9:55 waiting for Tiffany's to open. Tiffany's was a perfect start to a day of 5th Avenue shopping. Breier's Aunt bought her pearls for her sweet sixteen and you can't top pearls from Tiffany's specially arranged as a heart and placed in a little blue box. There were lots of smiles at that stop.
There were smiles at the Disney store too.
Our cousin Brenna joined us for New York pizza and stuck with us for a very rigorous morning of shopping -she was a very, very, very good sport.
The loot.
One theme of our first day in New York was transportation -a limo, a taxi, a ferry, a carriage, a carousel, a pedi cab, and foot power all took us on our city adventure today.
We met Sara and Daniel for lunch at Seven's and ate excellent Turkish food.
What better chaser for a great lunch than cupcakes. We stopped at Buttercup Bake Shop and stood in awe over the many choices in cupcakes -my choice red velvet :)
Next stop (with a small detour into a purse shop to buy a super cute purse for Breier) Central Park.
The Central Park carousel complete with Mary Poppins music set a magical mood -well, for all of us not embarrassed to still be excited by riding carousels.
No one is too cool for climbing rocks.
Next stop, the promised carriage ride in Central Park. Then we met Gail for dinner on the water . It was good to catch up :)
After saying our goodbyes to Gail, she piled us in cabs and sent us off to the American Girl store. Rebbecca was there and waiting for Miriam. It took a good 15 minutes before Miriam could calm down (stop hyper ventilating) and enjoy the store. 
Miriam was not the only girl in the group ecstatic about this stop. Sophie, left with Chrissa and bags full of pink popcorn to share with the group back at the hotel during a Chrissa movie showing.
Perhaps, as a result of subjecting the boys to American Girls and pink popcorn...
pedi cabs.
We began our first day in New York with a Ferry ride to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island -a great beginning.
Sunny day, sweeping the clouds away... 
Sesame Place entertained us all for the second time, but the Duckie Ride still took the ribbon for our favorite ride. 
Some things you never outgrow.
We met up with our cousin David and had "food all over the place" Chinese style. David told us about the book he is writing and his visit to China. He gave the group a lesson in using chopsticks -Miriam and Matthew still prefer the stab and gnaw method of chopstick dining.
Goodnight David. Thanks for a fun first night in NYC. 
Our visit to Independence Hall was a treat! 
Our National Parks tour guide told us a story about Benjamin Franklin, the Constitutional Congress, a visit to a carpenter, a table and compromise. We are hoping that touching the same hand railing touched by Benjamin Franklin will transfer some of those skills for compromise to all of us ;)
We concluded a delightful morning with Philly Cheese Steaks (and hot dogs).
After our visit to Philadelphia, the kids got a much needed afternoon break to swim and hangout in the hotel -Holiday Inn Express in Langhorne. Annalee and I washed cloths and visited the local target. We had dinner delivered by Sophia's Pizza and finished things off with our very delicious whoopie pies -mine was red velvet.
After breakfast we bailed on New Hope. I am a firm believer that if things are too hard, then they are not meant to be -New Hope was not meant to be.
Plan "B" was to get to Dutch Country as fast as possible without getting near the Pennsylvania turn pike. 
The highlight of the day was homemade ice cream from Lapp Valley Farm -yum. We all indulged in two scoops :)
After ice cream, we paid our respects to the calves and cows that were responsible for our tasty treat -this calf was convinced Breier was a tasty treat.
The clown car version of an Amish buggy. We ended our day with a smorgasbord from the Bird-in-Hand restaurant and left town with a bag full of whoopie pies.
