Happy Monday! I’m here with Holly sharing some fun from our trip to New York City. I hope you’ll link up with us for Hello Monday!

For Luke’s 13th birthday, he said he wanted an experience or to go to a museum. We’ve been to most of the museums around us in Baltimore and Washington, DC so I decided that we were going to New York City.

We planned to go in August so Luke didn’t have to miss swim team practice and last Wednesday was the perfect fit. The weather was incredible and we had the best day!

We left the house around 6 and hopped on our train at BWI airport just before 7. The train makes it so easy to get to NYC in 3 hours. We picked seats that face each other, but quickly realized that it was going to be a cozy ride. There was not much leg room between the seats.

We got to New York right on time and hopped on the subway. We didn’t even go outside because we could catch the subway in the train station. We accidentally got on an express train and had to circle back to our subway stop. We were going to the American Museum of Natural History. I was planning to go to Central Park for about half an hour before the museum but we decided to go right into the museum. We had tickets for 11 am but went in around 10:45.

We started in the hall of African Mammals. When Luke does a museum, he wants to read every single word on every single sign and talk about it.

We made our way through the African Mammals and went to an insect exhibit. It showed insects that are extinct or almost extinct. The photographs were incredible and there were a few touchscreen displays that shared information on each insect and let you zoom way in.

From there we went to a different lobby and learned about Teddy Roosevelt. They also had an old exhibit present and shared why it wasn’t accurate anymore and how it should be changed to show what we now know about European settlers in America. I thought that was really great to have. I am a firm believer in when we know better, we do better and the museum showed how they are changing to be more accurate and sensitive.

After that, we headed into the Hall of Biodiversity. That was really cool to see different families of animals and models of animals that we rarely see in real life.

From there we went into the Hall of Ocean Life and saw the model of the blue whale. We saw an elephant seal and holy cow I had no idea they were quite so big! The walruses were huge, too.

Luke and I listened to different whale sounds, too.

Then we headed into the North American Forests exhibit. I’ve never been to California or seen the redwoods and sequoia trees. This cross section of a trunk was incredible! It is huge!!

We walked back through the upstairs of the African Mammals and found the meteorites. Can you believe this meteor? It actually came to Earth and is so heavy the beams that support it went all the way to the basement floor. There are a few pieces of it there, but this is the biggest.

We were looking for the gems and minerals exhibit next. How beautiful is this geode?

We saw some gorgeous gems, including this sapphire.

And then found the Ice Cold exhibit. It had jewelry from hip hop artists. Flavor Flav’s original watch was there!

Then we headed to find the dinosaurs. We’ve seen the dinosaurs in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History a few times, but this exhibit was incredible! The docents were so knowledgeable and shared a lot with us.

Next we went to the Hall of Mexico and Central America. Luke was so excited about this one because he learned about the Olmec Head and other artifacts in school this year. I love when the kids teach me about things they’ve learned in school.

I loved this Aztec Stone of the Sun.

We found artifacts and models of Chichen Itzá, too before we headed to the Hall of Human Origins. We saw Lucy and learned about the evolution to Homo sapiens that we are today.

I wanted to see the model of the statues from Easter Island so we headed up to the fourth floor to see it. It was so cool. The Margaret Mead Hall of Pacific Peoples was full of models and scenes from the people of the Pacific. I was so intrigued.

Six hours after we entered the museum, Luke looked at us with slightly glazed eyes and said he was ready to go. We had planned to go to out to lunch, but we ended up eating in the museum food court because Luke didn’t want to leave when he got hungry. It was a great day in the museum and we will definitely be back!

The Museum of Natural History app was fantastic. It was interactive and gave step by step directions to get from one exhibit to another. It is a free download and I highly recommend it if you visit.

Right before we left the museum, I got a text that our train was delayed a few minutes so we didn’t need to rush to get a few more things done in the city. We hopped on the subway to Rockefeller Plaza. Luke wanted to go to the Lego store and take a look around. He sat down next to Hulk of course. Here is this year’s picture and a combined picture I made with his picture from 2 years ago.

We also got in the Lego taxi.

We left the Lego store and walked to Bryant park. when we were there two summers ago the guys had a great time playing chess there. Well, not this time. When we got there a yoga class had just started and the park was packed. The weather was perfect so we sat and enjoyed the atmosphere for a bit.

We were getting hungry and decided to walk to get a slice or three of New York pizza. It was so yummy! As we were eating, Jeff asked Luke what his favorite exhibits were. Luke realized that we missed the entire Earth and space portion, so we decided that we are definitely going to go back at some point.

While we were walking around, we kept getting more notifications that our train was later and later. We were getting tired and decided to head over to the train station to check on things and see if there was an earlier train we could get on. But first, one last picture outside!

Our train was supposed to leave at 6:45 and get back to BWI at 9:45. There wasn’t an earlier train that we could get on and our train was delayed again. We didn’t board the train until 9:21 which put us arriving in Baltimore at 12:20 am.

We thought we’d be ok to rest on the train but they were unable to turn the lights off. It was a pretty empty train so we could all stretch out, but the lights were so bright that we only napped a little bit.

We got home around 1 am exhausted, but so happy after a great day! On Thursday night, we watched Night at the Museum. It was great and we saw a lot of the exhibits from the day before, but the museum has done quite a bit of renovation since the movie.

Luke thought it was a great way to celebrate his birthday and I am so happy we did it. Have you ever been to the museum? What is your favorite museum in New York City? Don’t forget to link up with us below for Hello Monday! Have a great day full of sunshine and books!