Charley wasn't sure how she wanted to celebrate her 11th birthday until I proposed the idea of a quick trip to New York City to see Hamilton. I had noticed an advertisement on Facebook for affordable weekday tickets in March and decided to check and see if there were any available during the girls' spring break. We lucked out, because not only were we able to get Hamilton tickets, they didn't cost a fortune, our flights were super cheap and the hotel wasn't bad either. My only requirement for Charley was that Carter would have to go too. We are Hamilton super fans around here, and it wasn't fair to exclude her. The girls are used to solo birthday trips with Momma and Daddy, but after explaining that this was different and that Amma was going instead of Daddy, Charley agreed to my terms. I am so glad she did, because we had the best time! We squeezed so much fun into our three days in NYC.
We started off with a very early Monday morning flight and never slowed down until late that night. We ran into our neighbors at the airport, and it turned out that they were staying at the same place. Once we checked into our hotel, we realized we were even on the same floor...which was hilarious! If that wasn't crazy enough, at check-in I noticed the concierge was the same man from Charley's 5th birthday trip to NYC...his name was also Charlie, and the whole lobby loved it when I pulled up a picture of Charley and Mr. Charlie from 2016! We recreated that picture on our second day.
After putting our bags away, our first stop of the day was Pick-A-Bagel, my favorite bagel shop in New York City. I had missed it so much, and it was delicious! The girls loved it! From there, we ate and shopped our way across Manhattan. Charley was in heaven...Carter was not! It's a shame she never wants to go back, because her commentary was hysterical. She said the next time we go we can just bring her back a bagel. We ended up at the Shops of Hudson Yard for Dylan's Candy Bar, and Amma and I could barely get them to leave a shop that had a super funky play area. It was worth hearing their giggles to stand around while they played.
We had a slow start Tuesday, but we ended up running into our neighbors at Pick-A-Bagel for breakfast. We spent the rest of the morning on a birthday shopping spree at Nordstrom and Bloomingdales. We found some of the cutest things for our tween! Even though it was a trip for Charley, we made time to do some special things for Carter, too. She ate a hot dog from a street vendor, designed her own Barbie at F.A.O. Shwarz, and shopped at the 5th Avenue American Girl Doll Store. We got back to our room with just enough time to change for the show and take a few pictures with Mr. Charlie in the lobby before rushing off to the theatre to line up during our designated time slot.
The entire Hamilton experience was phenomenal!!! The theatre was beautiful, our seats were perfection and the show literally brought me to tears. Even though we've seen it countless times on Disney+ and the soundtrack constantly plays on our Alexa, there is nothing like a Broadway musical in New York City. They did pause the show for a minute to fix some technical difficulties that couldn't be helped, but it didn't bother anyone in the audience. During that brief time, Carter looked at me and asked if the very short guy playing Alexander Hamilton was going to have a growth spurt...I died! The icing on the cake was waiting at the stage door to see the leads after the show. The girls took pictures with and got autographs from the actors playing Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, George Washington, and Eliza.
We had an even slower start on Wednesday morning, because we didn't want to rush the birthday girl! It actually ended up being ok, because the weather took a nasty turn, it was extemely cold and we were not prepared for the freezing rain that soaked us. Thankfully we were one block from Ellen's Stardust Dinner, which is where we wanted to celebrate our girl with birthday pancakes! They gave her an umbrella for her birthday gift, which ended up making it possible for us to see a few more sights. Carter and Amma went back to the room to dry off and pack after we ran into the m&m store, and Charley and I headed south on a very cold mission. On Monday she had noticed a Microsoft building with "11" on it and she really wanted a picture with it. It was several more block away than I had remembered, but we made it there and back...soaking wet with frozen fingers and toes...but we got the picture!
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