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Jul. 22, 2009
New York City, the Whirlwind Tour
After our visit with Art and Betsy in PA, we battled NY traffic and finally made it to Grandma’s house. When we arrived on my parents’ block, my mom ran down the street to greet her grandchildren while we were still trying to find a place to park. It was so touching.   Other relatives were there to meet us, including my birthday aunt, Titi Martita (I was born on her birthday when she was a young teen) with her husband Jim. They had driven down from northern NJ to see us since it had been years since we last connected. 
My sister and her whole family were there, including my niece’s two little ones Kaylie (age 2 yrs) and Layla (age 2 months). And of course my brother and my parents were there as well. What a happy family moment. Here's Kaylie meeting her two aunts for the first time!
The next day, Uncle Joe (my baby brother) took my parents and my little crew sailing on his sailboat where we were treated to a view of NY's scenery from the water, NY Bridges, light houses, Execution Rocks and more. We were even able to point out old stomping grounds to kids, like Kings Pt Academy, the place where Greg and I met working on a harbor simulator. We also sailed by where Greg went to college: Ft Schylur, SUNY Maritime College. My brother then sailed us over to City Island where we anchored and went into town for dinner. My kids experienced a seafood bonanza of lobster, scallops, Alaskan crab, calamari, mussels, clams and more, all courtesy of Uncle Joe. They tried everything - not a squeamish one among them. Then the nine of us lumbered our way back to the boat and sailed home.
The high light of the trip was going into NYC the next day with my parents, my sister and my brother who joined us later. Since we had only one day, we opted to do lower Manhattan, saving Midtown for another visit. We rode the subway in (a first for my kids) and went to the World Trade Center site and visited St. Paul's Chapel, which was home to an extraordinary eight-month volunteer relief effort after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. We saw my old place of employment on 130 Liberty Street, which is presently being demolished, due to unrepairable 9/11 damage. We also visited another very old church, Trinity Church (founded in 1697), a calm respite right across from the NY Stock Exchange. It was very moving and very sad as I remembered how these places were 20 years ago when I worked in the area. People are still remembering the tragedy, and may we, as a nation never forget. 
Uncle Joe met us and we all rode the Staten Island Ferry so the kids could see the Statue of Liberty from the water since tickets to the statue were all sold out. They couldn’t believe people actually had to commute by ferry to work each day. We then went to South Street Seaport. Joe took the kids on the 'Shark', a high speed boat ride through NY Harbor where they learned that in New York, "BMW", stands for three of the NYC Bridges….the Brooklynn, Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges.Kimberly even had her picture drawn by a street artist. We also packed in tours of the seaport museum and an old lightship, the Ambrose, built in 1908, that Greg's grandfather used when piloting ships in and out of NY harbor.
 Then came a walk over to China town with good food and great buys. We shopped and ate and then made the long trip home. We were exhausted but happy. We stayed up and visited with all the family back at my parents’ home one last time and then we arose at 5:30 am the next day to make the long drive back to Charleston.
But the trip wasn’t over yet. We stopped for 2 hours in Washington D.C. and visited the Lincoln Memorial, which the younger kids learned about this year, the WWII Memorial, and the Washington Monument. Of course we had our National Passports stamped appropriately. All in all, it was a whirlwind trip filled with many unforgettable moments. We were so blessed by so many people. I am so grateful. God is so good to us.
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Posted by Wendy Blight 
Aug. 5, 2009 - New York
Though we also wanted to visit Ground Zero, we were too wimpy to go into New York and we've all regretted it. I enjoyed reading your post, you've given me ideas of what to visit the next time around.
Blessings,
Tonya