McGinnis Family Fun: New York in Spring

In April we randomly had a long weekend pop up so we decided to take advantage and head off to the Big Apple with our little family. It wasn't until I was on here beginning to post this that I realized this was our first, real, just-us family vacation. Since Owen was born we have been to Mississippi and Palm Springs, a random house in Maryland and took many trips home to IL, but this my friends, was our very first vacation for just the 3 of us. What a fun milestone!

So we drove up Thursday night and took our time getting there...and by "took our time" I mean we took almost 6 hours of our time! It was nice though, to not be in a hurry, to be able to stop and eat dinner, and to not have to stress about traffic. PS- we ate at a Mimi's Cafe in Maryland! Thats right folks, Mimi's Cafe apparently also exists on the East Coast! Hallelujah! ...but I digress...

We arrived at the hotel around 11pm and were pleased with our all around experience at the Regency on Park Avenue. When we checked in the front desk workers gave Owen a "Little People" toy as a welcome gift. They brought in a nice big cot for him to sleep on and he did really well both sleeping and napping in the cot. FYI, Robert and I also did really well sleeping and napping in our super-duper King sized bed dreaming about someday when we will have a bedroom large enough to hold a bed that big...but again, I digress...

Owen was just getting over a bout of sickness and we were rin a go-with-the-flow mindset so after breakfast on Friday morning we spent a lot of time exploring Central Park. We rode the carousel, played at the park, climbed some rocks, got a little turned around, stumbled upon Tavern on the Green, watched horse and carriages trot by, and eventually found our way back to the hotel. After a nice nap for all 3 of us (see, I wasn't kidding before) we ventured out to Times Square, Rockefeller Center and obviously grabbed cupcakes from Magnolia. Owen got to go in his first NYC taxi (which thrilled him equally as much as taking the taxi in DC) and while in Times Square we visited the Toys 'R Us amusement park-er, I mean toy store. Owen was allowed to choose one toy and much to our delight, he chose a $7 "racing car" to bring home. I, on the other hand, chose a t-shirt, a mug with his name on it, a baseball glove, a big wheel, a stuffed taxi and wanted to go for a ride on the ferris wheel. Good thing Robert was there to keep me in check, and we walked out with just the racing car and "Owen" mug :-) Later we also hit up FAO Schwarz where Owen got to play on the floor piano from the movie "BIG." We learned the secret to visiting that store is to go 45 minutes before closing on a Friday night! It was great, and a great end to our first day!

Saturday morning we hit up a unique little place for breakfast called Alice's Tea Cup. Owen was not in the best mood to appreciate the atmosphere, but this place would be a little girls dream to visit! After breakfast we headed to the Natural History Museum especially to see the dinosaurs. Unfortunately, someone should have told us not to spend $15/ticket to do something we could do for free at home. So after only about an hour we were back in Central Park and this time we got to see some tee-ballers and little leaguers playing right there in the middle of Central Park. We watched for a bit, then headed over to "Ballplayers Park" where Owen wanted to swing and climb. Then it was off to Columbus Circle where we wanted to grab a snack before heading out of town. That didn't quite work out, so we checked out of the hotel, got our car and decided to head out to Cafe Habana, a little Cuban place our friends told us to try. (which I am now telling you to try! Seriously, so worth the wait!) We decided to stay in NY a little longer then planned and took some time to enjoy SoHo and Greenwich Village. And before getting in the car, Owen and Robert played at a really cool park while I stood in line one last time for some Magnolia Cupcakes to bring home :-) There would have been no better way to end our weekend!

Having fun at the hotel