A Tale of Three Cities

We just returned from a wonderful vacation. We flew into New York City, drove to Philadelphia, and then on to Washington DC. This trip started as an adoption reunion in DC with our agency and slowly progressed to become a sort of "National Treasure Tour."

The whole trip was such a blast, although Dh wore us all completely out by the first day. The man had an agenda, and by golly, we were going to hit everything on his list. Dragging 4 young children around Manhattan turned out to be a feat in itself, but it was certainly doable. We'd all six jump into one little cab--my husband would throw the stroller in the trunk and jump up front with the cabby, and the rest of us (all five!) would cram in the back. We did a lot of walking and standing in line. We even all rode the subway once.

We started Saturday with the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We had to go through pretty heavy security to even get on the ferry. We saw a really neat play on Ellis Island that really helped us all understand what it might have been like coming to America as an immigrant so long ago. After we got off the ferry, we watched some street performers called the Positive Brothers. They were very entertaining with their physical strength, acrobatics, and comedy. At the end they pulled my boys up, and one of them ran and did a flip over mine and two other boys. They ended the show with the "positive" message telling the kids to stay away from drugs and alcohol. We went to Ground Zero and passed by Trinity Church(from National Treasure) on the way. We went to Spy Shops and Times Square also. Sunday was a little slower. We went to JR's church and had a few minutes to visit with the Vassars afterward. We also went to FAO Schwartz and Central Park. The kids got to watch a great street performer(mostly juggling and comedy) while we were in Central Park. We left the city on Monday in a rental car, but drove by some of the sights we'd missed over the weekend.

I'll have to write about the rest of our trip later. Until then....