Coney Island!

My cousin and her husband were living in New York for the summer so when my aunt was going to be visiting them for a week, we decided to head up for the day and hang out with them. 

I've always heard people talk about Coney Island but we've never been there so we we decided that would be the place to end up. We were pumped to see what it was all about. 

 Waiting for the train to Coney Island.

 There were only two things I really knew about Coney Island. One was that it was completely trashy and the other was that they had a giant Nathan's hot dog stand out front. I couldn't have been more excited about    that second thing. I LOVE Nathan's hot dogs. Yummm... 

 These guys were sponsoring a sand sculpture contest the day they were there. Below was the mascot for this company. 

 Anyone want to take a stab at what this animal is? 

We still don't know. We asked the people working at the sponsor booth and they didn't know either. We thought maybe a walrus or a gray manatee, but the thing has wings so we still aren't sure.  

 Next stop were the  rides.

 He really thought his horse was winning. 

 Collette thought so too. 

 We couldn't just let her sit on the sidelines and cheer him on though. She wanted in. And once she was in, she didn't want out. 

 The kids wanted to stay for more rides but us parents and our wallets were ready to move on. 

We had hit up FAO shwartz and the Disney store last time we were in town, so you'd think we had had enough of toy stores in New York but had heard great things about the Toys R Us store in Times Square so that was our next destination.

 I polished up on some of my hula hooping skills while Collette checked out a different kind of ride.

 There was a lot more to the Toys R Us store, it really was so amazing. They had this giant dinosaur that the employee talked Owen into standing by but the second he stood in front of it, the dinosaur let out this huge growl and it took a good five minutes to convince Owen that it was just a pretend dinosaur. Poor child. 

Next we went looking for a place to eat and strolled around Times Square a minute more.

 Seriously dude... why? 

After hanging in Times Square, we wanted some open space to play in so we walked over to Central Park.

 We love these people! Not only because they were a blast to hang out with but also because Aunt Joe spoiled us and bought some New York cheesecake and Red Velvet cake to share. I'm not going to lie... it was AMAZING. 

 While we were all sitting on the grass enjoying the goodies, Owen was running around on the grass. All of the sudden we notice that he isn't on the grass anymore, he has climbed this rock and his hangin with the ladies. Apparently he walked over, plopped himself down and started asking them about how their day was and what they were talking about. 

This is my child. He makes friends wherever he goes. I LOVE it about him. 

By this time, it was around 8:00 at night so we decided to head back to the hotel to get some sleep before we had to fly back the next morning. 

It was so fun to meet up with family out here on the East Coast and these guys were such good sports. We pretty much spent the entire day doing kid stuff and they acted like they loved it (thanks for faking it so well for us Whit, Brandon and Joe! We really love you guys!)