Bright and early (maybe not so early to some of you) Tuesday morning we headed to catch the ferry that would take us to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Unfortunately, the elevator at Lady Liberty was being repaired so we had to climb the 156 steps. Ruthe did great! She counted the steps all the way to the top. There was a museum to walk through before we headed up. As Ruthe and I walked through reading all the info about where Liberty came from and how she got here, I felt very proud of myself because I had thought far enough ahead to check out and read to the kids a book on the Statue of Liberty. A lot of the info Ruthe was like "That's what we read in that book!" Definitely a proud moment for me :)
After seeing how small Lady Liberty looked at the Empire State Building I was beginning to wonder how big she actually was. Yeah! She is not small at all! My comprehension of size/measurment... way off! About the time we finished Lady Liberty the ferry was arriving to take us to Ellis Island. It was interesting trying to explain why Ellis Island and Lady Liberty are so special to a five year old but Ruthe did great soaking it all in and asking questions.
We caught the ferry back to the main land to check out Wall Street, Ground Zero and to sniff out some great deals on purses in Chinatown. As we walked through Battery Park towards Wall Street, Mom thought it would be a great place to take a pic so we all sat down on this bench smiling all nice and then it happened.... this squirrel comes out of no where and jumps right on my shoulder. Of course I screamed and ran off a little ways completely freaking out myself and my daughter. Mom, Mrs Terri and Brittany were left laughing there heads off at me! After gaining my composure, we finished taking the pic (which now instead of a cute little smile Ruthe has a very scared look) and quickly go out of there.
God must of known I was in great need of some retail therapy after that stupid squirrel attacked me and that I needed it way before we would ever get to Chinatown because it was at that very blessed corner we found "the Purse man." I will not go into details about how our deals went down since it makes my husband cringe very time he hears the story but if you would like to hear it just ask and I will gladly tell.
At Ground Zero there were signs and pictures up of the memorial they are building in honor of those lost on 9/11 and we were able to walk through St Paul's Cathedral which is kinda like a museum now with pics and info up about how people would come in to pray or rest during that terrible time. Ruthe and I read lots of the info and she asked all kinds of questions about what had gone on during that time. It was a big change in our attitudes after walking through there and not only remembering what had gone on but kinda seeing it ourselves... very sad.
Our feet were very tired after walking about 2 1/2 miles that day. We finished up the evening by eating at the Olive Garden overlooking Times Square and picking up the last few souvenirs. The next challenge was to get all the stuff we had bought over the last few days to fit in our suitcases. Due to our bus cancellations on the way up, Clint let us purchase plane tickets for on the way back. I did not want to get stranded in NYC all by ourselves. We had the same flight as mom and our friends so if we got stranded at least we would be stranded together. According to all the news channels we had been watching, we would be able to get out before the storm hit. Boy were they wrong! More on that adventure in the next post :)
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