On Sunday after church, Jeremy surprised our family with a much needed getaway. And I was so, so thankful. Because ever since the beginning of the year, it’s felt like we’ve been going and going and I’ve learned that the only way to keep that pace, is to take a few, much needed breaks in between.
After settling into our West side hotel, Ellee and I decided to be adventurous. Using Trip Advisor, we found a cute restaurant called Puff Cha, only a few blocks from our hotel where we enjoyed their famous puffs (we got the crab rangoon ones), wonton soup and mango bubble tea. Afterwards, we walked over to Chipotle where we met up with Jeremy and Christian who took the still good, but less adventurous food route.
Funny enough, even though it was our mini vacation, we still decided to go to church that evening. We had heard great things about Hillsong NYC and decided to check out their 7:30pm service. I’m so, so glad that we did. Being a ministry family, Sundays are busy from morning till night and often times when they are done, I feel completely drained. But getting to go to a church service where we could simply attend? It was a much needed gift. The worship and the preaching touched my heart in a powerful way and I left feeling so blessed and refreshed.
On Monday morning, I woke up to find that my brave husband rented a city bike and rode about ten miles round trip through the mean streets of New York to get us some goodies from the Levain Bakery. Again, we found it on Trip Advisor (I’m a huge fan, if you haven’t noticed. We’ve used them to find all sorts of fun in the cities we’ve visited) and it was listed as number one in New York City. After tasting their chocolate chip cookies, it was easy to see why.
Our main adventure of the morning was to go and check out the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum. Thanks to our library, we had free passes and saved our family about $86 which was super fun. The highlight was probably getting to check out the Submarine, Growler, which was awesome, but a little claustrophobic when I stopped to think of all of the men who spent a portion of their lives serving on it under water.
Afterwards, we checked out a few of the exhibits and then ended up on the top deck of the air craft carrier where they had all sorts of cool airplanes on display. Ellee had fun twirling around in her fun blue dress and taking lots of pictures with my little red camera. It’s the one that I usually bring when I don’t want to bring my big professional one. For some reason though, this trip she decided that she wanted to use to to take pictures, so I let her because it was fun to see her enthusiasm for photography.
After the Intrepid, we decided to get lunch. Ellee and Jeremy opted for Sushi and Christian played it safe with pizza and knots.
And somehow I stumbled upon Tasty Hand-Pulled Noodles, which was an authentic Thai hand pulled noodle place that we saw on one of Guy Fieri’s restaurant shows. I kept it simple with the veggie and egg bowl and it did not disappoint.
We spent the afternoon walking around our beloved City. We ended up checking out the Museum of Modern Art since we had gotten free library museum passes for there as well. Ellee and I created art in the Children’s studio while Christian and Jeremy did a quick Van Gogh sweep upstairs. It was right after this that I realized that our sweet daughter was starting to struggle a bit. She had complained of a sore throat all day, but when I bent down to kiss her very hot forehead, I knew it was official.
So we got her a lot of tissues and some Ibuprofen as well. I prayed for her and we ended up heading back to the hotel for a bit of a rest time while we waited for the medicine to kick in. For the most part, she was a trooper and I’m so thankful for this. It’s always a bummer when you’re on vacation and someone gets sick, but we did the best to make the most of it and in the end it worked out fine.
After a nice rest at our hotel, we headed out for late night dinner. The boys were the fun ones this time, stopping at Tri Tip Grille under Rockefeller Center. They enjoyed their big, beautiful burgers while we opted for soup from Hale and Hearty.
By then, Ellee was feeling better so we walked around for a bit under the beautiful city lights. She clicked away on her camera and I prayed a quick prayer of thanksgiving that she was feeling better. We headed back to the hotel afterwards and all fell into bed having walked a good eight miles or so. We slept well after enjoying a wonderful and fun day.
We took today a bit easier. Ellee still wasn’t feeling 100%, so we kept the walking down to a minimum. We checked out Bryant park and the New York Public Library. It was pretty much a beautiful museum of a building. Ellee and I stopped for a bit to curl up on the couch in the children’s area while we read a few chapters of our current book, The Borrowers. It was a childhood favorite of mine and so special to get to read with our daughter in such a beautiful place. Then I made her take a picture with this giraffe because it was kind of cool.
After the library, we walked over to Times Square and took a quick break at Carlos’ Bakery. We opted for the Peanut Butter and Chocolate cupcake while Jeremy settled for a nice hot cup of coffee. The cupcake was delicious and the perfect snack to finish our day in the City.
We took an earlier afternoon train back home. Ellee was about done, and we all had our fill of a fun mini getaway to New York City. It was a great couple of days and I’m so thankful that we got to have this time all together with our family. It’s important to take breaks when you can, and I think most important to invest time and money into the wonderful people around you who matter the very most.
Laura Herr Photography 