Our Brooklyn Trip 2018, began last Tuesday with an uneventful flight to NY LGA, taxi and check-in to our hotel room for the next 26 nights – Yikes! We were thinking what will we do and so far I haven’t even had a minute to write a blog post.

Since it was late on Tuesday when we arrived we just grabbed dinner at the hotel and crashed.

The next day, Wednesday, we pack in all types of activity. First, we leave at 6:10 am to walk to see the granddaughters and our daughter for breakfast while they get ready for school. Afterwards, we walk with them to the Montessori school. Then off to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge – a tradition.

Next stop Wall Street, Bowling Green and the Clinton Fort.

Short walk around Freedom plaza and then subway back to hotel.

Meet-up with Lesley at the subway, grocery store, pick up girls and eat dinner with everyone before we head back to our hotel. Whew! 24,156 steps and 9.9 miles!

On Thursday, our morning routine is established. Walk to Mazzola Bakery to pick up coffees and then have breakfast with the girls. Walk with them to their school. Then become tourists.

We take an Uber to Botanic Gardens. Beautiful and spectacular cherry trees in full bloom as are tulips, daffodils, Lilac trees and many other trees, bushes and flowers. So happy we were able to experience the beauty of Springtime in Brooklyn.

Just next door is the Brooklyn Museum. We have tickets to the David Bowie Exhibit

With our headsets on we enjoy the multimedia exhibit for almost 2 hours.

Lunch at The Norm in the Museum and subway train back to Borough Hall

Lesley is working late so we go to help Mike out with picking up the girls and dinner before arriving back our our hotel. Yikes – 20,195 steps – 9 miles!

• Friday starts with our morning routine of coffee, breakfast with girls, school drop off and then off to explore. Our adventure today – Brooklyn Promenade, RAAKA Chocolate Factory, church stop in and lunch pre-Cinco de Mayo at Rocco’s Tacos. Yum!
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Goal – find laundry close to hotel – done – found a place called NEXT in the AVA Building. So many new places in this area. Brooklyn downtown is changing and we’ve been seeing it happen in the past 4 years. We think it is all for the better.

Walk around Cadman Plaza in the evening – so lovely.

Why is Moses beating the people over the head with the Ten Commandments on the Supreme Court building. LOL

Crash in hotel room – 25,115 steps, 12 miles. Have no idea why the stats are so different between numbers of steps and miles each day. The Apple Watch activity app seems a bit off – or my steps are LOL

Saturday – We walk over to a favorite – a big breakfast at Junior’s.

At 11:30 am we board the subway with Emme and Lesley to the D2 Theatre to see “The Hungry Caterpillar.” The puppeteers perform the stories from three books meant for children ages 5 and under. Very cute. The children loved it.

Lunch afterwards at Panera Bread and then head to the subway to go home. Emme has a full blown 3 year old temper tantrum on the subway walkway because she could not go through the pay turnstile on her own. The first tantrum we’ve witnessed – quite a good one!

We determine it is probably best for us to just head back to our hotel and come by later to babysit for Les and Mike so they can have an evening out to dinner.

19,177 steps – 9 Miles

Sunday – The Brooklyn Tabernacle Church is right down the street from our hotel. It has been on our list to attend for the past several times we’ve been in Brooklyn and somehow we have never made it. Intentionally, today we are attending. Arriving at 8:15 am allows you to have a choice of seats. The place completely fills up by 9 AM. The worship leader comes out and starts leading the praise songs with the choir singing in the background. After 3-4 praise songs, there are prayers, an offering, a good sermon by the pastor, one last song and then out the door by 10:45 AM.

The Tabernacle supports a church in Malawi Africa. They have several ministries which are communicated by the information displayed on the TV screens that are throughout the church — Men’s bible study, Friday night bible study for all, single parenting seminar, teaching people how to do job search and set-up LinkedIn, nursery with tv to watch service, home and hospital visitation, online giving.

Quite impressive for a church that is also a visitors’ church like SAKLC in season.

Later, we walk around exploring Brooklyn. We find an interesting bike store – Vanmoof. Also, stop in the Fridge Art Fair at the NU Hotel. Theme is David Bowie strange coincidence. Steve engages in conversation with one of the artists strangely enough!

Find a large street fair on Court – lots of food and junk for sale along with a couple of rides and bounce houses for kids.

We meet-up with Lesley & Mike and girls for dinner. We buy Purbird and they pick up some ‘MilkMade’ Ice cream – cheesecake with guava.

Only walked 17,495 steps – 8 miles today.

Monday – Breakfast and school routine with girls.

Then we take the A Train to 190th Street. A beautiful walk through Fort Tryon Park to The Cloisters. An exhibit is underway “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and The Catholic Imagination.” Quite impressive array of dresses throughout the museum. We are told NO PHOTOGRAPHY. Of course, there is a professional photography crew filming these dresses. I’m able to catch a couple while taking pictures of other items in the museum.

Back to the A Train when we are done with the museum and stop at 125th Street in Harlem. We had heard about the Red Rooster restaurant. Quite good. Sort of a New Orleans feel and menu.

Dinner at the new CityPoint Dekalb Food court at Two Tablespoons – vegetarian bowls.

22,926 Steps, 11 miles.

Now, Tuesday morning. We’ve finished our early morning routine with the girls and are spending some downtime in our hotel. Steve’s working on a Constant Contact design for a newsletter and I’m writing this blog post to catch-up. Definitely won’t wait this long to post the next update!