This year Spring Break found us in New York for a short trip. Returning to NYC is always exciting for me–it was my home for many years and in some ways still feels like home (cue in Jay-Z's Empire State of Mind…) Maybe it's the streets and my memories that are all still familiar, maybe it's the creative energy that everyone just seems to embody, or the fact that, here, you can find anything and every experience imaginable. It's a place of absolute possibility. It's also the home to some of my most cherished friendships. Spending time with them was at the top of my list. Oh, and going to Momofuku Milkbar.

Nico and Mateo definitely had their own list of places they wanted to go: Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, Times Square–stuff they've seen in books. When we found out that the average wait to get to the top of the Empire State Building was 2 hours, we nixed that one. And we, the parents, decided we didn't necessarily need to go to the Statue of Liberty, we could take the (free) Staten Island Ferry and wave to her from the water instead.

We rode the subway, with a toddler…and a stroller. I think we encountered only one working elevator. Bless Matt and his back for hauling Jude up and down dozens of stairs. 

We also made it to the Natural History Museum, sight of a most favorite movie of theirs, Night at the Museum.

Home of the life-sized blue whale and a 1400-year-old giant Sequoia. 

More to come….  :)