NYC continued....

Oh so much to tell, I don't even know where to start. Tonight we are home at a decent hour and Grace is playing with her Ballerina doll and scarabs from the Met and listening to her "Little Mermaid" soundtrack. I actually have the time and energy to upload photos and blog. Tonight we said goodbye to our dear friend Sheila who spent the weekend with us here in NYC (along with her fabulous sister and brother in law, Phoebe and Ed). When I last left you we were about to go out to our much-anticipated Broadway show, "The Little Mermaid". We got all dolled up in dresses and heels and hopped on a jam-packed subway to Times Square. I allowed enough time to check out the Times Square Toys-R-Us where we rode the indoor ferris wheel and checked out the Barbies. Then we got a quick meal at Roxy's diner (the craziest BLT you've ever seen featuring nearly an entire head of iceberg lettuce!) before heading to the show. The show was amazing! Grace made friends with a family from Wales sitting next to her. We sat in the mezzanine and it was worth every penny. When we walked out of the theater Sheila called and said they were outside waiting for us which was a great surprise because I didn't think we would get to see her until Saturday morning. So we headed to Ben & Jerry's for a scoop of their heavenly ice cream. When it became clear they were trying to close (putting chairs on top of tables and mopping the floor) we gathered up my shopping bags and my sleeping Grace and hopped in a cab. The cab dropped Sheila and Phoebe off at 68th & Broadway and then we were off to the Upper East Side. Sheila gave me $10 for their part of the cab ride and I then reached for my purse to get my money out for the rest- when I discovered that MY PURSE WAS GONE!!!
I had to have the taxi pull over and drop us off because we had no more money and the tab was close to $10. I hobbled (with many blisters and aching feet from the heels) carrying a sleeping Grace back 4 blocks to where we had dropped Sheila and Phoebe off. But the problem was I had no idea where from there Phoebe lived. And I had NO PHONE, ID, MONEY, or KEYS to our apartment. I had NOTHING. And it was midnight in NYC. I consider myself a fairly seasoned traveler and I don't get rattled easily but I was panicked. I only know a couple of cell phone numbers by heart. So I made a collect call to my parents. By some stroke of luck my mother answered. After about an hour and two collect calls later my mother was able to get Sheila's phone number (from her parents in San Diego) and we were rescued. It was an impromptu sleepover and Ed and Phoebe couldn't have been more gracious. We got to their (amazing!) apartment and Grace promptly VOMITED all over her pink silk dress and their new couch. We cleaned up the mess, donned their clothes, blew up the air bed, cancelled credit cards and the cell phone and went to bed. The next day they ordered in brunch- it turns out in Manhattan you can pretty much order ANY kind of food at any time and have it delivered to your apartment. Phoebe took Grace's dress to the dry cleaner and came home with a new GAP dress, socks, shoes, and Little Mermaid panties and loaned us money to get us through the weekend. We all showered then headed back to our apartment where the super was supposed to have unlocked the door for us. But when we got here it still wasn't unlocked (long story) so we headed back down to Times Square to see if Ben & Jerry's had my purse (even though we had called them the night before and they had said 'no'). Well, miraculously, they HAD MY PURSE!!! The nightmare was officially over! We celebrated with a trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, pizza, beet and goat cheese salad, dessert at Serendipity and a visit to Dylan's Candy Bar. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that yesterday tropical storm Hanna blew through and it poured BUCKETS! We were splashed by cabs driving by and drenched from head to toe- Grace thought that was absolutely hilarious! She was dancing and skipping in the rain all night.
Today we met Sheila at the Museum of Natural History which was amazing- there is no way you can see everything in one day especially with other things on the agenda so we checked out the fossils/dinosaur collection and the very cool animal dioramas. We covered a lot of territory the rest of the day- flea market, playground, chocolate chip cookies to die for, bus ride down 5th ave past all the big famous stores, food at Petite Abeille with Tin Tin decor, and shopping at ABC and Fishs Eddy where I bought the coolest cat and dog plates/bowls (yes, that I have to ship home). Tomorrow is our last full day in NYC. We will probably take a tour in a double decker bus and check out Rockefeller Center. Maybe we will see Matt Lauer!