New York: Day 3 ( The Wedding!!!)

Once we checked into our hotel on Long Island, we rushed to get everyone cleaned up and dressed for the wedding. We had to be ready to take pictures prior to it actually starting. Here are some pictures of the picture-taking time below. 

After a little issue with the wind blowing over the thing they were supposed to stand under to get married, the ceremony began. Yosuke's good friend from high school, Nathan, was the officiant.

Our little flower girl was not a fan of everyone looking at her/cheering for her/clapping for her as she walked down the aisle. To cope with the noise/"overwhelming-ness" of the situation, Olivia walked down the aisle with her hands over her ears. This meant that she didn't throw any petals on the ground as she walked. She made up for this later during the cocktail hour by handing out individual petals to everyone there.

The ceremony was beautiful!

And the cocktail hour was delicious with a ridiculous amount of food.

The reception was great too! I think Olivia had the most fun of all of us. She and Shannon (the other flower girl and her new best friend) danced the night away. Olivia got to stay up WAY past her bed time!

New York: Day 3 (before the wedding)

Friday morning, we took a very long walk from our hotel to Ground Zero. We took two little breaks on the way. 

Our first stop was at Washington Square Park (below).

Our next stop was at a public playground in Soho. The kids enjoyed getting out of the stroller for a bit to play.

We finally reached Ground Zero and took a few minutes to take it in before we grabbed a cab and headed back to the hotel to check out. As it turned out, we ended being in a rush to make it to Penn Station in enough time to catch our train to Long Island. We made it just in time and caught up with Yusaku's parents, aunt and uncle, and cousins on the train.

New York: Day 2

We got up Thursday morning and walked through the rain to Uniqlo, where we took a quick shopping break before heading to Bryant Park/the New York Public Library. Going to the library was really fun for me. I had never been before and if I was there without kids, I probably would have spent much longer exploring it.

By the time we finished up at the library, we were getting hungry for lunch so we grabbed some sandwiches to go and ate them on the train to Long Island City, where Yosuke and Manami live.

We had a pretty long walk from the train station to their apartment. Their apartment was packed with both sets of their parents, Manami's friend from Japan with her two children, and Yusaku and Yosuke's two cousins from Japan. Everyone was working hard to put together the favors for the wedding - homemade macarons.  We visited for a little bit and enjoyed the view (see pic below) before heading to nearby Roosevelt Island.

The history of Roosevelt Island is pretty interesting. The dilapidated building in the picture below is what remains of a smallpox hospital from the mid-1800s.

We also got to ride in this cool tram that crosses the East River when we were ready to get off the island. Pretty neat!

We also managed to squeeze in another trip to Brooklyn before the day was over. I had read about Mast Brothers Chocolate Factory and wanted to check it out. I must admit it wasn't quite what I was expecting. It was much less sweet/more bitter than the chocolate I'm used to eating.  :)

We finished off the Brooklyn experience with hot dogs for dinner at Crif Dogs.

New York: Day 1

Just a month after our Chicago trip, we headed to New York for Yosuke and Manami's wedding. We were able to find cheap tickets on Frontier from Cincinnati to Trenton, NJ. While this involved driving to Cincinnati, flying to New Jersey, taking a cab, and then a train into the city, it was still about half the time it would have taken us to fly. We got into Manhattan late Tuesday night.

Wednesday morning, we went to the Central Park Zoo.

After the zoo, we headed to the Plaza Hotel to check out the Eloise shop. Yosuke met up with us there. We walked quite a ways to the Shake Shake to grab lunch and then ate it outside Central Park before going in to explore.

Later in the afternoon, we headed to the High Line - an old abandoned railroad track that runs above the city and is now a beautiful walkway with gardens on either side, water features, and cool views.

For dinner,we ate some pizza in Brooklyn and then hung out in a park with the Brooklyn Bridge in the background before calling it a night. We sure crammed a lot into that first day!