New York City

Dane and I were fortunate enough to have my parents offer to watch the kids for a day so he and I could get up and go see New York City.  It's only about 2 1/2 hours north of my grandmas but we've never been so we both really excited to get to go.  Owen went with us since he's been ok with taking a bottle but I wasn't sure how he'd do being away from me all day.  Plus he's small enough it's really not a big deal to have him with us.  We made it into the city and parked near Times Square.  It was pretty cool but as I told Dane (and felt super snooty while saying it) it wasn't that impressive compared to a lot of the cities I've been to in Asia.  There are some crazy, super lit up, ton of neon signs places in Japan.  Yes, I'm a traveling brat :)  But, regardless it was still impressive.  

 We then headed to Top of the Rock and got to see the views of the city.  It was definitely impressive.

 We then headed down to the plaza and Owen just peeked out from the sling and took it in.

 We knew we were parents and have watch Madagascar too many times when we were walking through Central Park and came up to the zoo and saw this...

 We were walking through the park and as we got up to this pond we got caught in a crazy rainstorm.  Seriously a wall of rain just moved from left to right and hit us.  Luckily we were right by a bathroom and Owen was in the sling so he stayed dry.  Dane was so funny and just yelled at me to go and that he'd get the stroller - it was like we were in danger :)  Dane then found a spot under an umbrella of a beer cart - he was really distraught about that :)

 We had to put Owen's hat on after that because huge drops of water were dropping off the trees.

 He was so funny - he'd nap, then wake up and peek around, then fall back asleep... He was quite content in there though.

 After walking around pretty much the whole park we stopped on a bench for a quick pit stop for Owen.

 He got some nice loving from Dane too

 We then caught a cab and headed to the other side of the island and went to the 9/11 memorial

 It was really crazy to see and think about.  I'm sure that will be a day that we just never forget and will always seem surreal to me.  Dane even found the name of one of the firefighters he climbed for in one of his stair climbs.  He actually even found a stair climb in Bridgeton, NJ and went and did that since he'd miss the one in Denver - one of the few reasons why I love him :)

 We then walked down towards Battery Park and saw the Statue of Liberty and stopped for another Owen pit stop

 We headed towards Wall Street and then went to to the Brooklyn Bridge.

 We made it almost half way and we were caught in another torrential downpour.

Luckily again Owen was in the sling (his stroller was pretty much wet all day from the first downpour) so we covered him with a blanket and my sweater.  Luckily he stayed dry and was totally fine while Dane and I were literally soaked.  All in all we got to take in a lot of the city (and walked about 10 miles) considering we were only there for about 9 hours but I think we'd both love to go back and spend some more time exploring.