Despite not taking a single whole family vacation this year (unless you count our one night in Arkansas), a HUGE portion of our summer was dedicated to travel. Mostly solo travel! I have tried to figure out how to best help each person blog about their own adventure, but the easiest place to start is at the end of the summer. My own trip took place the first weekend of the school year. I got to visit Auntie Allison in New York City! She spent a portion of her summer in a subleased apartment and I was excited to spend a few days with her during her authentic NYC-dwelling summer.
To keep these travel posts all manageable, I think we'll go with a list. So, without further adieu (many people's favorite Wordle start word) here are my top ten... I mean 12 moments in NYC (in no particular order because it was all fantastic) with my best little sister.
12- The 'grungy chic' vibe throughout the city. One minute we were avoiding mysterious puddles on the ground and the next minute we were admiring intricate tile mosaics- often in the same subway station.
Ah, the subway. Tell me how you really feel!
11- Central Park! Al's apartment was only 2 blocks from Central Park so we spent hours here every day, eating and talking and admiring dogs and people watching at Bethesda Fountain
on the benches and on the rocks
and walking around Jackie O. Lake (or as Al put it, Raccoon River does New York).
10- A rooftop movie! We knew this was going to be fun, but it was actually SO fun!
9- So many iconic buildings and statues and parks and memorials and fancy stores filled with sparkly fashion in every direction. We popped into as many as we could.
8- Shucked! We had mid expectations of this new musical, but it was funny with a fun story and showstopping numbers that the audience went absolutely wild over.
The overly chatty man in front of us gave us no choice but to bolt out of the theater as soon as the show was over which ended up working out perfectly because we saw two of the leads in the subway on the way home!
We had fun eavesdropping on these actors. What a life to be an actor in NYC!
7- The food! First place goes to this unsuspecting little kouign-amann. My life is forever changed!
My initial NYC to-do list contained exactly one thing- to eat a bagel!
Our entire weekend was basically walk, talk, eat repeat. What more could we ask for?
6- Kayaking at the Pier 4 Beach in Brooklyn! Such a local thing to do, right? Our plans were pretty flexible each day, with a few things scheduled in here and there. Overall our goal was to bypass the top 5 tourist attractions (all of the things we did as a family last spring) and just see what the city had to offer us. And we came up with some pretty amazing adventures!
After kayaking we wandered over to DUMBO.
It was a gorgeous day and we had a great time touristing around with the gobs of other people.
5- We walked across the Brooklyn Bridge!
4- Somewhere in the middle of this busy day we decided to carpe diem and hop on a helicopter for an arial tour around the city. It was so windy out on the launch pad. And we were very careful to stay inside the yellow lines so as to not get chopped up by the helicopters many spinning blades. There is a gospel lesson there!
Look at those white knuckles!
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Our ride was 15-20 minutes long and we had no idea if that was a long time or a short time or a good idea or a bad idea. They asked us if we wanted barf bags and we were like, why don't you tell us if we're going to need barf bags!
What were we getting ourselves into??! Whatever it was, we were there for it!
And it was AMAZING. 10 out of 10, highly recommend. The takeoff was my very favorite part because we just lifted straight up into the air like a drone.
Once we were in the air it was amazing to see everything NYC has to offer in every direction.
And as it turns out, 15 minutes up and down Manhattan was just enough for us. The ride was mostly smooth but since a helicopter can go in any direction, we were getting occasional bumps from every angle. And sweet Allison took one for the team and rode backward. Ahh, to be 27 again. Riding in a helicopter was definitely the highest highlight of the trip (see what I did there) and I absolutely loved it because it was not something I would necessarily think to do on a family vacation, but it was perfect on this solo trip. I didn't tell my family about it until I was back at home and we were all around the dinner table because I wanted to see everyone's reaction in person. They officially dubbed me coolest mom ever!
3- An afternoon at the Met.
Gorgeous Starry Night- we caught it on the last day, in the last hour of the exhibit!
From the top of the Met!
2- The time we spent in Al's tiny little apartment. Her room was about the size of my master closet and her rent was probably about the size of our mortgage. It was really crazy seeing what real estate in NYC is really like.
We pulled up all kinds of listings as we wandered around the city ($27 million mansion overlooking the Met, anyone?) and dreamt about what it would be like to live the life of the NYC elite.
1- Spotting locations from NYC iconic movie scenes, including You've Got Mail. 
The real No. 1. which is actually tied with the helicopter ride- The FRIENDS exhibit! We were both excited about this but it was actually So! Much! Fun!
We laughed SO much all throughout the exhibit. It felt like we were really there!
Honorable mention for my least favorite part of the trip- the overall lack of easily accessible fresh air and the overly friendly pigeons and the singular cockroach that had the nerve to scuttle up my leg while we were sitting out on the steps on our last night together. That was the tipping point for me- take me back to Iowa!
Look at this brave little sister! It was hard to say goodbye but SO much fun to be together for a few exceptionally awesome days in NYC- Helsga and Molski, together forever!
