#1,821 NYC Family Vacation Day 2 + Ben Talking to Strangers.

I am barely awake as I write this, as I always am on our trips when I blog. We like to squeeze every last drop out of the day (and night) when we go to NYC, and today was a particular busy one. To start, we had croissants and brioche French toast at Balthazar (yummmm!):

Where Ben talked to probably the 3rd stranger of the day. He truly enjoys forcing people who are minding their own business to talk to him about where they’re from, who he knows from there, where we’re from, and what football team are they pulling for? This guy is a Penn State man, for the record.

Another stranger conversation near the 9/11 memorial.

This was the first time I’ve ever seen the incredibly moving memorial, and we wanted to tour the museum…

But the wait to buy tickets was about 2 hours. So that didn’t work out. Because…

After a quick subway ride (where I read this beautiful poem!) to Tribeca…

For lunch at the Ear Inn…

We had a date at Martha Stewart Weddings with Shira, the first magazine person who ever contacted me about Lucky Luxe way back in January 2009. I’ll never forget her, the first person who ever made me feel like, “this could really be something.”

She gave us the grand tour of Martha headquarters, and I couldn’t wait to show Mallorie the prop room full of antique silver, china, platters, prints and plates among every other lovely curiosity they might need for a photo shoot.

 We basically just walked around with our jaws on the floor.

Then we took a little walk on The Highline at her recommendation. I’ve never heard of it, and we saw some really great views of the city on a quiet walking trail that cuts right through it.

A quick stop at Eataly for a Christmas present:

 And then we rushed back to the hotel to change before dinner at The Waverly Inn with Lindsey, our incredible cheerleader at the network, and Kim, her best friend the literary agent who is interested in working with us on a future project.

We lingered way, way late at our table, telling stories, sharing the famous Waverly Inn truffle mac and cheese:

Then a walk over to the club where Lindsey’s friends were hanging out (which presented many opportunities for Ben to talk to more strangers, like these Oregon fans):

And at 1:30 am, we finally said goodnight in the lobby of the Palace Hotel before catching a cab back down to the financial district.

Ben and Jim could’ve hung with the New Yorkers all night, but Mallorie and I were half crippled from all the walking and half asleep from 2 late nights in a row.

So amazing to finally meet Lindsey after she’s done so much for us. We’ll find out next week if the network will be moving forward with filming a pilot TV show, which seems unreal. I will have so many prayers of thankfulness tonight, but I’ll mostly be keeping my heart open to listen for where God is leading us next.

Good night, sweet readers!