New York in October Days 4&5

A blogging resolution of mine is to actually finish blogging all of our travels. I always start and then forget to finish the posts. So stay tuned for lots of throwback travel updates from over the past year, appearing over the next few months. Let's set the goal to get caught up before Sweet Baby Strader comes. :)

Looking back on this trip to New York I'm just reminded.. Wow! Traveling with your best pals really is so fun. I truly cherish the memories from this trip. The weather was amazing, and Sweet Baby Strader was at 11 weeks (I think!).. it was such a nice contrast from my trip to the city over the summer, where I was fresh into trying to handle loss.

Day 4 was one of those travel days where you experience so much and are SO exhausted! Haha. We started the day with a reservation at Sarabeth's. It was just a short walk over from our hotel on Park to get to the Central Park South location. I remember walking those streets with my besties in the gorgeous weather so fondly. Before breakfast, we stopped for a quick photo outside the Plaza.

After a delicious breakfast, these Texas girls wanted to find some real fall trees in the park.

We succeed and snapped a few photos. However, we were wearing our fancy shoes so our more expansive walks of the park were saved until the next day. :)

Our goal for the morning was to switch to our hotel on the Upper West Side (we had started out on the Upper East) for the rest of our trip. On the walk from where we had ended up in the park back to our hotel, we stopped at two of my favorite places in life. Laduree, and Lilly Pulitzer!

The 12 week baby size comparison on my pregnancy app was a macaron, so it was extra fun to think about how Sweet Baby Strader would be that size just the next week. Now sweet baby is a lot bigger.. and so am I! Haha! :)

Now don't judge.. but our first stop on the Upper West side after checking in was another bakery. Haha! Levain houses by far the best cookie I've ever had. Susannah actually went back to New York for business this week and brought us both back a cookie. Yum! I recommend the chocolate chip walnut to all.. and it's worth the wait in line I promise. Buy a few, like we did. :) We tried a few of the fresh warm bites, and stashed our cookies in our purses for snacks later in the day. Our next goal was to get to Brooklyn.

We rode the subway to get downtown, and ended up close enough to take a quick peek at the 9-11 memorial. I had seen it multiple times, but it's always worth a stop to say a prayer for the families affected.

We walked the two miles across the bridge and explored Dumbo a bit before ordering a pizza from Juliana's.. YUM!!! Also a note, we got a surprising amount of great group photos on this trip. Yay stranger photographers! :)

Pizza and Lizzmonade by the pier is an experience not to be missed, in my opinion. :)

We then rode the subway to Tribeca to check out Taylor Swift's apartment. I think I started having a bit of morning sickness at that point, so we sat down for a few minutes. We then shopped in SoHo for a little while, but by this point our legs were SOOOO tired. It had been a really long and fun day!

After one last stop in SoHo, the Birchbox store... we got back to the Upper West Side, stood in line to get Shake Shack, and power walked with our warm, delicious food back to our hotel room. We pigged out and watched Gossip Girl in our jammies for the rest of the night. We walked something crazy like 35k steps that day!

For Day 5, we were feeling a much more low key day. We were honestly still zonked from the day before! We had brunch reservations at Tavern on the Green at noon, so we decided to have a leisurely morning in the hotel. When we woke up, we got a snack at Starbucks next door (I literally wore my jammies and coat to go there!) and then got ready at a slow pace.

We planned to walk through Central Park for awhile before our reservation.. a GREAT decision. It was gorgeous!

We hit up some of the "big" spots.. the photo above is by the Strawberry fields.

And the fountain that's in every movie ever. :)

And of course, more fall photos. :)

Tavern on the Green was so fun.. I loved seeing the iconic New York landmark and it was a very authentic crowd.. didn't feel super touristy. It might have just been when we were there, but who knows! Great experience.

After brunch, we took the Subway uptown to visit Columbia University.

Visiting college campuses is so fun. We also accidentally strolled into the campus chapel where a wedding was taking place. We saw no less than 6 wedding portrait sessions that day, too. If you look carefully, you can see a bride on the library steps. Haha!

This cold afternoon was also a great time to get my first Carmel Apple Spice of the season. :)

While we were there, we got to meet up with Susannah's brother and sister in law who live in Virginia. We met them at The Frick, and enjoyed the architecture of the building more than anything. :) After hanging out with them for awhile walking around, we finished the trip with dinner at The Meatball Shop on the Upper East Side, before taking an uber back to our room. Note: we saved SOOO much money on this trip only taking cars twice. Love you forever, subway and walking!

The next day we woke up early for our flight back to Texas! What a sweet trip! :) In 2015 I got so spoiled with three trips to New York.. and now it probably will be at least another year until I return!