New York City | Lessons from my daughter

The great thing about arriving early to New York City on Saturday July 20th was the look on Emily’s face when she realized the whole afternoon was reserved for her to shop and have tea at the American Girl Place.

Emily saved her money for several months, Christmas gifts, report card money, birthday, sold her trampoline…. She knew which doll she wanted to buy, she picked her on-line. She also knew which outfits she wanted.

She wanted to make a t-shirt, take a picture of her and Miley (her first AGD) at the photo studio and of course we had reservation for afternoon tea.

Emily is an only child… We spoil her a little :). She’s a great kid who, on some levels, could stay a kid forever. At 15, she was probably the oldest girl at the American Girl Place… The employees there were really nice to her and helped her find everything she was looking for and more.

She found everything so quickly that we had time to go back to our hotel and open up all her purchases before returning to the store for tea with Madison; this time Miley stayed at the hotel.

Afternoon tea was great! We had a good time and the food and tea were tasty.

While being in NYC, we returned to the American Girl Place 2 more time. Once because Emily forgot to buy a red dress and once on our last day because Emily still had money to spend.

🙂

Both time, at least one employee recognized Emily. Told her they remembered her and made her feel like a VIP.

One day, Emily might no longer play with her dolls but over the last couple of years they’ve been really present in our lifes.

Emily’s best friend Abby, whom I partially blame for this expensive obsession…. will be happy to know that Emily is learning to brush and comb her dolls hair. It’s not perfect yet but she’s getting better. She can also make pony tail, pig tails and some sort of braid.

She can undress and dress them. She remembers their birthdays (the day Emily got them) and age takes good care of them. Put them to bed at night and always make sure they each have their special stuff toy.

She’s a great mom for her dolls which makes me the grand mother….

I can live with that :).

A week before leaving for NYC, friends and family were asking when we were flying out.

We were on the first flight out of here… Boarding at 5:50am or so…

Most people hate those early flights…. Us, we look for those early flights whenever we fly. We also hit the road super early if we are driving somewhere.

Why so early?

Emily won’t sleep the day we are traveling somewhere.

I always pack the night before… By morning, everything is ready to go.

We go to bed way too late!

Emily sleeps a little and by 2 or 3 am…. She’s up and ready to go!

This time, its was 2:35am when she woke-up!

Within minutes, she was dressed and ready to go…

Can you imagine if our flight was at 2pm or later???

Traveling is like Christmas morning. Emily is so excited that she can’t sleep. Every 5 min or so she’s asking if its time to go….

I believe on one of our earlier trip we had a late day departure….

We try really hard not to do that anymore!

It’s exhausting to try to get ready to go and at the same time have Emily constantly ask us if its time to go.

She won’t stop asking.

…

The good side of leaving so early? Almost an extra day at our destination.

We arrived in NYC around 11am local time after 2 flights!

…

On the way back, I think I had us booked out of NYC a little too early… 🙂

Once again, I packed the day before and I didn’t think it would all fit in!

Here’s Emily 50 minutes before our cab pick-up time scheduled for 3:15am.

30 minutes later, she was dressed up and waiting for the cab with us.

And here she is at one of La Guardia’s coffee shop around 4:30am after we discovered that our flight was delayed for 2 hours and that we were missing our connecting flights.