The Smyths Take Manhattan

Note: I'm finishing this post in Jan 2012, so I'll keep it brief and use lots of pictures. Better late than never, right?
We had just as much goofiness as the Muppets, but not quite a much fur.

I took the bus up to NYC, and my parents, Pete, Jordyn, and I had a weekend of Big Apple excitement.

My dad was in conference meetings during the first day, so we figured a good way to see lots of sites in a short amount of time was one of those touristy buses. Cue the Gray Line.

The tour was taking longer than we'd expected, so we hopped off at Battery Park and walked around for a little bit, looking over at the Statue of Liberty for a bit and grabbing an ice cream.

The rest of the tour bus was informative and finished back at Time Square, where we met up with dad for a quick bite to eat and watching sand-sculptors work on a Fleet Week project.

In production

The finished product, later in the weekend

Sand-sculptor watching was brief, as we had tickets to "Anything Goes" on Broadway. The show was quite entertaining, though a little too old-fashioned feeling for me. However, whatever the story and music/lyrics lacked was made up for by Ms. Sutton Foster's performance. I can see why she is the darling of Broadway right now. Extremely talented all around.

Pops played hooky from his meetings the next morning, so we all took the Gray Line bus to Ground Zero and saw the progress so far on the 9-11 Memorial. It's come a long way, and looks like it should be ready by the 10th anniversary in September. Pretty sobering to think about and see up close.

Just chillin' on the Gray Line again

Next on the agenda? Seeing the Blue Man Group perform. Remarkable how many clever gags and technological doodads they used during the show. And not smiling or laughing at any of it! We were cracking up from the get-go and didn't stop until we had left the building. I can't imagine how much fun that job must be.

We didn't have a whole lot of time before I had to head to the bus the next day, but we went up to Central Park, ate at Alice's Tea Cup (I highly recommend it, especially if you get there early before the crowds), and snagged some ginormous dessert cookies from Levain Bakery.

Riding the subway

While waiting for our Alice's Tea Cup table,
Pete & Jordyn looked very metropolitan

A little Alice's Tea Cup magnet shout-out to my running group

The whole visit was lots of fun, mostly because I was with the family and I love seeing them.

So where shall we meet up next? Count me in for wherever.