The Ellingsons: NYC part 1

A few weeks ago my sister Megan came to visit us in NYC. We had the BEST weekend sight-seeing and doing things I haven't been able to do yet. We crossed A LOT off hers and my bucket-list. It was a delicious, sore feet, laugh-a-lot, carry-charley-in-the-stroller-up-thousands-of-stairs kind of week. Thanks for visiting Meg! Cooooome backkkkkkkk :)

Here is Part 1 of the our adventures. We took soo many pictures (604 to be exact) and so I wanted to break it up into a few sections because this will be picture overload. We probably did more than anyone could have thought you could do in one week with a 1 year old, but we made it happen!

Day 1:

Megan arrived bright and early Wednesday morning so Charley and I went to pick her up from the airport. We brought her back to our apt with only enough time for her to drop her things, say hi to Spencer and then we were off to Williamsburg to go graffiti and art exploring. Williamsburg is a cool, hip part of Brooklyn that has tons of art and graffiti on the sides of buildings. AND good food! Oh the food. We wanted so badly to stop at Vinnie's to get some slab pizza but already had dinner plans so we just smelled the air as we walked by. That night the Philharmonic Orchestra was performing a free concert at the park. So we got our lovely neighbor to watch Charley while we went to a yummy Mexican place for dinner and then to the free concert with fireworks to end the whole night!

Day 2: We woke up bright and early to Charley staring down on Megan wondering why someone was sleeping on her floor (on a memory foam of course!) We rode our bikes to Allegra Cafe which has the BEST home-made bagels and some DIVINE home-made HOT almond milk. You seriously stand there and watch the lady blend the soaked almonds right in front of your eyes and then steam the milk and add cinnamon. It is delish! Then I showed Megan around the Park Slope avenues because they have the cutest little quaint shops. Then we took the subway into Manhattan to the Upper West Side where we had a delicious Middle Eastern lunch. The place was called Hummus and it really did have some great hummus. We went to Levain Bakery (sooo good!) and Megan's mouth still waters when she talks about their chocolate hazelnut cookies. We walked around for a bit and saw the LDS temple and Juilliard. Then we walked through Central Park to the MET museum. They have a rooftop exhibit which was really amazing to see the city from that high.

someone didn't want to nap :(

... and she's out...

These old people thought she was the funniest thing there was!

Day 3: Friday we got up even earlier than before because we had to go stand in line for the coveted CRONUT. We got up around 5:45am to take the subway into SoHo to Dominique Ansel's Bakery. We stood in line for about 1.5 hours and were about 20th in the line. When they opened at 8am the line had already wrapped around the sidewalk and down the street! Sooo many people! You gotta get there early to taste the delicious cronut (seriously the best flavor so far!) After devouring the cronut we came back home and took a nap and then went back into the city to go to Union Square Farmer's Market, Fishs Eddy, the Flat Iron Building, Eately, had lunch at Sweetgreen (best salads EVER) and then we walked up 5th Ave. to see all the fun shops and saw the Empire State Building, went into the New York Library and then walked through some of the city's "secret gardens" which were really cool. They are hidden gardens planted throughout the city that you can go into and chill and relax. WOW! what a day.