Thursday, January 19, 2012

Day 6, Part 4 - The Last Part!

M&M's store!  This was only maybe half of the colors, maybe.

They had this 'what color of M&M are you' sensor thing that Kyla & I tried out.  It gave her purple, and me dark blue, which was pretty good, ha!

 And yes, I let her choose one of the outrageously priced little boxes of M&Ms, ha! 



Super cool and nice (aka expensive) fancy Japanese sweets.  They looked amazing, I wished we had been hungry at all!

Our last stop was a super quick trip in H&M.  (Sara, I got you a skirt, & Jana, a sweater) for a few things, and then we hurried back to their apartment to get our luggage I had all packed up, walked a couple of blocks to get a taxi (which Kyla did all by herself remarkably fast!) and went to the airport.

Headed back!

We at lunch there...unfortunately the Delta terminal had 2 places to eat, both outrageously overpriced, we paid like $16 for this pizza that wasn't even very good.  Ugh....but we had to eat, the flight was like 3 hours long. Kyla talked to Samuel for a minute to confirm our flight times too :)

I know, we have completely stayed away from Barbies, on purpose, and largely from the Disney Princesses, but this doll was on sale, super cute, and she played Mulan with Audrie a lot while we were there, so she came home with us.  Although I don't plan on collecting them or anything....and she loved that she looks kind of like her friend Sayuri (who lives in Japan).


 Sweet girl!  She fell asleep on the plane, and I nearly couldn't wake her up when we were landing, she is a hard sleeper, and just crashed!



 Sweet girl with her bear, her American Girl book, and her doll, she's set!

 The bruise on my hand....
What an amazing trip!!  Huge thanks again to Samuel & Lynn for each taking vacation days and staying with the boys so we could go!  And to Jamie & Rachel for letting us stay & play with you!!  And to Bob, Sue, Anna, & Amanda, as well as Natalya & Alexa, and Buddy for meeting us in the city, it wouldn't have been as much fun without you!

So, where are we going next??  That's the only bad part about travel to me, I think I must be an addict, ha!  Travel only makes me want to travel more!!

Day 6, Part 3 - Juniors Cheesecake!

Since we were too full to eat cheesecake when we ate there for lunch at Grand Central (there are 3 locations, Grand Central, Times Square, & Brooklyn), we stopped by Juniors for Cheesecake.




Kyla ordered hot chocolate!!  It was really yummy, she shared :)


Okay, so I do like cheesecake, and will eat any cheesecake pretty much, but this was seriously amazing cheesecake.  Definitely the best cheesecake I've ever had in my entire life, and I was a bit skeptical that it would be THAT good or different.  Believe me, it was.  Beyond good.


Like I'm drooling looking at the picture right now, ha!

Kyla said that the cheesecake made her feel "dreamy", and I think that was a great description!

Day 6 part 2 - Times Square!

Kyla wanted to go back to Times Square for our last morning there, since we didn't go into any of the places when we walked through at night with Bob & Sue (although the lights were much more impressive then).

She loved the M&M's sign, it had all kinds of animated little movie things playing.

And, she loves the birds, ha!


We watched them changing one of the huge signs, which was kind of cool.  One of the men working was talking to me about Arkansas, and said he's always wanted to go there to go deer hunting, ha!






 The Mary Poppins Theater....I went back and forth and back and forth about going to a musical while we were there, and finally decided not to.  We had SO much stuff we wanted to do otherwise, and the good Broadway traveling Mary Poppins is coming here to Arkanasas in April, which was the definite first choice for both of us to see.....so we ended up not.  And I bought tickets today for Kyla, Nathan, & I to all go see it when it comes here for less than what one ticket would have cost me in NYC (although still expensive).  And I tried to talk Samuel into going with us, but couldn't.....and I'm sure he's going to regret it, but he's a big boy & can make his own decision I guess, ha!!

 The Toys 'r Us in Times Square has a 3-story ferris wheel inside of it!  Kyla was super, super excited about it, she didn't remember riding a ferris wheel before.




Pretty cool!  We didn't really look in the store more than we had to go get out anyway, I didn't really like the store, it reminded me of Toys 'R Us here, just bigger.  FAO Schwarz was a much, much nicer store I thought.

 Good Morning America studios!


GMA from the outside....

 Good Morning America again....we didn't quite make it in time for the live broadcast, but I knew Kyla would be interested in the diner than that :)

 There was a brand new Disney store that had just opened.

They had some neat displays too, of course.


Day 6, Part 1 - Ellen's Stardust Diner!

Kyla insisted upon helping Jamie make oatmeal for the girls for breakfast before we set out, ha!  She really had a great time playing with them!!

They just live a short block & a half from the subway.....

We headed downtown to Ellen's Stardust Diner, just off of Broadway near Times Square, for the singing wait staff!  


A girl was singing when we walked in, and they sang every few of minutes after that too.  For most of the time it was just us & 6 other people eating in the whole place!  Tuesday in January after a holiday was a great time to visit!  The waiters all kept singing to Kyla, and she actually got a bit embarassed!



We ordered a chocolate "NY style" egg cream because we kept seeing it on menus & I didn't know what it was, but I didn't like it at all really, Kyla drank most if it & said it was okay.  It was chocolate syrup and bubbly water, and I'm not sure what else, milk I guess?

We shared a smoked salmon omelette that was really good though!!  Fun times!  Kyla loved that they all sang, and just kept going about doing their regular job too.  Plus there were lots of lights & stuff...what's not to like?!