Survived April Vacation!

I am so ready for a good night's sleep!! A few months ago I concocted a plan for this vacation which included driving from here to outside of Philly to see my SIL's family for a few days, and then going to NYC. When I told my friends who live in Queens that we'd be doing this, they INSISTED that we stay at their apartment. It's huge (and free) so we accepted gratefully!

We headed off last Sunday. The 6 hour drive took about 8 hours, what with lunch breaks, potty breaks, missed exits and flooding detours. Our days with the family were great! We took the kids too an amazing park which included an 8-story wooden play castle! The next day all the boys headed off to the Philly Zoo while the girl and I hung out, as she had spiked a 104 fever (OF COURSE SHE DID). Wednesday, we headed off to NY.

We got the key to my friend's apartment, dropped our stuff off, hopped on the E train and headed to MOMA. We were there to see Van Gogh's Starry Night at the request of my oldest son. He was amazed by it, it was so cool to see. We looked at some other paintings but the kids were pretty fried, so we headed back to the apartment. We made the kids a simple dinner, and the adults ordered Chinese food later.

Thursday we had tickets to the Statue of Liberty. It was...a challenging day, made more difficult by the TWO HOUR WAIT just to get through security to get on the damn ferry. The kids did not handle it well, in part because we'd screwed up the timing of food so they'd had a bagel snack but no lunch so everyone was whiny. Once we got there and got food into everyone, it was better. I also hadn't taken into account the fact that my oldest son is quite afraid of heights, so the amazing view was lost on him. We had pedestal tickets, which was more than enough for us!

Friday we got up and out of the apartment and got to the American Museum of Natural History before it opened. It was *packed* (no school in NYC on Friday) but the line moved fast. We got tickets to the Sauropod exhibit that just opened, which was pretty cool. Before we went up, we saw the one mummy they have, which was sufficient, and then did dinosaurs. We were there about 2 hours, which exceeded my expectation. I could have done way more, but we were out of time. We ate lunch and then walked around Central Park and watched a wedding.

Today we got on the road and had a good trip back. I had gotten LOTS of stories on DVDs from the library and the kids were mesmerized!!

So, all in all, a decent vacation but now I'm exhausted!