Stories by Me!: Top Ten Vacation Memories

We spent nearly two weeks of our summer tasting life in the big Apple.

It had been nearly 20 years since my last visit. Back then, I was visiting on the company dime. In a previous life, I was a jewelry buyer for Macy's. Seeing New York City with my kids was an even better adventure!

We started with a plan, trying to organize our activities by interest level and location. We soon realized that we could pound through the list and see everything once...or maybe even twice. It helped that the kids are now big enough to keep up! In hindsight, it might have made more sense to visit the Empire State Building when it wasn't overcast and stormy. We thought we were pretty clever to have found the one attraction in the city that didn't have an hour wait. Come to find out that all there's to see 80 floors up is clouds and rain drops when it's raining.

Duh!

My hubby found the perfect nesting spot, smack dab in the middle of Time Square. The window to our room opened up right on to the square. The kids loved the action so much we never closed our curtains. Our trip took place during the World Cup. (We happen to have an avid ...sometimes it's borderline rabid, soccer fan in the family.) He was in seventh heaven to be surrounded by other soccer enthusiasts. The party in Time Square celebrating Spain's win is something my son will never forget!

I always have the best intentions of putting together a family memory book of our adventures. I could easily fill a 200 page book with all of our memories of two weeks on the road... but that's not going to happen! I've found that if I want any hope of finishing a project, it has to be SHORT and SIMPLE. Pocket books are the perfect format!!

We decided to document our top ten favorite memories of our time in New York.

Before we even got home, we had a book. Let me rephrase that... we had a FINISHED book! I could have printed it from home, but I wanted a larger version for each family member, so I sent the file off to our printer for a professional print job.

Because we limited our pages to the TOP ten memories, we didn't document some of the more obscure experiences...like the two brothers ditching their youngest brother on a bike ride through Central Park. I'm sure he'll need counseling to get over the fact that his mother told him to wait for his brothers on a park bench since I was just walking into the Metropolitan Museum of Art when he called (and given that the Museum was closing in less than an hour, wasn't about to leave for a rescue). I know...no mother of year award for me.

Our sixth Top Reason for LOVING NEW YORK was the FOOD! The book pays homage to a dinner spent in Little Italy. We could have easily had a page dedicated to cheesecake, or pizza, but this dinner held a special memory as we lost our youngest moments after dining on the most amazing meal of creamy cheese and garlic! What was that? Lost our son...again? Yes, it was a reoccurring theme with this child. The next twenty minutes were a blur as we vacillated back and forth between reason and panic.

The child did end up coming home with us, although there were a few other moments during the two week jaunt that his father and I seriously thought about ditching him.

Our #2 reason for LOVING New York was being able to connect with neighbors thousands of miles from home!

The best thing about the Pocket Book format is that each page makes a pocket which is the perfect place for holding extra stories or memories. I now have a place for all of the tickets, maps and brochures that I hauled from place to place. You know the stuff that you typically sit on for a year before throwing it out because you don't know what to do with it.

Last night, we took some time to write down some of our personal memories of the trip (to be stored in the pockets...of course!) It was fun to get the different family members perspectives of each memory.