New York in 3 days with 3 kids- ARE WE CRAZY!?!

We don't ever seem to take just simple trips- as if traveling with 3 little boys was every simple!
So on top of a 6 day family reunion in Tennessee, we decided to hop on over to NYC for Mack and Sam's engagement party. (In truth we couldn't figure out how to get the boys home in time to leave again without them so we ended up dragging them along with us to New York)

Friday was a travel day and we crashed that night. Walking was not a problem but sitting on a bumpy plane with a bruised tailbone was not fun. Of course my sweet boys were very concerned and showed their love in the only way they know how- yep, that would be by climbing all over me.

Saturday morning we ventured out to breakfast with Arty and Esther and Grams and Grandpa and of all the great cuisine we could have sampled we of course ended up at McDonalds. (Ethan is pretty good at begging and Grandpa is a bit of a sucker for begging and for McDonalds :)
After that we left the 3 boys in our hotel room with a very brave (and well paid) babysitter who came highly recommended. We met up with the rest of the family at a cute little restaurant in Brookly and spent the afternoon eating and chatting and celebrating.

These 3 boys are hilarious- STILL trying to fight over who is the tallest. I hope my boys are this great of friends and confidants when they're adults.

Amazingly the babysitter survived just fine and the boys had a great time with her. Saturday night we met up with everyone again and explored a little of Chelsea.

How do you survive a dinner with 3 little boys at a fancy New York restaurants?
Hand them each an iphone and tell them they only get to play games on it if they keep it discreetly hidden under the table. What? It works!

Thankfully we got to have real conversations at the engagement party because it's pretty hard to talk to someone this far down the table.

Sunday morning we joined Grams for dinner (everyone else had ventured off to golf or shop for wedding dresses) and she helped our very crabby boys enjoy breakfast. Need instant entertainment at a restaurant? Lick your finger and stick it in a sugar packet.

Works every time!

And I do mean EVERY single time.

After breakfast we went farther into Brooklyn and met up with Taylor's best friend from undergrad and his wife. Dave and Laura live in New York and have crazy work schedules (one works for Goldman Sachs and the other is in Med school residency) and were kind enough to join us at the Brookly Children's Museum on their only day off.

This children's museum was GREAT! We only say 1/3 of it and my kids loved every bit. Aquariums, sandy beaches with toys, terrariums, etc. I loved that it has a New York street section complete with shops you'd find locally. Here Miles tries his hand at making and baking pizzas.

My other favorite was the subway tunnel with water down the middle.

It was really great to see everyone and we wish we lived closer!

To end the trip in the right fashion, we had a horrific flight home- forgot our only bottle in the rental car (yep, Miles was not happy), left our ipod charging in the boarding area (thankfully it was still there when we ran out but got yelled at by several stewardesses), Taylor randomly lost his seat assignment (they upgraded him to 1st class but then didn't issue the ticket since he had a lapchild- but then somehow gave his original seat away, 20 minutes of standing in the aisle while everyone else tried to bored was lots of fun), and then Miles screamed for a full 2 hours of the 5 hour flight home. By scream I mean, SCREAM. But what can you do? We survived. We'd do it again. We love our family, and maybe we'll remember to carry on the Benadryl next time we fly so our completely exhausted children can be put out of their misery- and so can we!