LUCKY NUMBER FIVE.

It's a big birthday year at our house. Danny turned 30 in February. Navy turns 10 next month in August, double digits, whaaat!!? Daxton turns 8 and will be getting baptized in September. Then I’m the caboose, turning 30 this December. Since we all have special milestone birthdays this year, we decided to split up and take each of the kids on 1-on-1 trips. This weekend Naveya and I are going on our very first mother-daughter trip together!! It also happens to be my 5th time visiting New York City.

Getting to set foot on that island for the 5th time is a BIG DEAL for me. You don’t have to know me long to understand I have this real love for NYC. I could walk for miles admiring brownstones, go on and on about the food, and the people-watching is unparalleled. I’m romantic about the idea that with however many million people there are scrunched on that island, I’ll figuratively (and literally) rub shoulders with lots of people that think like me, and many that don’t. Yet all of us feel the same emotions. We all want the same basic things in life. It’s humanity served on a platter and the part of me that is this deep thinking/feeling artist... lives for it. 

Our first visit to the city was in 2011. Naveya was 18 months old, and I was pregnant with Daxton. We did all the touristy stuff like going to the Statue of Liberty and have about 20 bad photos taken on a little point-and-shoot camera to prove it. (This was before either of us had smartphones.) It was right then that I fell in love with New York City. My favorite movie since High School is How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, so I’m sure that also planted a few city-loving seeds long before ever going. I mean, who wouldn’t want to have that moment standing at the top of an apartment stoop in a gorgeous gown, taking Matthew McConaughey’s breath away?? (Its actually a bucket list item of mine. One day when we’re in NYC I’ll plan a date night, kick Danny out of the apartment and give him a random address to meet me for date night. One with a gorgeous stoop. “Wear a tux. Don’t be late. Xo, Brianne.”) 

I can’t wait to be back!! As this trip has gotten closer I’ve been thinking about how special it is getting to go for the 5th time. This trip makes the 3rd in just under 18 months. Which may not be crazy to some, but knowing how far we’ve come makes me feel so grateful. Grateful for how blessed we’ve been and how hard we’ve worked. Two years ago I wrote a blog post (here) about one of the hardest years of Danny and I’s marriage. In the post, I go more into detail about what we were going through at the time. About how I would wake up every morning and envision waking up in an apartment on the Upper West Side. This weekend I get to do that! I get to wake up in one of my favorite parts of the City, with my almost 10 year old!! The other day I read that post about our hard year for the first time since I wrote it. It blew my mind thinking of everything Danny and I have accomplished since and how much our little family has grown. I mean, I don’t want to give the wrong impression, as if we’ve "made it" and travel is super easy for us now. This trip hasn’t come without sacrifice. We’ve saved our pennies to make it happen. I just wanted to write this post because even with how far we have to go, it made my heart so happy reading that post from a couple of years ago and being able to see the progress we’ve made. Which is all we can ever really measure and is all that really matters. I wanted to sit down and write about my thoughts again because a couple of years from now we will have been through another whirlwind. Our children will be older. Us too, and I want to look back and remember how grateful I felt for this trip. Even before it happened.

I rounded up a hodgepodge of photos from our other trips. I can't wait to be back in the City with Navy, making more memories in a place that has become so special to us!

Danny and I got to sneak away for a date to Stomp on our first trip. We were so young! I can't believe I was pregnant with Dax here.

Best trip to date...Danny and I celebrating our 10th Wedding Anniversary, just the two of us.

Our first time to Lombardi's. I die over Navy's little profile reflection in the mirror!!

Some years later, with that same baby, in Central Park.

A few photos from my girls trip with Rach.

 

Remember how I said we had about 20 bad pictures from our first trip to the city?? Navy has a straight face in most of them. I swear she had a good time. It's just so funny.

Daxton on his 7th birthday. 

Soup dumplings in China town after getting caught in the rain.

Stopping to play at parks.

Our first time walking the Brooklyn Bridge.

If you made it through all the words and ALL the photos, thanks for listening. and New York, thanks for being one of the special cities I get to watch our family grown up in. Even if its just a couple days at a time.