We returned last week from a sort of last minute trip to NYC. It was a great trip and I think after the summer we’ve had it was just want we needed to get our spirits lifted up again.

Monday morning came early to all of us but 4/4 were so excited…

Thru security and boarding, this was everyone but Brandons first time flying…

We had some nerves, but no one fought them as much as Avery. Which wasn’t my guess actually;) She was so excited but en route the nerves got the best of her. She snapped out of it when we landed thankfully.

We landed about 2:30, and dropped bags and hit the ground running. THE Macys was close to our hotel, so we walked there and explored for awhile…

We had a quick dinner at Little Italy Pizza (so good, and reasonably priced) and then looked at some windows on our way to…

The Empire State Building!

While the views and being up that high were cool, it was crazy crowed and so narrow up there it made it hard to enjoy. Part of it was probably because we booked at sunset and I’m sure that’s a busy time. But it wasn’t our favorite rooftop of the trip.

We walked back to the hotel to tuck in for the night;)…

Tuesday morning started out early with a walk thru times square and some exploring and eventually to the NY Harbor Pier to catch a boat tour.

We had City Passes and upgraded our boat cruise to a longer Best of NYC tour. I’m so glad we did. The views from the water were so good! I’m just not sure we could have covered that much “ground” walking around in such a short amount of time.

After the boat, we got a car and headed back to the hotel to get ready because we had a dinner reservation in Times Square…

And then…

Hamilton was everything we had watched every fourth of July on Disney plus and maybe better. It was so good! The theater is small, so no real bad seats. Originally, Hamilton was Ellies only birthday request last month and is coming to the Fox this fall, but when we booked New York on a whim in June, we decided to get tickets for there and we are so glad we did. She was so excited to see it live.

After the show, we went to the stage door, because we had read that the cast would use that door, and a few minutes later, out walked Hamilton himself. The crowd in front of us was so sweet to take the girls playbills and hand them up for autographs.

We made it back to the hotel around midnight and crashed hard.

I’ll do part 2 in another post.