August 23 — 29
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Sunday August 23rd — Payton and Corinne took the kids with them to visit Hillsong Church. While they were gone, Keller and I took the opportunity to make another quick run through The Met. From there we joined back up at lunch to go to Little Sal’s. This little restaurant was deserted, but we thought the food was fabulous! Unfortunately, it has since closed, but their ricotta bruschetta was incredible!
After lunch, the six of us went to the Intrepid Air, Sea, and Space Museum. It is housed on an old aircraft carrier, the Intrepid. We all really liked the museum, especially the Enterprise space shuttle and the Blackbird spy plane parked on the top deck. The kids enjoyed going up to the Bridge and getting to see all the inner rooms.
Then we split up — Corinne, the kids, and I went back to the apartment for the evening, while Keller and Payton headed into Brooklyn to go to the AfroPunk music festival. They were so excited to see Lenny Kravitz and had a blast. Keller found a new artist that he really liked there too: Gary Clark Jr. The two of them stayed out really late that evening, and they even made a side trip to Grand Central and the Roosevelt Tram before coming back. Corinne and I put the kids to bed and then spent a quiet evening visiting on the roof deck.
Monday August 24th — Today we took advantage of the beautiful weather and wandered around Central Park. Payton and Corinne and the kids rode the Carousel before we walked up to the lake. The kids were so glad to get more room to run around and be a little more autonomous.
We dropped Payton and Corinne at The Met. There was a great little do-whop group singing outside the museum that we really enjoyed listening to. Then the four of us headed to get lunch at Up Thai, a nice little Thai restaurant in the Upper East Side. Keller went back to the apartment to work, while the kids and I found another playground for the afternoon.
Tuesday August 25th — The kids and I took the subway down to Brooklyn to see the Prospect Park Zoo. It was the last one that we hadn’t visited and a bit of a hike. We were able to meet up with Payton and Corinne for lunch at Juliana’s after they spent the morning at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. After pizza, we got ice cream shakes from Shake Shack next door before Kamy decided she really really wanted to show Payton and Corinne M&M World in Times Square.
Wednesday August 26th — Wednesday morning we all went to the Museum of Natural Science and History. We have still only seen a fraction of the museum, despite making three different visits over the duration of our trip. We split up after the museum — Keller, the kids, and I went back to Astoria while Payton and Corinne went off to explore on their own. We had leftovers for lunch, took care of laundry, made a grocery run, and played on the Wii. I cooked spaghetti for dinner that evening for everyone. As a treat, Payton and Corinne stayed with the kids that night so Keller and I could have an evening out. We had tickets to see The Lion King, which had been on my To See list since the first time we went to NYC. The theater was beautiful and I really enjoyed the performance.
Thursday August 27th — The six of us headed to the south tip of Manhattan today. We bought tickets to see both Liberty and Ellis Island. It is a circular trip via ferry and gave us a close up view of the Statue of Liberty and an opportunity to walk through the main Ellis Island immigration terminal. Unfortunately, you cannot actually do genealogy research at Ellis Island as it has all been computerized, but it was neat to walk through the building and imagine what the new immigrants would have felt coming to America.
We made a quick detour to see the famous brass bull at Wall Street before we took the subway back to Astoria. We had lunch at Il Bambino (yes, again, but we had new guests to take!) before spending a quiet afternoon at the apartment. Payton and Corinne grabbed tickets to see A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder that evening while I headed to LGA to pick up Oma and Opa. We didn’t have any trouble meeting up and since they had a little bit of time to burn before they could check into their accommodations that evening, so Oma and Opa came back to our apartment. We grabbed Fatima chinese again for dinner that night before directing them to their Airbnb for the next couple of nights.
Friday August 28th — Keller had the day off, so we made the most of it! The kids and I went to the library first thing in the morning to return and check out a new round of books. We tried to take Payton and Corinne to Queens Comfort for lunch, but they were doing renovations and were closed! Lunch ended up being at Point Brazil, a local buffet dive that was a bit lacking in interest, but we were fed. Then we all loaded onto the subway to ride down to Coney Island. We grabbed dinner at Totonno pizza before walking down to the Boardwalk. Unfortunately the Cyclone was not running when we got down there, but Payton and Corinne rode the Thunderbolt roller coaster.
The carousel was another must-do!
Then we went to the Brooklyn Cyclones baseball game! The kids had never been to a baseball game before, and we had great seats and perfect weather so we had a lovely time. There were even fireworks after the game, which somehow Mr. Caden managed to fall asleep during. We wore both kids out! They fell asleep on the subway ride home.
Saturday August 29th — Payton and Corinne left for LGA Saturday morning. The four of us then went into Manhattan for the day. The previous Sunday Keller met an artist selling canvas paintings outside The Met. Keller decided that he’d like to get one to remember our NYC trip by, so we returned specifically to buy a painting. The kids also chose prints to hang in their rooms (both of the Statue of Liberty, pre-9/11, but hey, it’s what they wanted) as their souvenirs. The painting is now framed and hanging in our house, to remind us of our wonderful trip each time we walk by. It came out great!
For an adventure, we then headed down to Chinatown for lunch. We ate at an authentic Chinese restaurant called 21 Shanghai House. It was delicious, especially the crispy orange beef and the pork buns. Dessert was ice cream from Original Chinatown Ice Cream Factory in the same area. It was the best ice cream we had the entire trip.
Back at home, Caden fell asleep on the chair while Kamy and I ran laundry and played at the playground a bit. He was one tired boy!
