NYC

June 24-27
The day before our flight, I got a text message and an email from the airline company saying that our second flight had been cancelled. Let's back up a little. MONTHS AGO, I booked a direct flight from Phoenix to Baltimore. After a few weeks, I got an email that the flight had been cancelled. When I called, my only 2 options were to fly in late at night or to have a connecting flight. A few days after booking the original flight, we had decided to make a little stop in NYC. We'd get a rental car from Baltimore, drive 3 hours to NYC, spend 3 nights, and drive 3 hours back to Baltimore to spend the next week with my family. Getting to Baltimore at 10:30 PM and then driving to NYC didn't seem like a great idea, so I opted for the connecting flight, even though I was pissed that I had paid more money for a direct flight and was now getting 2 flights for the same price. So flash forward, and the second flight is cancelled. William and I call the airline company and they tell us that because this is so last minute, our only option is to fly out the next day. Um, no. And lose an entire day in NYC? No. William and I realized in that moment that this might actually be a blessing in disguise if we could fly straight into New York. Thankfully, the guy made it work and we were super excited that we wouldn't have to drive 3 hours from Baltimore to NYC. And in addition, we would Uber from the airport to the hotel and save 3 days of car rental. Win-win!
The flight was direct and it went great. I sat with Alexis while William sat with the other 3 kids. It seemed fair considering that the other 3 entertain themselves, but I had to entertain Alexis.

We stayed up until midnight that first night, walking around Times Square and eating New York style pizza. Our hotel was right on Times Square and the view was amazing.

We had breakfast at the hotel, and the view was perfect. We then took The Big Bus to Battery Park. It took a while because the guide spoke about all the things we were driving past. He was actually probably the most boring guide I've ever had to listen to, but whatever. Once at Battery Park, we saw this modern carousel thing and figured we'd do something fun for Alexis, since most of NYC isn't exactly exciting for little kids. We then took the Ferry to Liberty Island to see the Statue of Liberty. Logan was super excited to show us around, because he's done all of that before, with William, a year and a half ago. After Liberty Island, the ferry took us back to Battery Park (we decided to skip Ellis Island), and we took an Uber to Little Italy. We had the best Fettuccine Alfredo! Like better than in Italy. It was so, so, so good! We continued walking toward Chinatown, which William absolutely loves because of the shopping and bargaining. William will seriously bargain with people just for kicks, with absolutely no intention to buy. Seems like a waste of time to me, but he loves to see how low they will drop their price. He actually did end up buying a Patek Philippe watch that is supposedly worth $2k. They started the price at $129, and he bought it for $50 after nearly walking away. I know the watch is fake, but now I'm starting to wonder if it may have been stolen, too... After Chinatown, we went to Ripley's Believe it or Not. The kids enjoyed it a lot because the things there were so weird!
That night, the kids ate some overpriced hot dogs from a vendor. He totally ripped us off because there's no way a burger and 2 lame hot dogs could cost $25. I'm so mad about it! And we went to bed late again- it was nearly midnight. I guess we were still on Arizona time (9 PM).

We slept in until 10 AM (7 AM in AZ), had breakfast, and took an Uber to Central Park. If it'd been just William and I, we would have walked to it, but with kids, getting an Uber was so much easier. We were approached by people on bikes right away, which I would normally hate, but that's what we wanted to do, so it was perfect. The bikes took us to all the cool places in Central Park, including places where famous movies were filmed- movies like Maid in Manhattan, Friends, Elf, Home Alone 2, Enchanted, The Avengers, Big Daddy, Now You See Me, etc. We also got to hold a snake for $10 each.
After that, we went to Ground Zero where we saw the 9/11 Memorial. We also went up the 103rd floor of One World to get the 360 degree view of the city. It was amazing, and cooler than the view of Chicago, I think.
After an ice cream break, we went to Madame Tussaud, where Kendall wanted pictures with nearly everyone she recognized, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, etc. Aaaaand, we went to bed late again, at 11 PM (8 PM in AZ). But William and Logan went to bed even later, at midnight (9 PM in AZ) because they'd wanted to go back to Chinatown to see if they could get more junk. Bleh.