The one with Days 8 and 9 in New York.

Luca was completely entertained the whole hour drive to Jersey with this Anna doll of Scarletts.

 

Our last days there we took the car, and let me tell you, I would never drive in NY.  It is complete chaos.  Jose handled it well though, by the end nobody would know we didn't live there.  Except one mishap in Jersey with a one way street a bunch of people that saw their lives flash before their lives while I said, "its a one way street, its a one way street, its a one way street" over and over, I would say he did pretty good.

We headed to Carlos Bakery one day, and I am still super sad I didn't realize the one in Times Square was real, but oh well.  The original is way cooler!

Luca wasn't a fan of the sun in his face--he never is, so we tried jokes sun glasses but they kept sliding off so I gave him mine, they did the trick for a while.

Carlo's Bakery has a zillion desserts.  My goodness.

We stood in line for probably 20 minutes, but it was way way less crowded than I thought it would be!  Going on a weekday in the morning was smart.

We got Luca an M&M cookie, and we got an eclair, a canoli, and a cheesecake and a red velvet cake.

They had like 2 tiny tables inside, so there was no space to sit, so we sat on a bench outside.  Luca had a meltdown and I only got one bite of my canoli before he knocked the box out of my hand to the ground.

Jose calmed him down, and they fed the birds a bit.

Then, Luca wanted to feed them, and threw his whole cookie to the birds.  

He regretted it the next second and completely sobbed watching them all peck at it.  It was super sad. Jose ran in and got another him cookie, and we made sure he didn't share that thing again.

See it out there under all the big pigeons?

Tolls out there are insane.  I still am in awe that the Holland Tunnel is only 2 lanes both ways--and we paid $14 to get across.  If they just put a years worth of people going through they could fund the project to expand that thing. My word.

One thing we noticed while we were there was the lack of speed limit signs, not even in the neighborhoods were they posted (not that people would obey if they were) but on our way out of the tunnel back on the NY side we saw this one!  Apparently people aren't aware that everywhere is 25, or care.  One more reason I couldn't live there.

This is the $30 replacement ring we got for me while we were there, we looked at real ones, but we are planning that for our 5 year anniversary.  Its not as massive as it looks.  That is just the angle.

We got pizza for dinner on our way home, and this was their "medium" it was massive, I could only eat one piece before I was full.  It was like costco pizza size, maybe even a little bigger.

The next day we took the car again and took Joses Aunt with us to see Washington Square Park.

Luca chased the birds around like crazy, and just ran free for once. We even found a park to play at!

Luca surprised me by climbing everything.  It has obviously been too long since I took him to a park. He is huge now.

Then.  Lunch.  Probably my second favorite place we ate the whole trip (panini and co still wins)--it was called Pota-topia.  It was so delicious.  It was basically a build your own potato bar.  But you had so many more options.  They had a whole list of potato options for your base too--a baked potato, a sweet potato, fries, roasted red potatoes, tatertots, mashed potatoes, and a bunch more, then you choose all the toppings you want which there were a ton of too.

It was so yum.  Luca wasn't impressed until one of the workers came over to chat and brought him complementary tatertots, PLUS dip.  That was a hit.  The Ketchup.

Jose went to grab the car while we finished, finding a lovely parking ticket on our window--I am so not used to HAVING to pay for parking!!  There were no signs, and the parking meter was around the opposite corner than we went down, and out of sight.

I paid it right then in the car, but still!  I guess we really fit in now.

All of Lucas running around wore him out so much, but he wouldn't give into the sleep until Jose held his hand--nobody else would do.  So Jose drove, in NY one handed.

I had the brilliant idea of driving by rockefeller center, because that was the one place we didn't get around to doing, because we went the wrong way the one time we planned it.  It only made our hour drive home like 2 1/2 to get to it, like 5 blocks out of the way, and around it.  It was ridiculous traffic time.

I was so sad when I saw the Ice Skating was going already!!! I wanted to do it so bad.  I was super depressed we didn't have time at all to do it.

That is until I looked up the prices....

Ha.  It would have cost us $100 for 3 of us to skate, not so sad anymore. 

We got most of our list done, I was so glad!! We powered through it all almost.