New York Vacation

We are back from nine days visiting the east coast and the first long plane trip for the boys. Overall the trip was a great success, despite the challenge of dragging toddler boys across the country! The flight out was fairly uneventful and we managed to land in New York without driving our fellow passengers to drink. The flight home was another story! More on that later…..

After landing at JFK at roughly 9:30 p.m. eastern time, we loaded up the rental car for the 2-hour drive to the North Fork of the Hamptons where Peter and Colleen had rented a beautiful beach house. The house was located just outside the town of Southold on a quiet street just a block up from a private beach. The North Fork is such a different place than what you would think of when you hear “the Hamptons.” There are quaint, picturesque towns surrounded by vineyards and fresh fruit and vegetable stands. It’s a very rural setting and we had a pair of horses across the street that the boys insisted we visit each morning after breakfast!

The centerpiece of this portion of the trip was the celebration of Peter and Colleen’s 40th anniversary. It went off without a hitch and I think Colin and Jake ended up enjoying themselves after getting over the shock of meeting all these people! There were a lot of cousins, aunts, uncles and everything in-between that they met. By the end of the night they had each busted a few moves on the dance floor and probably taken a photo with at least half the people there!

The final few days in Long Island were spent with Natalie and her son, Davis. They made the trip up from North Carolina while her husband Kevin was working the Olympics in China. Davis is the same age as the boys, so two peas in a pod became three peas in a pod.

After the incredible beach house, anything was going to be a letdown. So we grudgingly moved on to the Residence Inn in White Plains. The location was great because we were close to Adrianne’s friends in Westchester, plus we were two blocks from the train station to go to Manhattan, but it just wasn’t the same as our life of luxury in the Hamptons! We made due though and pushed through and capped off the trip with a trip to the big city.

We had been hyping this portion of the trip up for a while to temper the blow of no longer having horses to visit with in the mornings or a beach to build sandcastles on, so they were generally excited by the time Friday rolled around. We were going to take a train ride - - which had Colin very, very excited - - and then a taxi cab ride - - which had Jake very, very excited - - and then a trip to the Central Park Zoo.

After the zoo, we hit up the Central Park carousel, watched the street vendors and horse carriage rides for a while and then ventured off to grab lunch. Navigating the streets of Manhattan with a double-wide stroller is not the easiest thing in the world to do. But the payoff was a trip to the Disney Store and a chance meeting with Donald Duck and Goofy. At first they wouldn’t go near Goofy because as Colin put it, “he has big teeth and gloves,” but they were up for a photo op with Donald. After that Colin was cool with Goofy, so we got a photo with him as well. I think Jake was on the verge of freaking out the entire time and I had visions of Christmases’ past and Santa meltdowns, but he kept it together. Even at this young age, peer pressure can be an amazing thing. He was watching Colin high-five Donald and Goofy and just sort of followed along reluctantly.

It was a really fun trip, but exhausting. I think the relaxing, reading a book on the beach vacations are out for a few years!

Check out all the photos from the trip below: