Philly & NYC Trip

  In December we were blessed to get to travel to Philadelphia & New York City. My sister was getting married in Philly, and then we decided to take the train to NYC for a few nights before heading home… to get to live out my dream of NYC at Christmastime! It was such a great little vacation, and I’m so grateful we were able to do it before welcoming this new little girl to our family!
The photos above are all from Philly (mostly Washington Square Park & hanging out by independence hall). The photos below are from our time in NYC. Lots of fun adventures…. I’ll share a little of what we did below in case you find yourself planning your own trip to the city!

Our first night we got settled into our hotel in the Theater District, then we walked to Rockefeller Center & Times Square to see the tree & the lights. It was beautiful, but so crowded! The next day we took the subway over to Chelsea Market, which I loved. We shopped & met a friend for coffee at Amy’s Bread. Then we walked towards the West Village (which was my favorite neighborhood to explore. Loved it.), stopped at a little park, and window shopped along Bleecker Street. Then we walked (so.much.walking.) over to Washington Square Park to see the beautiful arch, and let Evie run around and play with the birds & squirrels (her fave). We headed over towards the Flat Iron Building to check it out, and got some coffees from Toby’s Estate. We wanted to stop into Eataly, but ran out of time. Next time I definitely want to go though, as lots of friends recommended it. Then we headed back to our hotel to get ready to see Radio City’s Christmas Spectacular. I didn’t think we’d be able to see a show with Eveleigh being so young, but then I found out it was kid-friendly and we decided to go for it! So glad we did! It was a highlight of the trip, and Evie absolutely loved it too!

The following day we had brunch at The Smith (which was delicious) and spent the day exploring central park & The Upper West Side. We loved walking around Central Park, and Evie loved playing at one of the playgrounds. We also watched the horse & buggies go by, and stopped by Strawberry Fields. Then we walked over to Levain Bakery to try their famous cookies. Oh my word – best cookie I’ve EVER had. So so good. Then we just explored a little and window shopped before heading into Cafe Lalo for some cappuccinos. This is the cafe from “You’ve Got Mail” – one of my favorite movies. So, naturally, we had to go. It was actually really cute & charming, albeit they played really bad 90s music the whole time.

Then we took an Uber back to our hotel so that my poor pregnant self didn’t have to walk anymore. Big fan of Uber, as you can request car seats! We rested for a bit and later headed back towards Central Park to take a carriage ride (touristy & cheesy and probably a big waste of money…BUT I wanted to… just one of those things I wanted to do at least once in my life ;)) After that we went to The Plaza Hotel to see the tree & lights, and looked at the window displays along 5th avenue. We grabbed dinner to go from Pazza Notte  and headed back towards the hotel to pack & rest up for our early morning flight. Overall, it was a great trip and definitely solidified my love of New York City!