Sunday, March 29th

We started our second day in NYC with bagels!

The first Snickers ad we saw that made sense.

We took a cruise tour of the four islands and one archipelago that make up NYC. Here's the spot on the Hudson River where our boat was the 4th on the scene to rescue the airline passengers when it landed in the river.

Maren, Kirsten and Luella on the boat. It was such a cold, foggy, windy day. Our tour guide's best quote was,

"Coincidences are God's way of remaining anonymous."

Here's the empty spots on the skyline where the World Trade Center towers used to be.

The Brooklyn Bridge.

Ellis Island. Random fact, no one in Kyla's lineage went through Ellis Island. The Rasmussen's came through Virginia and the Dore's came down from Canada.

Luella and Kyla with Lady Liberty.

Tim and Katja with the Statue of Liberty.

Kirsten, Maren, Katja and Tim looking at the Statue of Liberty.

St. Paul's Church. It used to be the tallest building in NYC at one point.

A closer view of St. Paul's Church.

President George Washington's private box at St. Paul's Church. This was the place he prayed the day he took the oath of office to be the USA's first president.

The view from St. Paul's Church. The empty space used to be a World Trade tower, across the street. Amazingly the church was not damaged during the towers' collapse. The bell is rung every 9/11 once for every person who lost their life that day in NYC.

Next, we went to the top of the Empire State Building. There was zero visibility. The bonus was that there was zero wait for the elevators! Maren's class studied the math behind how long the elevator ride should take. The employees told us it's 55-57 seconds.

Luella loved pretending that she could see something through the viewer.

Hey! The American flag at the top is dedicated to Kyla and Tim! And all our other military brothers and sisters.

The fog lifted enough to see the top of the building and the flag!

Maren in the elevator at the Empire State Building.

Kyla and Tim in the elevator. (With 55 seconds to get to the top or bottom, you have a lot of time to take pictures!)

The elevator man escorting Luella and Maren to the next elevator. With our stroller, we took 3 elevators to get to and from the 81st floor.

We went to the Guggenheim Museum, another Frank Lloyd Wright structure that Maren studied in her Gifted and Talented class.

A bridge in Central Park that is in many movies. Most recently for our viewing - "Enchanted".

Amazing how the concrete jungle can have this kind of nature right in the middle of it all.

Luella and Maren on the last bridge before our van and the ride home.