We slept in this morning after our long day yesterday then ate breakfast at the hotel. We packed up and headed to the JFK airport where we waited for our 12:50 flight to Salt Lake City. It was a five hour flight, but it felt longer than the eight hour flight we took yesterday! I think it's just because we're ready to get home! Our landing was delayed because there was a storm so the plane was put into a holding pattern. So we kept circling the airport until the storm stopped! While we circled we had a great view of the Salt lake valley and I realized how much I had missed the mountains! In England they have rolling hillsides which are beautiful, but just don't compare!

When we finally landed Grandma picked us up! We came home to a nice homemade dinner which was great after traveling all day! Thanks Grandma!

We've absolutely loved traveling from the US to the UK and back, but there are definitely some things we are happy to come home to!

We spent the morning cleaning and packing up. We ate lunch at a pizza place down the street then took the Tube for the final time! We got to the airport, made our way through customs, and boarded just in time for our 5:30 pm flight to New York! The eight hour flight went by quickly since we were able to watch movies and they served icecream! We made it safely to New York at 2:30 am London time and 8:30 pm New York time. We were all pretty tired so we checked into our hotel and went to bed!

While in New York we are staying in the Affinia Manhattan hotel and this morning we ate at the restaurant here. After breakfast we took a taxi over to Pier 84 along the Hudson River. We don't have much time in New York, but we wanted to see as much of the city as we could so we took a water taxi down the coast. We had an awesome time sight seeing and enjoyed the ocean breeze since New York has been even more hot and humid than DC. We were able to see the Brooklyn Bridge, the Empire State Building, the new World Trade Center, and the Statue of Liberty.

Seeing the Statue of Liberty up close was incredible! I never realized how big it actually is! We took some really neat pictures and marveled at its beauty

We ate lunch and did a bit of shopping before taking the shuttle to the JFK airport. We said goodbye to Grandma and made sure she got on her flight home. Our flight to London was supposed to leave at 9pm, but it was delayed by about an hour. We all tried to sleep on the seven hour flight, but the flight attendants kept coming around which made it difficult. Zach and I only got about three hours of sleep so tomorrow will be rough.

Woke up this morning and said goodbye to our little place in Gambrills. After packing and cleaning  up we are off to the next part of our grand adventure, New York City!

After returning our rental car we took a shuttle to the AmTrak station. We had to wait for about an hour before we actually left. When the train finally came we boarded and began the two hour ride to New York. It was fun to look out the window and enjoy the scenery. We passed through Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey before finally reaching Penn station.

We got off the train and walked into complete chaos. People were rushing here and there, not to mention it was noisy, hot, muggy, and a bit smelly. We were feeling a bit uneasy about the whole thing. Later after getting checked into our hotel we started to feel better about things as we explored the busy city. We took a taxi to the Manhattan Temple and were amazed to see that it was right along the streets of New York. The temple itself is actually a separate building inside of another building which blocks out the noise of the city. We went to Nike Town, the NBA store, the Lego store, the iconic glass Apple store, etc. We walked down 5th Avenue and window shopped looking into stores like Michael Kors, Tiffany's, and Louis Vuitton!

We ate dinner at the Rockefeller plaza. It was so cool to eat outside next to a giant golden fountain and surrounded by world flags. The food was really good and we got a banana split for dessert which ruled! We hailed cabs and went back to the hotel to settle in for bed.