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Okay, here's part I of our Grand Tour.  

Thursday, September 8:  Left our house at 10 am to drive to Philly to Shawna & David's house.  This 8 1/2 hour drive actually took more like 10 1/2 hours.  Thank you PA Turnpike for being closed due to flooding.  I used to think Ohio had some beautiful green freeways UNTIL we got to Pennsylvania.  It's breathtaking.  Simply beautiful.  Lush green trees, covered in ivy all along the roads.  Wow.  Wish I could see it this Autumn.  

The kids did pretty well on the drive.  MacKay wouldn't nurse very well when we stopped (would only take bottles) so I was ready to explode.  TMI?  Probably.  But this blog is private.  

Moving on:

We were pretty tired, but so excited to see Shawna & David's cute apartment.  We had fun.  Both kids did pretty well as we all slept as a family in Shawna's guest room.  

Friday, September 9: Left Shawna's house at 8:30 am.  Drove to New Jersey's port to get on the boat for a little trip to see Lady Liberty.  Once again, we weren't anticipating all the traffic.  Stopped in Jersey to fill up the gas tank and were informed that we weren't allowed to pump our own gas.  Loved the Jersey Turnpike WAAAAAAY more than the PA one.  (Far less expensive and much nicer road.)  We were literally running to the port to make the boat.  People must have thought we were idiots because when we got to the gate, we were actually early.  The website told us boats departed at 11 am.  We pulled into the parking lot at 10:45 am and thought that we had to be on the boat and ready to leave port by 11.  Apparently, these times are just general.  

Anyway, we got to take a couple of pictures while we waited.  And I panicked because we forgot the sunscreen for Whit and Bubba.  So we bought some on the boat ride.  

Here we are waiting for the boat:

We first road over to Ellis Island, where we had a great tour of a really neat place.  Here's Whitney looking out the window of the boat.  She LOVED it.  (Please notice how CLEAN the Hudson is.  Gross.)

And here's Whit at the top of the boat.  She wanted to sit downstairs with Bubba.

First stop:  Ellis Island.  What a neat place.  I had been here 9 years ago, and it was very similar to how I remembered it.  It's under some construction, but also very neat.  Our kids were even being quiet enough so we could watch one of the films inside.  

American flag inside Ellis Island:

This is pretty much how we rolled throughout this week.  Impressions of Ellis:

1.  People came here with nothing.

2.  I didn't know that NOT all immigrants had to pass through Ellis Island.  

3.  I felt so sad thinking about all of the poor families, children and people who were separated from loved-ones, and who had to make the long, disgusting ship-ride back to their country.  

Here's Bart looking at one of the pillars that has actual writing from immigrants.  Very neat.  

And it's quite apparent the kids are enjoying it too:

Then we got back on the boat so it could take us over to see this really neat lady:

Our first sighting:

Here are all the ladies:

Whitney LOVED this statue.  Throughout the rest of the week, she talked about her and would pose just like her.  I'm so glad we went.  This is really one of my favorite places in the world.  

Just the five of us:  (Liberty included)

A view from Liberty Island:

Our passes included being able to go inside the museum and pedestall.  We jammed all of our belongings into a small locker, parked our strollers and made a really looooong walk (carrying two kids) up 351 stairs.  Was it worth it?  Oh, yes. 

This is so you can compare your own size to some of the features of the statue:

Whitney loved this.  She learned that the statue "used to be brown, and then the water and wind turned it green."  

Here we are after our long hike up those stairs.  

And this is our view:

We made it back just before I felt like passing out.  I'm not one for being up high.  We went right up to the top part of that podium.  Not inside the statue.  That would have been a lot more steps.

Because the 10-year-anniversary of 9-11 was just days away, we got to see some of the neat things that were getting set-up.  

Here's NJ's neat monument for the victims of 9-11.  

We were very tired after our full afternoon of boat-rides and site seeing.  But NYC was just across the water.  We debated for a while.  Should we just go back to Shawna's, or should we go see some sites in NYC.  

We chose to go to NYC.  Oh boy.  It was quite the adventure. 

Here's Whitney as she's seeing "New York City!!!!"  I told her this is where Sharpay went on "Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure."  It made the experience all the more fulfilling.  

The roads are crazy in New York.  Drivers are even crazier.  Bart spent about 5 minutes being bugged at everyone cutting him off, jay-walking and nearly running into our car, before joining in and driving like a New Yorker.  Wow.  Stressful driving.  

We drove all around the city.  Our little GPS lead us up and down some crazy roads.  Whitney had HAD it in her carseat by the time we FINALLY made it to Central Park.  Oh, boy.  

Then she got out and proceeded to walk up and down the sidewalks of NYC without shoes on.  Gross.  We got them on her.  

She loved playing in this cute little park.

MacKay ate some food and we walked around for a bit.  Then we noticed it was getting late and we still had at least a 2 hour drive ahead of us.  So we decided to head back to Philly.  

Wish I could have seen more of NYC .... but that's okay.  

We got to see the Brooklyn Bride from our car.  I walked across this bridge with Anne 9 years ago.  I missed having her has my personal tour-guide to NYC... really, she was the best.  

 And here's Bart pushing a stroller in NYC.  Very manly.  

And yes, that is a big bottle of hand sanitizer in the backpack.  

The drive home took us nearly 3 hours.  We had a hard time getting out of the city.  We got so desperate to find our way, that we even paid $13 to cross a bridge.  If you're driving to the East, bring some a lot of money for Tolls. We stopped along the Jersey Turnpike because poor MacKay was hysterical.  This boy never gets hysterical, so I was feeling so badly for him.  He wanted a WARM almost HOT bottle and the one I was giving him was room-temp.  We stopped and had Burger King.  Looking back now, it's a very sweet little memory of our cute family.  MacKay fell asleep after getting a yummy WARM bottle, and so did Whit.  

We all got back to Shawna's house and crashed.