The Benson Family: New York, New York!

For Mother's Day, Josh gave me pretty much the best present ever: a trip to New York! Allison had moved up there several months before and I had been wanting to see the city for a long time. He even worked it out with Mom so that she was coming, too! New York did NOT disappoint, I loved it! I was a little worried about doing a ton of walking around while pregnant, and we did have to stop and rest a few times, but it ended up going really well!

We left on a Thursday and made it there in the afternoon with plenty of time to start exploring. We started out by leaving the hotel and just beginning to walk. The hotel Mom got us was in an amazing location, so it wasn't long before we started hitting some of the attractions!

We first stumbled across the famous St. Patrick's Cathedral (featured in Home Alone), which was being renovated:

And then we found Radio City Music Hall:

And Rockefeller Center and the NBC building, which I was pretty excited about! I really really wanted to get photo bombed by Jimmy Fallon, but it just didn't happen.

Then the Ed Sullivan Theatre:

And random pretty red doors:

Our end destination was the Temple so that we could do a session. We were trying to use our GPS to get there, and it kept telling us we were right there, but we just couldn't find it. Finally, we looked down a street and just happened to see Moroni peeking out. We were planning on doing a session, but unfortunately for us, it was closed for cleaning for our entire stay! So we had to settle for taking a few pictures and looking around the chapel that was in the middle.

We grabbed some delicious food for dinner on the way home and then hung out with Allison back at the hotel!

The next day we decided to head over to the Statue of Liberty. But first, Mom and I learned that we are the most inept, redneck city visitors ever. We decided to take the subway and so we bought our tickets and hopped on. But as we were looking at the stops, we noticed that none of them had anything to do with the Statue of Liberty. So we started asking people and they told us we were on the wrong line and had to get off, go back up, and then back down a different set of stairs. We stupidly thought that you could enter in any hole and eventually the train would get you into the destination you want. We were laughing so hard we were crying, so people also thought we were crazy subway people. (As a side note, we found out that the stereotype of New Yorkers being completely rude and unwilling to help out tourists isn't true. Everyone was very nice and willing to help. The problem we found was that people were willing to give directions even if they didn't really know what they were talking about. If you live in NY: it's okay to say you just don't know rather than send us in the opposite direction of where we need to be.)

Anyway, after getting on the wrong train a few times, we finally made it to the Statue of Liberty!

We got out tickets and hopped the ferry over (after waiting in a long line to board...)

We didn't actually get off on Liberty Island because we couldn't go inside her anyway and because we had to be able to make it back in time for a Broadway show that night. But the ferry went right up to it so we got a great, close look! (And lest everyone think I'm incredibly vain, Mom was our official trip photographer and insisted that I be in all of the pictures because she has been there before and already had pictures with everything.)

After Liberty Island, the boat dropped us off on Ellis Island to see the museum. It was really cool to be on Ellis Island and see where all of the immigrants came through! The museum wasn't quite as exciting as I thought it would be. They had cool stories, but it seemed like it mostly was just story boards. The room with the artifacts was closed for remodeling or something, and that's the kind of stuff I like to see. But we still had a good time! And saw some awesome views of the city!

Then, we waited in an eternal line in the heat to get off of Ellis Island. It took foreveeeeeeeeer. The ferries were coming so far apart and with each one it felt like the line barely moved forward. We started getting worried that we might miss our show, but it all ended up working out.

We met Allison and were able to grab a quick dinner before heading over to see Rodger's and Hammerstein's Cinderella!

When I was little, I used to watch the Leslie Ann Warren version of the play and loved it, so I had really high expectations. The show exceeded them! They modernized it a little bit, but they did such a great job. They part where her dress turns from rags into a ballgown was amazing; we just can't figure out how they did it!

When the play was over, we stopped off for some dessert and then headed back to the hotel.

The next morning we went to the 9/11 museum (and did a much better job with the subway this time). And saw a guy sleeping, because apparently subway terminals are great for napping:

After we got off the subway, we still had to walk several block and on the way we passed by Trinity Church, which was pretty amazing! You could see Alexander Hamilton's gravestone in the yard! I would have loved to explore it, but unfortunately there wasn't time.

The memorial where the Twin Towers used to stand is amazing.

The museum was one of the most sad places I have ever been. It's so quiet inside that you can hear a pin drop and they keep the lights very dim. There are remnants from the Towers, belongings to the people inside, and details and timelines on how the day went and what exactly happened. It was so incredibly tragic. We didn't really take any pictures inside because it seems odd to treat something so sad like a famous painting or movie prop. We did take a picture of one of the firetrucks outside that was sitting outside of one of the towers during the collapse.

So devastating. We had tickets to a Broadway matinee after that, which we were kind of bummed about for awhile because we left the museum feeling thoroughly depressed.

But then we got to Times Square and saw Spiderman get busted by some NYC cops. It came on the news later and we saw ourselves in the background!

We grabbed some pizza (because you can't go to NY and not have pizza!) and then went to see Aladdin. It was so good; especially when they make the magic carpet fly during A Whole New World!

The show was in the New Amsterdam Theatre, which I could swear I remembered Barbra Streisand talking about in Funny Girl. On the way out, we confirmed that that was the case! The Ziegfeld Follies were in the New Amsterdam Theatre back in the day with the original Fanny Brice!

So cool.

We took a break at the hotel and tried to meet up with Allison at Serendipity for dessert.

But there was like a 325 hour wait, so we walked down the street and found a fun little ice cream place instead. I tried frozen hot chocolate for the first time; it wasn't as awesome as it sounded, but it was good.