I LOVE NEW YORK!

I really do love New York! Ray thinks I'm crazy and he can't wait to retire and move away. But as long as we're still here I mean to savor it!

Jayden and I had a really busy day, first we had to go to his school to pick up his 'Admit To Class' card for his first day of school next Thursday, , then he and I stopped in Dunkin' Donuts for a treat, then we had an appointment to get his haircut, and then we took a bus trip downtown.
I'll tell you about our outing after I do my "Villagers Real Life Honest Food" post for Teresa:
(not a very good day for me, Teresa!)

Breakfast: 7:00 AM ~ A cup of Life cereal and a mug of coffee with French Vanilla flavor.


Snack: 10:30 AM ~ Wheat bagel with cream cheese and a small french vanilla coffee with milk.


And I finished Jayden's chocolate milk that he didn't want.


Snack: 2:30 PM ~ Starbuck's mocha ice cream bar.


Dinner: 5:00 PM ~ Mediterranean salad with grilled chicken strips.


And I had a mojito (well, I ordered the Pomegranate margarita you see in the background and Ray ordered the mojito, but when I tasted Ray's drink and loved it, he very kindly offered to switch!).


Okay, since today was so beautiful out, sunny, not too warm and not too humid, I decided to take Jayden downtown for a little treat as he'll be starting school full-time next week and we won't have the chance again for awhile.
I asked him what he wanted to do in the city and he said he wanted to go to Central Park. So that's what we did.
When we got there I asked him if he wanted to go to the zoo, or to the amusement park area, or take a carriage ride. He said he wanted to do everything! I explained that it was late already (it was about 2:30 by the time we got there) and we didn't have enough time or money to do everything, so he said he wanted to go to the zoo, but first he wanted ice cream, so that's what we did.


Looking up at the tall skyscrapers that surround Central Park!


Taking a little rest!



While we were eating Ray called to say that he left work early and was on his way, so after we finished our ice cream we headed to the park entrance to meet him, and Jayden spotted the horse and carriages and insisted now that was what he wanted to do!
He also spotted a colorful sculpture and had fun climbing on it.


Then he looked over the carriages and chose a beautiful blue and white one.



The driver was really nice, he told us the name of the horse was Charlie and let Jayden pet the horse, and he even tickled Charlie and got him to smile for us!



I loved the ride, and the carriage looked and smelled clean, and so did the horse, and the driver seemed to really love him, so that made me feel better as I had heard that some of the horses are abused. I'm glad they have a lot of regulations on the treatment of the Central Park horses now.



It was kind of exciting to be in a horse-drawn carriage right in the middle of traffic!


Then we did a loop around the park.


I love Central Park. It is a world of it's own inside a bustling city. If you didn't look up and see skyscrapers you would never know you were in the middle of Manhattan. It's really so beautiful and has so much to offer.
There are lots of rock to climb!


There are lots of stairs to climb too!
Jayden, wait up!


Running ahead again! Jayden, wait up! And this is the reaction I got...

...and he got a time-out right there on a park bench for that!

"Umma, I was only joking." Everything's a joke with this kid!


Central Park has it's own amusement park.




There are lakes.


There are tons of sprawling lawns.


There are tons of sketch artist, face painters, balloon artist, and puppeteers, and there are even Disney characters!



There are lots of musicians.



When we left the park Jayden said he was starving! I wanted to go to a favorite Italian restaurant of ours, but we were on the East side and the restaurant is over on the West side along Restaurant Row and it was about ten blocks away, so we opted to go to TGIFriday's instead. I knew that Jayden would like the Italian restaurant as he's eaten there with us before (and he loves pasta), but this was closer and I was sure we could get his favorite chicken fingers there!


I love walking the streets of Manhattan! There's always so much to see!
I love the traffic! I love the crowds! I love the stores! I love the hotels! I love the architecture!
I love the street vendors! I love those big salted pretzels (and I would have been perfectly happy to have one of those for dinner too)!


They sell everything on the streets of New York, from hotdogs and fruit, to purses and umbrellas!


I love the store window displays (this was one of the windows at Barney's, I have no idea what the display was for, but I thought it was cute, I just hope they're not advocating wearing fur)!


(I loved these shoes in one of the windows! But I did not care for the stockings.)



I love Park Avenue! And the building way down the end, in front of the Met Life building (which used to be the Pan Am building when I worked in the city), anyway, the building in front of that is where I used to work (maybe if you enlarge it you can sort of see it but maybe not because it's covered with netting for construction).



Jayden did get his chicken fingers and he stole some of Ray's rice which he preferred over his french fries.

And for dessert he had a 'bowl of mud' (chocolate mousse over crumbled Oreo cookies, with gummy worms, and they very kindly added whipped cream for him!), he loved it!



And after he finished his dessert, he started on his chicken again, and used his dessert as a dipping sauce!



And, Bernie, while in Friday's we discovered that Tim Horton's is now in Manhattan! Next time I'm there I am definitely going to try it!!



When we were done we walked to the bus stop and while waiting we saw one of those double (piggy-back) buses. I don't know how those bus drivers maneuver those gigantic things through city streets!



On the ride home I asked Jayden if he had a good day and he said, "It was perfect!" It was.

I LOVE NEW YORK!