When life hands you lemons, this pig pen tries to make lemonade

As you know a couple of weeks ago, I had to travel to the Big Apple for work.  The last time I had to travel there for work, the flights were fairly cheap.   So I got the bright idea that for her Mother's Day present, Big Sissy and I should take my mother-in-law to New York City as my expenses would be covered and we could all share a hotel room. 

My mother-in-law had been to New York City a few years ago so I felt like she would be comfortable getting around NYC.  Big Sissy, on the other hand, had never been to the Big Apple and I hope some day she realizes how lucky she was to go at age 7.  (I had to wait until I turned 30.) 

Any way, the first day of our trip did not start quite as planned.  Our flight got to LaGuardia early, but they would not let us land.  We ended up having to go to Pittsburgh for more fuel and then back to LaGuardia.  Needless to say, we got to NYC about 2 hours late.  Thankfully, my business meetings did not start until the next day so I was not late for anything work related. 

Big Sissy's  first request was to visit American Girl.  We have visited the Chicago store as a family a few times, but she was excited to go to the New York City store. 

After a hairdo for her doll Nicki and lunch in the American Girl Cafe, our trip was getting better.  The only thing that would have been better at this point was if I had remembered my camera.

I had brought my camera to NYC, but left it at the hotel when we headed to American Girl so the only camera I had to use was my phone.  Little did I know that this would soon be a blessing in disguise. 

  

 

We ended our first day in New York with seeing Mamma Mia on Broadway.  It was absolutely amazing. 

Over the course of the next day and a half, my mother-in-law and Big Sissy hit the city while I spent my days in meetings. 

They did the Gray Line bus tour so they really saw a lot of different parts of the city and took a lot of pictures.  They also went to the top of the Empire State Building and watched The Today Show live.  Big Sissy even got to talk to Matt, Ann, and Al.  She was on cloud 9 as I talked to them during my morning break to discuss our afternoon plans as my meetings ended at noon and we had a 4:30pm flight. 

When I arrived back at the hotel to meet them for lunch after my meetings, I could tell by the look of my mother-in-law and Big Sissy's faces that something was not good.  Long story short, in the process of trying to delete some of their not-so-good pictures of NYC, they deleted all 600+ pictures on my memory card.  (That would basically mean every picture that I have taken since Christmas forward including our trip to New York City.)

I was in complete shock and Big Sissy was balling hysterically.  I pulled myself together and tried to calm Big Sissy down.  In my opinion, we now had about 2 hours to eat lunch and recreate as many of the photo opportunities they had over the past few days. 

Big Sissy was devastated.  She tried to put on a smile, but that didn't last very long. 

After walking back to Times Square from our hotel, I decided we needed to eat lunch.  It took her some time, but thankfully after she started eating her Turkey Manhattan in Manhattan she finally stopped crying and agreed that we needed to take some photos. 

Of course at that point, we had about a half hour so we caught cab back to our hotel and Big Sissy took the following photos from the back seat of the cab. 

We may not have a lot of pictures to document the trip, but we loved The Big Apple.

And although it isn't quite the Big Apple, the Indiana State Fair runs until August 22nd and your chance to win free tickets runs until tomorrow night.