We’re going backpacking with Kevin in October!!! We are so excited and pumped to kill ourselves on the trail hiking 10-15 miles a day for 3-4 days! Should be crazy, insane, and fun.

Over the weekend we both got our packs ordered and I ordered a sleeping bag! We also got our sleeping pads and sleeping bag liners. Hopefully it’s not too freezing in October but we’ll go prepared!!!

Sunday we headed out for bagels and the Sex and the City tour! We got to see all sorts of places from the tv show and movie. It was fun to see Carrie’s ‘neighborhood’ and their hang out places. After the tour we headed down to Madame Tussaud’s wax museum. It was eh. We were so glad our City Pass covered the $35 admission, it sooooo is not worth that much $. $10 maybe. We walked through pretty quickly and just took our pics with the celebs we liked.

After we headed south to the Manhattan Mall, which was a huge dissappointment. There were around 20 stores in there and all of them were stores we had at home.

We left the mall and went to the world’s most famous Macy’s, again, nothing we really found of interest there. Went up to Vickie’s and I picked up a few things

We made our way back to Fifth Avenue and walked that all the way up to Central Park again, we went into Tiffany’s, I had wanted to buy a certain necklace that I thought was $150-200, turns out it was $300- no thanks…

Headed back to the hotel for a rest then got ready and hopped on the Subway to head out to Brooklyn for Peter Luger’s for dinner! A few months before our trip I saw a couple specials on the food network on Peter Luger’s. It’s been the #1 steakhouse in NYC for the past 24 years and they sell 10 tons (20,000lbs!!!!) of meet a week! So of course we have to eat there!

We split a piece of bacon, a Luger specialty, it was super thick and tasty. Then we shared the Porterhouse for 2 along with an order of German fried potatoes. Everything was absolutely delicious! The steak was cooked perfectly and was melt in your mouth magnificent. All around us people were ordering this huge sundae with homemade schlag (whipped cream) on top so we decided we definitely needed to share one

After stuffing ourselves we headed back to the Subway and made our way over to the Empire State Building for our New York at night view! It was so amazing and beautiful. I love the Chrysler building at night!!! We stopped at a dinky gift shop too and bought last minute souvenirs…

Hopped in a cab and headed back, got back around midnight.

Monday morning- our last day! We got up and searched out a Dean and Deluca for breakfast. It was pretty good. Then we wanted to get some pashminas that vendors sell all along the streets so we searched one of those out and each bought a few.

Headed back to the hotel, grabbed our luggage, and hailed our last NY cab to head out to LaGuardia!

Overall we had a great time and packed a TON of stuff into our time. I don’t really feel an overwhelming need to go back. Maybe someday Nathan and I will make it back out there but for now there are a lot of other places I’d rather see

Our third day was Saturday! Jess, Kristie, and I slept in a little, it was nice to rest up. After getting ready we headed out to go visit Top of the Rock- Rockefeller Center that is…

Kristie decided to sit this one out so Jess and I headed up. The view was amazing!!! We could see Central Park and all the way down to downtown Manhattan. The view of the Empire State Building was also pretty sweet. After visiting the 3 observation levels we headed back to Kristie and we set out for the Carnegie Deli!

Along the way we ran into a street fair following Sixth Ave all the way north, we needed to go north so we followed the fair Kristie got Jonathan a little souvenir and I found a pearl necklace and a boho style purse, super cute! Jess also bought a necklace.

We eventually made our way to the Carnegie Deli and settled in for some lunch! Everything was a bit spendy for a deli but Jess and I split a Pastrami sandwich and an order of onion rings, Kristie had a BLT. It was all pretty good except the onion rings were kind of weird…

After we headed further north to Central Park!!! At this point it started to rain a bit so we pulled out our umbrellas and had a mini photo shoot in Central Park, got some great pics.

