New York City

Dec. 3rd we drove to NYC for the day with my mom, my MIL, my brother and his family, and my BFF and her family. We had a really good time. This was our first time there during the Christmas season and it was fun to shop and see all the lights. We drove to Staten Island and took the free ferry over to the city. It was a decent 2 hour drive from our home and parking was a cinch AND only $8 for the day.

We all enjoyed the ferry ride, (did I mention it's free?) even though the air was pretty brisk out on the deck. It was a gorgeous city line view and we went right by the Statue of Liberty - great photo opportunity!
Once there Rod was awesome at finding his way around the city! Days before our trip I sat for hours with my neighbor - who grew up in Jersey, visits the city often - could teach me how to ride the subway and went over maps. Between my crash course and Rod's navigation skills we flew around the city like old New Yorkers! Our first stop was only a couple blocks from the ferry so we walked to the 911 Memorial. For those of you planning a visit, you must get a visitor ticket BEFORE you go. Tickets are free, but you have to punch in your date and time, yes a time, that you'll be visiting the memorial on their web site.

It was beautiful and worth seeing. You go through tons of security so be prepared, but everyone was very friendly. There is also a museum in between both fountains, but is not opening until this Spring. There is still construction on some of the buildings around the memorial - amazing to see even after all this time.

From there we found the Metro subway, got our tickets, all held hands and were ready for our next stop - TIMES SQUARE!

Found a great pizza place, grabbed a slice and then went shopping! Oh, we also needed to stop and buy some peanuts from a street vendor. I've had so many people tell us how good they are and we agree! Yum!

We went to Toys R Us, the M&M store, skipped the Hershey store because when you live 15 minutes from the real deal nothing can compare. The girls had fun in Forever 21 and American Eagle. We were told the prices would be high, but that wasn't our experience. Things were priced much like here at home and even found some good sales.
All this was in Times Square (which isn't really a square) and then walked a few blocks to Rockefeller Center to see the Christmas tree.

And that quick our day was over! We headed back to the Metro and to Staten Island to catch our ferry. We stopped at a Friendly's to eat on our way home and wanted to get gas in New Jersey because it's way cheaper then here in PA.
We love going to the city to visit and we're all looking forward to going back again in June.