Exploring Key West

An hour and a half South of Duck Key is Key West. We were told it wasn't a place to take children so only left ourselves a few hours to explore it and I totally regret that! The houses were beautiful, they had all of my favorite boutiques and the trolly tours looked so fun. Duval street was a sight to see (during the day) and reminded me a lot of New Orleans.  Our friends have this spacious time share at the end of Duval overlooking the water and we started there. After a quick stop at the tiki bar we ventured to Mallory Square and caught a few "Cirque Du Soleil" type of acts. Maybe comparing it to Venice Beach is more appropriate?  The littles loved it and it was difficult to pull them away from men juggling fire and machetes. We peeked in some shops on the way to dinner at Fogartys. The food was good and cheap and we got to sit outside and enjoy the weather and sights. We were able to grab some ice-cream and call it a night before the REAL craziness started out there. One day I'd love to see that without littles. Next time I would also like to make it to the Southern Most Point. So if you were told to stay away from Key West, don't listen. Go early and leave early if you are with your family.

Battery Parking It

We spent a 60 degree Saturday in Battery Park with two of the Alaskan Assassin's sisters, their husbands and two of our nieces. It takes an hour and a half to get to the city from the Hamptons and we park in the Battery Park Garage that only costs us $20 for 4-5 hours.  We decided to take advantage of the weather and spend the whole time outside. We stopped at a few parks, picked up Shake shack to go, explored the Irish Hunger Memorial, had a horrible character drawn of the littles, scootered the Promenade, found the Statue of Liberty, admired some art installments and ended with the most magical ride on the Sea glass Carousel. I highly, highly recommend making the trip downtown to see this merry-go-round. It is $5 a person and absolutely beautiful! After that we had circled right back to the garage and had a peaceful drive home while the littles passed out from all of the fresh air and exercise. They are obsessed with seeing our family, so getting to be all together was special on its own, but the weather and the sights made it a day to remember for a long time.