Walked through half of Central Park then detoured out to the American Museum of Natural History, did a quick walk through of the areas that interested us then left to head over to the Met. At this point our feet were in immense pain so we asked a Pedi-cab how much it’d be to take the 3 of us to the Met, a distance of .75 miles. $10 bucks a person!!! No thanks, we’ll walk. So we headed on out to cross the Park from West to East and go to the Met. We eventually made it (with extremely sore legs and feet) and made a quick half hour walk through the Monet and Van Gogh sections, that was all we really cared to see. Afterwards we made the decision to cab it to our dinner destination- John’s Pizzaria in Midtown East. $8 and 10 minutes later we were very happy with our choice

Dinner at John’s was delish! We had garlic cheese bread and a sausage and black olive pizza. Nummy!!!

After dinner I made the executive decision to treat the girls to a cab ride back to the hotel because I was just not able to walk any further. $6 bucks later I could not have been happier with that choice, best $6 I spent the whole weekend!!!

Back at the hotel we settled down for an hour or 2 then headed out to Serendipity 3 for dessert!!! We walked, it was only 10 or so blocks so not too bad. Once we got there we were told there was an hour wait. Kristie wanted to get going home to Jonathan so Jess and I put our names on the list then Kristie treated us to a cab ride back to the hotel and we helped her get packed up and into a cab to head off to Penn Station. It was sad to see her go but we really enjoyed our time with her!!!

After we saw her off we used my laptop in the lobby to get our 2 free Fandango movie tickets to see The Time Traveler’s Wife (don’t see it! Not that great), we had passed a movie theatre walking to Serendipity and so that’s how we came upon seeing amovie. If we had paid full ticket price it would have been $12.50!!!

We headed back to Serendipity and only had to wait 10 minutes longer to order my Frozen Hot Chocolate and Jessica’s Strawberry Creme- Cheese cakes with strawberry’s and fudge. The desserts were huge and decadent and had the prices to go with it, lol!!! $14 each later we headed out for the movie. After the movie we treated ourselves to yet another cab to get home in a decent and safe time.

Tomorrow is Sunday!!!

We all got up at 6am so we could be out the door at 7am for our Statue of Liberty 8am tour. Stopped at Starbucks and got some coffee and pastries for breakfast and headed off the the Subway.

We arrived in Battery Park and made our way to the ferry for the ride to SOL. As we approached the SOL was awesome. I’d been here once before when I was 13 but this was the girls’ first time. It was sticky, sweaty hot out but we were excited.

We headed up the Statue all the way to the crown. The climb was hot, sweaty, steep, and cramped but so worth it! The view was amazing.

After we were done looking around we headed back to Battery Park and took some pics then back to Grand Central for lunch again. Jess and I split a panini and Kristie had a hot dog. We cleaned up and then headed out to meet our Big Apple Greeter (BAG) in our hotel lobby.

Sue was our greeter, she was super sweet and probably in her 50s. She’s Jewish and lived in Brooklyn all her life. Amazing woman who showed us so much. She walked us across the Brooklyn Bridge and then showed us her neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights. Then she took us up to the rooftop of her apartment building and she had the most amazing view of the Manhattan skyline. That was also when she told us her Home Owners Association dues were $900 per MONTH!!! We were all completely shocked. But her building does have a doorman and everything is very well kept.

We said goodbye and headed down to the WTC site, not much to see, they’re building the memorial right now. We stopped at Century 21, a TJMaxx type department store, and were very dissappointed. Headed down to Chinatown and Little Italy then. Ate dinner at Hop Kee in Chinatown, nothing too special…

Then we happened upon a Pinkberry!!! So wonderfully delicious!

At this point in the night we are all completely exhausted and sore. We head back to good ole room 1036 at the Waldorf and take a couple hours to rest and relax.

Around 9pm we cleaned up to head out and show Kristie Times Square at night. We walked the whole area then stopped at Planet Hollywood for a snack and dessert and a Long Island Iced Tea for me

Tomorrow I’ll share our Saturday with you!