New York Part 3

 After our trip in New York, we drove over to New Jersey where you can find Carlo's Bake Shop- the shop that is in the show The Cake Boss on TLC. Unfortunately, it was a 3 hour wait to get into the shop, so we just took a picture and left :)

 We then headed to norther New York to see Niagra Falls. I love waterfalls. They are so beautiful and I love looking at them. Niagra Falls are some of my favorite Waterfalls, and we were excited to see them from all angles :)

 We went on the Maid of the Mist tour, which is where we got pretty soaked, even with the poncho's.

 We took the Scenic tour around the park on the trolley.

 Then we headed to the Cave of the Winds. You ride the elevator down and walk through a cave and out on the side of the waterfall. You get to walk right up to it. (and get very wet)

 Then a walk over to the Canada side of the falls. We had our Passports, and the line to get through to the Canadian side was really long...

 It was dinnertime by the time we got across to the Canada side so we went to Planet Hollywood-one of the coolest ones I have been to.

 And as we walked back across, we stopped to observe and take pictures of the falls all lit up at night.

 We stayed the night at Niagra Falls, then drove over to Palmyra the next day. We attended a session at the temple. It was the smallest temple that I have been in so far.

 Then a short walk through the Sacred Grove.

 Overall, a very exciting, yet tiring trip. Theresa and I have determined that we really don't like the heat plus humidity. It tends to take any sort of energy right out of you! We had a fun time exploring all of the different places and wished we had more time/energy to explore even more-perhaps another year :) It is amazing to be back east where not only it is so green (which reminds me of Oregon) but also the architecture is so beautiful. A lot of the old buildings have been preserved and I love seeing the old houses and buildings rather than the cookie cutter ones we see in Vegas :)

New York Part 2- New York City

 New York City!! After our trip to the Boston Temple, we headed down to New York City to spend a few days. I have done this trip before when I was in High School with Angela and Brian when I went back east to visit them one summer. It was interesting to see how many things I didn't recognize, how things had changed, and all of the other things we did not get a chance to do on our last trip. First of all, to get around we bought a subway pass. Theresa had a cool and very helpful app on her phone that worked like Google Maps where you put in where you are starting from, and your ending point, and it would tell you where you needed to walk to, what subway to get on, then what to do when you got off the subway. Anyways, we became pretty quick on the subway :)

 We started out at the 9/11 Memorial park. You had to make reservations to go in, but it was still free. They had these giant waterfalls in the spot where each of the towers had stood. They are the largest manmade waterfalls in North America. They flow to the center which drops down into an abyss. Around the edges are inscribed the names of all those who lost their lives in the attacks.

 They are working on building up the rest of the park. It is truly amazing! This is the WTC that they are rebuilding.

 After a trip to Macy's Harold Square, we were going to head up to the observation deck at the Empire State Building. We walked out to find a torrential downpour and lightening storm going on. We decided to buy an umbrella, and dashed for the subway....we still ended up soaked, even with that umbrella. We just headed back towards the hotel to dry out :)

 The next morning, we headed to the Top of the Rock, which is around the Rockefeller Center. We were able to go to the top of the building and see around New York on the 69th floor. Such wonderful views :)

 The escalators that led up to the 69th floor were super tiny, a picture had to be taken ;)

 After our stop at the Top of the Rock, we jumped on the subway again to head over to the Ferry that would take us to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. I had never seen the Statue of Liberty before. The bottom was closed off for construction, but we were still able to walk up to it, just not inside.

 We also loved the view of the city from the island.

 The Ferry then took us over to Ellis Island (I'm not going to lie, by this point I was so tired I fell asleep sitting up on the Ferry...It's ok, though. Theresa fell asleep too :) The middle floor is the room where they would bring all of the emigrants for inspection before they entered the US. They talked about how the doctors were trained to complete a 6 second inspection of the emigrants to determine whether or not they were well enough to enter the US. Those who weren't were kept there in hospitals that basically made up the other buildings on the island. We also found a family history center full of LDS missionaries down on the bottom floor where you could look for your ancestors!

 We then headed to the tkts booth to get tickets for a Broadway show. It was a very long line...a 45 minute wait, but we were able to get tickets to the show Nice Work If You Can Get It.

 Another hop on and off of the Subway and we found ourselves at the Natural History Museum, which is what inspired Night at the Museum. We ended up entering from the subway and were very confused and couldn't find our way around. That place is ginormous, and there are so many different things to look at!

 Theresa and I outside of the museum.

 We then decided to go for a walk through central park-then promptly got lost...We ended up wandering around for over an hour, and found our way to Bethesda Fountain.

 After wandering around the park for over an hour, we were tired, hot, sweaty, had blistering feet, and were hungry....so we decided on a little Cafe to eat at before out show. The Cafe had some excellent New York Pizza....and Theresa was proud of me for folding it in half and eating it like a New Yorker :)

 Here is the Broadway show that we went to see. It is a fairly new show, and we really enjoyed it.

 A trip to Times Square is where we ended up next. This is the place that was most changed from when I visited New York before. There were a ton of stores, including the Disney Store, M&M Store, Hershey's Store, and a whole lot more...

 We then headed to the Observation Deck at the Empire State Building-this time it was not raining :)

 I love looking at large cities at night. The top of the Empire State Building was definitely breathtaking.

 The next morning, we went to Ripley's Believe It or Not! Museum. It was very interesting, we saw quite a few things that were just unbelievable :)

 Here is a picture of the subway tunnel.

 We also took a stop off at the Manhattan Temple. Unfortunately, it was closed.....Although, I don't know why when they found out it was us in town they didn't open it up so we could do a session :) But they still allowed up to go up to the floor that serves as a church building and walk around.

And our last stop was a ride up to the Yankee Stadium. Unfortunately, we did not have enough time to stop in for a tour, but it was still fun to see.

 We had to take one last picture before heading out of the city. The hallway at our hotel was super tiny! Our room was tiny as well....but I guess that's what it is like when you are trying to squeeze a lot into a tiny space :)