New York City

Back in late August after Nora’s birthday I had been planning on doing a work trip for a conference to Northern Virginia. It was going to be a simple trip: Leave ATL on a Sunday evening and get back Thursday afternoon. But after booking that trip I was given the opportunity to go to another conference…in San Francisco…right at the tail end of my existing conference. This required a rebooking and extension of my trip…now leaving early Sunday and not getting back until late Saturday. I felt bad being away for that long but these were great opportunities for me, developmentally, for my job. Fortunately (or unfortunately) during the first trip, Cara had some issues with getting dizzy and feeling faint so I canceled my latter trip and headed home early to help.

Getting back to the original part of the story, I was scheduled to attend ANOTHER conference in New York for a company we were looking to onboard at work and I threw around the idea of having the family come along with me. Speaking to Cara, it didn’t take long for her to say Absolutely. So we did.

We arrived in NYC on a rainy day and made the trek from LGA into the city. Normally i’d just get a taxi but with the kids that would be a challenge so we got transit passes and made it to our stop in the city. Unfortunately it was about 3 blocks away from the hotel. This is normally not an issue, but it was raining…and we had luggage…and kids…and no umbrella. Luckily a guy saw us getting out of the subway without one and gave his to Cara. Quite nice compared to what you usually think of when it comes to New Yorkers.

Before the conference began we did some of the typical tourist stuff. Battery Park, WTC site, Highline, Times Square, Macy’s store, Grand Central Station, Wall Street, Brooklyn Bridge and Rockefeller Center. While I was at my conference a friend of ours met us in NYC and hung out with the girls. Being a former NYC resident herself, she was able to show her around.

Lia got a digital camera for her birthday and was excited to bring it with her for the trip. Still learning, most of her photos are blurry but it was interesting to see what she had an “eye” for. Her gallery is also included below. Lia and Nora both fell in love with riding the subway and eating on park benches. They loved the lights and characters of Times Square but in general found themselves at home in the city.

Lia’s first outing with her new digital camera was while in NYC and here are her photos (we removed the good chunk that were of grounds or were so blurry they had no subject in them).