New York City!!

We arrived at our hotel in Queens at about 1:00 p.m. on Thursday. Within an hour we had dropped our stuff in our room, eaten a quick lunch and headed to the Subway. Off we went! The Subway was a bit scary at first...it's very loud and moves and jolts...then there is the fear of getting off in the wrong place! We got that mistake out of the way that first trip, but fortunately discovered our error and got on the right Subway back to where we were suppose to be!
Rachel and I headed to the American Girl Place while Robin and the boys shopped in Rockafeller Center.


Here is Rachel in front of Samantha's display. She is loving every minute of this!


Here she is, in the cafe.


After having Tea in the cafe we went the Musical "Circle of Friends." It was SOOOO wonderful!! All the girls and adults in the show obviously had lots of vocal training! The songs were very "Broadway" in style and there were lots of great lessons in the story: "Never Give Up", "Be a True Friend," "Don't Love People for Their Riches or Fine Clothes or Popularity but for Their Heart", "Don't Look Down on Someone who Doesn't have as much as You," that sort of thing.
After the show, the young actresses came out to sign autographs.

While we were in American Girl, the boys and Robin went shopping and to "Nintendo World". There they found lots of Game Boys set up in the store to play as well as 23 (yes they counted!) Wii machines with flat screen TV's to play on...yes they were quite content! ;)

We wish we would have brought our ice skates!!


The buildings are a bit taller than in Maine...yeah QUITE a bit!


The kids quickly adjusted and became pros at travelling on the Subways!

One Day 2, we decided to do our sightseeing...

It's pretty expensive to take the ferry to Ellis Island, so we chose the FREE ferry that goes BY the Statue of Liberty. Yes, she looks just as beautiful from afar!! :)


Next we headed to Ground Zero, the sight where the World Trade Center stood. This was a sobering trip, especially right after viewing "Lady Liberty." Rachel was too young to remember 9/11 so she had lots of questions for us. It is a story difficult to tell, that there would be people out there who desire in their hearts to murder so many men, women and children.


This is the church across the street. I had read about it in a Karen Kingsbury book but was not sure it was real since the book was fiction. But it is. The rescue workers slept in the church on cots and they were ministered to there. How appropriate that a church would do this important work. Today there is memorobilia inside from pictures to letters from adults and children, to fire helmets and anything else you can imagine from that dark time. The tone inside is hushed as people move around the room from spot to spot. I did not feel right taking pictures inside. There was a funeral feel to it and I felt disrespectful to pull out my camera. (This was a historical church previously and you can see the seat where George Washington sat while there.)


This is a memorial bell dedicated to those who died on 9/11. It is in the front yard of the church. Behind the children, across the street, is the empty spot where the towers stood. :(


Next we headed toward the Empire State building. In a light moment, we found a replica of the Statue of Liberty. Why did we go out on a ferry when she was right on the street? HAHA!!


Yep, we were on the top of that building!! It was very cool to look around the city from so high! We could see the Statue of Liberty and were amazed at how far we travelled underground on the Subway.
Having come from the World Trade Center I could not help but think about what it would feel like to be attacked when you were so high up from the ground.


Now here is the REAL reason we were in the city!! Tyler had two soccer games on Saturday!! Here he is warming up in goal. It was not a good day for pictures; there was heavy winds and rain and even thunder and lightening. It was a bit of a monsoon!! I stayed with the younger kids in the hotel so they would not be out in that weather.
Tyler's team lost their games, but Tyler was excited to have played in the Old Met Oval where Pele once played!!

It was a great trip. There are so many people, so many languages. I am not a city girl, I love the country, but if I were to live in NYC it would be for ministry! There is such a concentration of people with very obvious needs. I found myself praying for people individually that I saw on the Subways and streets. In the city you can reach so many more people at a time it seems. It would be hard to live in the city, but at the same time how exciting to be used of God!!