New York City

My cute mother-in-law flew out to New York with me and stayed a whole week just to help me get settled and take care of Sequoia.  She  is so sweet, but  we didn't really do anything too exciting until her last day here.  It was Dillon's only day off so for Fathers Day and Trudy's last day so we took the train into the city and did some site seeing.  

We did a 'City Sights' downtown tour where you ride one of those double decker buses and get off at different stops.  You can stay as long as you want at each stop and just catch the next bus whenever you're ready to go to the next place.  It worked out really well and we got to see A LOT!

Riding the bus downtown: 

Our first stop was the Empire State Building:

What a view!!! I couldn't get over how big the city was.  It was just endless skyscrapers as far as I could see!

Sequoia can officially say she's already been to the top of the Empire State Building... guess this is what she thought of it, she's sticking her tongue out...

After the Empire State Building the bus took us through Chinatown and Little Italy.  After lunch in Soho went to the World Trade Center Site:

This was at Ground Zero.  Not a lot to see right now but it was a good experience just to go and get a feel for the devastation that happened that day.  I think it gave all of us a greater appreciation of 9/11 and all those that were involved.

This is actually at Battery Park.  We're in front of a statue that once stood in the lobby of the World Trade Center.  At that time is signified peace on Earth.  It took rescuers almost a year to find it at the bottom of the rubble but it's in pretty good shape and is now a tribute to those who died that day... pretty cool.

After Battery Park we took a ferry ride to our next stop:  

The Statue of Liberty!  So cool and the island was beautiful.  We also saw Ellis Island.

After ferry ride back we stayed on the bus for awhile and saw South Street Seaport, United Nations, Rockefeller Center, Greenwich Village, the Lower East Side, and the Theater District.

We got off and walked through Times Square back to the train station:

I forgot, we also saw Wall Street and the Financial District.  Dillon took this picture of the Bull from the bus:

It was a long day, but I'm so glad we got to see all the cool things we did, and spend time with Trudy.  I can't believe how well Sequoia did!  She didn't fuss once!  I guess we got really lucky with this one.  Several people commented on how well behaved she was, and the tour guide said she was the youngest person to take the bus tour.  It was such a fun day and the first of many adventures to come as a family.