New York City weekend!

We just got back from a weekend trip to New York. Doug and I have been working for a while on ways to support composers who are developing new musicals, and that was one of the main purposes of the trip. We saw some shows, recorded our radio show at Sirius XM, and met with quite a few composers. Michelle came along on the trip to play with Carter while we were busy, and they did a lot of fun things despite the cold weather.

Doug was already in New Yok for business, and Carter and I were supposed to fly out on Tuesday to meet him. Weather was bad in New York, so our trip was delayed until Wednesday. Carter did really well on the trip out, and even slept on the plane for two hours. I'm still not sure how he managed to sleep in this position.



Before anything else, I need to show pictures of where we stayed. We've never stayed at the Doubletree Suites on Times Square before; it's usually twice as expensive and not available. But this time is was relatively cheap, and Doug got us a room there. Staying on Times Square was better than I expected, and the views were pretty stunning from our room.





You can see Central Park between the buildings.



And the river -- crazy!



The room itself was prety large, with one bedroom.







Here is a little video of the room with views, if you're interested.



On Thursday we took Carter to the Children's Museum of Manhattan. It's not the best Children's Museum ever and is even a bit run-down, despite the glamorous part of the city it's in. Carter still had a lot of fun. Sorry for the quality of a lot of these pictures. I was taking them with my phone...











Here he is having a lunch of hot dog and pretzel from a street vendor's cart. Gotta do that in New York!



Times Square has lots of kid-friendly shops (which you will find bizarre if you haven't been there since 1990), including the world's largest Toys R Us. Which famously has a big train table with only THREE train cars to play with, so your kid has to fight for a turn. :-P



Michelle arrived on Thursday night, and Doug and I were fairly busy for the rest of the weekend. We all went to lunch together at one of our favorite Italian places in the Village on Friday, then went to Puro Chile (a Chile-themed store) and Rice to Riches for rice pudding. Doug and I had things to do Thursday and Friday nights and then were gone in the afternoons and evenings Saturday and Sunday, so Carter and Michelle spent a lot of time together.

On Saturday they journeyed down to the Brooklyn Children's Museum. Unfortunately, it was a cold and rainy day, and the trip was a bit longer than expected. Carter still had fun, though I'm not so sure about Michelle! She wasn't too impressed with the museum, either, but Carter seemed to view it as an adventure. Here he is playing in a digging area.



On Sunday they went back to the Children's Museum of Manhatten, but it was so crowded they didn't stay long. Instead, they played in the snow in Central Park, and Carter had a blast! Here are some pictures she took.





They then went to one of Michelle's favorite restaurants for a late lunch, a vegetarian spot called Gobo. Carter enjoyed a smoothie.



We headed home on Monday, and the flight was particularly long, since I was hung over, had a horrible sinus headache, and since Carter was not terribly interested in sitting still in his seat for four hours on this particular day. Luckily Doug and Michelle were there to help, but it was still a loooong flight.

It was a good trip, though a busy one. We're so lucky that Michelle can come with us, because we wouldn't be able to do any of the things we're doing with new composers without someone to help Carter have fun as well.

I need to make a post about potty learning, which is coming along nicely. But that will wait for another day...