

Bethesda Fountain in Central Park:

People playing music in Central Park.
(Notice the photo bomber in the background.)

NYC on the cruise ship

Heading out of the harbor on the ship 

we got some amazing views of the city.

It was a little drizzly, but beautiful nonetheless.

Here you can see the Freedom Tower poking through the clouds:

Our first view of the Statue of Liberty.  We were already emotional at seeing this beautiful symbol of our great country for the first time, then the ship played "God Bless the USA" as we sailed past.  It was an awesome moment we'll never forget.

Halifax
Our first stop was in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
It is a pretty small town so we started our day with a walking tour with a friendly Canadian.

Our tour ended in the town square with City Hall on one side:

and St Paul's Church,
the first Anglican church in the Americas on the other:

Next we headed to some botanical gardens.
It was lovely!

We got to go on the Harbour Hopper
for a tour of the city and a little harbor cruise.
Yep, that baby just drove right into the water!

Last, but not least, we headed to the Maritime Museum.
Halifax was the closest harbor to the Titanic tragedy, so they had an interesting exhibit to explore.

St. John

We stopped in another little Canadian town and went exploring. 

There were some beautiful churches to see....

...a market...

...and we took a little walk by the water.
Here's a pic with our ship in the background:

Bar Harbor

Next stop was in Maine. We loved this port! We were able to go to Acadia National Park and do some hiking and exploring. Simply gorgeous! 

Beautiful beaches too!

Brady was wishing for his swimsuit.
 The water was really cold though, so he would have been swimming alone (not for the first time)!

Back on the boat we were able to justify eating all we wanted after a long day of exercising.

Boston

We were excited to walk the Freedom Trail in Boston 

and see all of the historic sites there.

First stop was the State Capital:

An inside picture of the Grand Staircase.

Grave maker for John Hancock

Grave marker for Paul Revere

Grave marker for Samuel Adams

Headstone for the victims of the Boston Massacre:

Boston Massacre site memorial:

There was a memorial to the six million Jews that died during World War 2.

Each pillar had the numbers for one million people.
It was very sobering.

Paul Revere statue in the plaza outside the Old North Church:

You can see the Freedom Trail really well in this picture leading us to
The Old North Church

Inside the Old North Church

We headed to the Bunker Hill memorial where we learned that we could climb to the top...for free!
It was brutal! 294 stairs!!!
(Remember this was after walking around town all day, and hiking the day before)

Anyway, I was a little tired...

Brady probably could have run the whole way up, but he stayed with me!

Here's the view from the top:

A picture to capture our moment of victory:

Newport

At the last port we were able to take a "cliff walk" by the ocean 

and see some pretty amazing mansions!

NYC on the ship

On our last morning on the ship, Brady got up early and got some great pictures as we sailed back into the harbor in New York...

NYC

We didn't have a lot of time to spend in New York City, so we got a Gray Line double decker bus pass. It took us around to many of the sites and had tour guides that shared interesting information. 

Empire State Building:

The Flatiron Building:

We went to ground zero...

There were two of these fountains where the towers once stood which had with the names of those who died engraved around the outside.

The new Freedom Tower:

When we went to St. Patrick's Cathedral, there was scaffolding up all around it, so here's a pic from online:


Here's one we took inside:

The views were spectacular on top of the
GE building at Rockefeller Center!

Central Park is so big! Love it :-)

The Manhattan Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
On the third floor there is also a regular meeting house (complete with a full basketball court!) where we went to church on Sunday

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Largest Anglican cathedral

 (fourth largest Christian chruch in the world). It was enormous!!!

Here's a pic inside. Can you see Brady?

 We also went on a night tour on the bus. It was beautiful!
The Empire State Building was lit up in Germany's flag colors to celebrate the Steuben Day parade.

Brooklyn Bridge:

While on a bus tour, we passed Rita's! These were all over in Philly, and we were surprised to see one in NYC. Upon further investigation, we discovered that it is the only one in town...so we rented some bikes and had a lovely ride through Central Park and treated ourselves to a Rita's gelati (custard and flavored ice).

It really is happiness in a cup!

We especially want to thank all of those who watched our kids while we were gone! We definitely could not have done it without you. It was so nice to relax and have fun knowing our kids were in good hands! We loved seeing New York and spending time together. It was wonderful and we highly recommend it!