We planned the long vacation back in July, almost a year ago. Our first week of vacation time didn’t even involve leaving the house. Simply put, we used the week before departure to move everyone (primarily the kids) to the EU time zones. For the first few days of the week, everyone went to bed an hour early and arose and hour early. By the end of the week, the kids were in bed by 5pm and alarms were going off at 4am. Gracie loved it, because it meant that she was able to get long walks before any other dogs were out in the morning. She probably wishes we kept that time table. By the date of departure, the 3:30am wake up was no problem at all for anyone in the house. (Our housesitters who arrived the day before probably didn’t care for it too much…)<\/p>\n
We flew to New York (EWR) on May 4. The trip itself was uneventful, but once we arrived, it was quite a whirlwind. First, we locked up our bags in a locker, and then we were off to the Empire State Building. While Scott and I have traveled to New York City more times than I can count, I had never been to the top of the ESB. Since we were short on time, we paid for the VIP tour in order to skip the lines. That might have been the best money we paid for VIP stuff. We walked past lines longer than I ever imagined and were promptly taken to the top two viewing places. The kids loved it. They had recently built the LEGO Architecture Empire State Building and loved being able to see the other models they built from the top (UN Building and Rockefeller Center). That could well have been the highlight for everyone, but the kids had more to look forward to!<\/p>\n
Next we hurried off to the helipad. The kids took their first helicopter ride around Manhatten. Their faces were priceless throughout the ride. Keali was elated to be able to see the Statue of Liberty. We flew over Brooklyn to JFK to get an unexpected surprise upon landing. Obama was in town for some talks and Air Force One was sitting just down the runway from us. Our shuttle driver drove us up very close to the jet. It was my first sighting and I was admittedly giddy about seeing the plane our Presidents fly in. That was our fun for NYC. We were up and about again the next morning at 3:30am to fly to England.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We planned the long vacation back in July, almost a year ago. Our first week of vacation time didn’t even involve leaving the house. Simply put, we used the week before departure to move everyone (primarily the kids) to the EU time zones. For the first few days of the week, everyone went to bed…<\/p>\n