When things don’t go exactly as you planned. New York.

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We’re home!!

We spent the last 9 days in New York City (one of the days was spent in Philadelphia, PA) and we had a blast.  We are already planning a return trip, because seriously, you could never see, do, taste, smell and just absorb everything there is in NYC in that short amount of time.

I took the photo above after we had walked the Brooklyn Bridge.  In 83* weather, with thousands of other people.  At one point, while we were trying to get a photo of us all, Hayden says, Mom, stop trying to make this into something fun.  No one on this bridge is having fun.  Hahaha, he was wrong, I saw plenty of people having fun on the bridge, but he was right too.  It was hot, we were miserable and it had been a long, long, week at that point.

I am slowly posting about everything that we saw, ate, and did – I’m also putting New York in the title of those post’s in case you have no interest in what we saw and did and  you can skip it.

What I wanted to ramble on about today is expectations.  And what we get out of those expectations.

I freely admit that I had a lot of expectations going into this trip.  I always do!  I feel like if you don’t have a plan, any kind of a plan, you are already halfway into the weeds (Gordon Ramsey reference) and probably aren’t going to get anything accomplished.  Denton knows this about me.  He is not a planner, he loves to fly by the seat of his pants.  That makes me cringe.  We know this about one another.

To head off a lot of arguments, we had a conversation before we even started packing the car for the trip.  He didn’t want me to plan out every single moment  – of every single day of our trip.  I didn’t want to get home from our Big New York Vacation and realize that we had just wandered around like chicken’s with our heads cut off and didn’t even remember what we had done.

So we compromised.  I made a list of all the things that we definitely wanted to do and see on this first foray into the city with the understanding that it was just a guideline for us to follow when we felt like it.

I feel like this is the first time that we got it right.  He wasn’t stressed out (too much) by my big list of things to check off, and I felt comfortable that we were actually going to see and do and eat at least some of the things on our my giant list.

One of the things that made this possible was the map I created on google maps that was personalized to us.  I shared it with everyone, that way we could see in an instant what was around us that we definitely wanted to see and do.  I used this tutorial to make ours and it worked perfectly!

The first thing that knocked us for a flip on this trip was Hayden getting sick.  He wasn’t feeling well on Thursday.  By Friday when we got to Philadelphia he was feeling very nauseous.  By Saturday when we had to check out of our hotel (which was AMAZING!) he was feeling really, really bad.

We made the decision to go ahead to New York and assess things there.  By Sunday morning we had already scoped out the nearest Urgent Care facility and were waiting on a doctor.  They ran a lot of tests, did blood work, did more tests, then more blood work and finally advised us to take him back to our brownstone, keep him hydrated and if his symptoms worsened to take him immediately to the ER, where they could admit him and do a better workup.

He slowly improved each day and now he is feeling absolutely normal.   In addition to this stressful situation Denton’s back decided it didn’t like being normal and tried to rearrange itself.  His solution was to eat Ibuprofen like Smarties.  That worked.

All of that to say that nothing went as planned.  Like having to pay to use the restroom.

Unusual food that you really didn’t like.  I hate wasting food and money.

We saw the beautiful memorial where the twin towers were, but had to skip the enormous lines for the museum.   

We had great pizza, but missed so many more that we had planned for.

We went up into the One World Observatory, but were really disappointed and wished we had spent the time and money at the Rockefeller building or the Empire State building.

We didn’t have the time or energy to go and see St. Patrick’s Cathedral, but stumbled upon St. Paul’s Chapel completely by accident.

We also never made it to Dumbo or the Flea Market in that area.  😥 

Sitting in traffic for over an hour to get out of the city.

The whole point of this post though is to show you this.

We passed by this rosebush every single time we trekked our way to the Subway every day.  There are so many gorgeous gardens in Brooklyn, that I was amazed. 

Life is a journey.

While you are ticking things off of your list, don’t forget to stop and smell the roses, and take pictures of them too!  Those moments are the ones that are standing out in my mind already.

This was a truly amazing trip for all of us – we all actually agreed!  I am so glad that I convinced Denton to step out of his comfort zone (he is very, very protective of all of us – hence being very uncomfortable in a city with millions of people to watch out for!) and now we can’t wait to go back.

Enjoy every moment!  Even the hot, irritating ones while you are trudging along the Brooklyn Bridge with thousands of other people!

This post is linked up on……

Wander Mum

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11 thoughts on “When things don’t go exactly as you planned. New York.

  1. I enjoyed your journey through the city of New York. You saw some things I didn’t see on either of my short visits, although I did go up the Empire State Building, but then refused to look.
    Thanks for sharing.
    Kay
    An Unfittie’s Guide to Adventurous Travel

  2. I loved your post! I also battle to deal with my own expectations (mine can get quite unrealistic, I tend towards wishful idealism…), and I have been guilty many times of trying to make everyone like an unlikable situation, lol.
    I liked how you compromised with your partner about how much to plan and how much to go with the flow, it’s good to get a balance of those two things! #citytripping

  3. It is so hard with somewhere like new York, to get a balance between seeing some of the endless sights and attractions and not coming back blinking in the spotlight from cramming it all in. Sounds like you found a good compromise and despite not everything going according to plan, managed to have a mostly good trip. Thanks for linking up with #citytripping

  4. Always so much to see and do in New York. I love just walking in the city and taking photos. so glad you found the beautiful roses.

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