NYC - By Train!

What do you do when you have an adventurous husband like Scott? You go to New York City in 30 something degree weather, during the holiday season, with a 2 and a half year old by train. And don't forget I am 7 and a half months pregnant. Scott has been wanting to take Nate on his first real train ride to NYC for awhile now. Me, on the other hand, I like to have the car near by in case we need to leave asap or we can use the car to pack up whatever we "might" need. Having the car just secures my anxiety level now that we have to take care of someone other than ourselves.

With that said, Scott did everything he could to ease my anxiety ahead of time. He figured we would go on a train that is closer to the city and has an express route ( only 35 mins rather than over an hour). He picked the times of the train to and from that would work best with our time frame and then he figured out the subways that we would need to use to get us around the city(since we would be car less with a kid in a stroller). I started to feel better about it because he was so confident.

The night before we packed our bags with everything we could think that we "might" need in an emergency and on the day of, we wore the warmest clothes we had so we wouldn't freeze. Nate kept telling us how excited he was to go on a train so I knew there was no turning back.

Once we were at the train station, I was excited. The train was PACKED but Nate didn't care. He sat on my lap and told us everything he saw out of the window. The subway was a breeze, except that they need more ramps rather than stairs everywhere. Between Scott and I, we got our arm muscles worked out either carrying Nate or the stroller. The city was insane with the crowds, lights, decorated windows and loud music, but it was totally worth it seeing it through Nate's eyes. We all loved seeing the tree and once we did, we decided to walk back to Penn Station instead of taking the subway again...16 blocks. It was a breeze considering how bundled up we were and to our surprise, Nate fell asleep during our walk.

We took the express train back, which we barely made because soooo many people were trying to get on our train home. Nate slept through most of it and was a trooper when he woke up. Once we got into our car, I thanked Scott for pushing me to do this trip. It was awesome and I wouldn't have changed a thing! Considering the crowds everywhere, it was definitely a smarter idea taking the train rather than a car. I saw a billboard on our walk back to the train station. It said, "New York City...this is our holiday!"... and they are right!