Now that Olivia is 5, she is pretty easy to travel with - she is good on a plane, fairly good if she misses a nap or stays up a little late, and is interested/exciting in seeing the world. Given that new baby will probably put a damper on our travel for the next few years, we decided a Big Sister trip to NY for Christmas was a great idea.
Excited to go and happy to carry her own bag!
She watched about half a movie on her iPad...
We landed to considerably chillier weather than we had left in Houston!
On the advice of some of my friends at work, we stayed at the Lotte Palace hotel in midtown. I loved this hotel - everyone was SO nice, it was a great location, and the rooms were huge. Highly highly recommend.
And Miss O got the royal treatment when we arrived. They presented her with a light-up princess tiarra and a this teddy bear (Note - I am not sure why, but she's obsessed with taking clothes off dolls/stuffed animals. This bear was naked by the time we got in the elevator!)
We went and settled into our room and ordered some room service for dinner.
We headed out bright and early the next morning to see Times Square
On our way, we happened upon the American Girl Doll store. The THREE story American Girl Doll store. So of course she had to go in and check it out.
We finally pulled her out of it, to head to Times Square. First stop - the M&M store.
Olivia was able to make some custom (purple of course!) M&Ms with her name on them.
We happened upon these crazy characters
After a few more stores, we worked up an appetite so we headed to Shake Shak.
Someone was "hangry" at this point and not happy about the line around the block...
But luckily it moved fairly quickly and she had some custard before too long.
We headed back to the hotel for a little nap/rest time and Olivia got a chance to play with her new Ariel doll from the Disney Store (What's that you say? No, I've never heard of the word spoiled. Have no idea what you mean...)
After a nap, we headed to Rockefeller Square to check out the tree. Miss O found the cookies at Bouchon Bakery and was thrilled that they were almost as big as her face!
The lovely tree...
And then we headed to Radio City Music Hall for the Rockette's show. This was definitely one of the highlights for Olivia!
Modeling our 3D glasses...
Um I don't know if he's making that face because he knows I'm taking a picture or I caught him in a genuine moment of happiness but this picture makes me laugh. (PS. Allow me a slight moment to brag on my husband - this guy went to the American Girl Doll store, the Disney store, saw a Rockettes show, had tea at the Plaza, and listened to a 2 hour meltdown from Olivia about how her boots were not fancy enough for the Plaza. I know he loves his girls, but I'm guessing he will be happy to add a little more boy to the mix!)
By the time we got out of the show, it was dark and the whole city seemed just a bit more magical.
And then we went to see The Three Bears Holiday show at the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theater
Only kids were allowed to sit in the front row, so Olivia quickly found a friend and settled in. It was pretty cute and classic Olivia - even though we were literally 10 feet away from her a few rows back, she turned around every minute to wave, blow a kiss and make sure we were still there. Towards the end of the play, I was getting pretty hot (this baby makes a mamma hot!), so I stepped outside. Matt said the door wasn't even shut yet when Olivia scurried back to him to find out what was going on and I came back in to find her sitting on his lap.
One of Olivia's greatest joys in NY was the discovery of taxi's and Ubers. I got a little blow-up booster for her that made car-traveling pretty easy. As soon as she discovered that a taxi or Uber were available with the click of a phone or the wave of her hand, she got pretty high maintenance about walking. At one point she told Matt and I "Fine. You guys can walk. That's fine with me. But I am taking an Uber!"
One night we convinced Olivia to go to Nobu with us for sushi and then we walked to the shops at the Plaza for a nutella crepe for dessert.
We shared a nutella/berry smoothie and a nutella/banana crepe for dessert!
The next day Olivia says was her favorite - tea at the Plaza!
Posing like Eloise!
Her cup even had a picture of Eloise on it!
She didn't like the "kids tea" they brought her, and instead had 2 cups of mine!
Pinkies up!
And she loved sampling everything from the tray of desserts
Including the cotton candy (which was delicious and I'm pretty sure I ate most of it back at the hotel while Olivia napped!)
We also went to Serendipity and decided that the frozen hot chocolate was worth the THREE hour wait!
We also stopped by Ess-a-Bagel for some NY bagels and breakfast sandwiches. Again - worth the wait!
And we finished the trip with a trip to Central Park to ice skate. Olivia was SO excited about this. I figured she would be on the ice for 10 minutes, fall and get cold and want to go. But no, she and Matt skated for about 30 minutes.
Then they took a break for a donut and some hot chocolate.
And went straight back out!
