American Girls in New York City

Kayla and Olivia at Times Square

Kayla and I started reading the American Girl books together when she was in Kindergarten. We started out by reading "Felicity" which was a great introduction to the Revolutionary War and the founding of our country. This series of books is so great for familiarizing children with different eras in US history--Revolutionary War, Civil War, The Great Depression, World War II, Pioneer times, etc. We have had so much fun doing history clubs based on these books. Initially, we weren't interested in the dolls but Kayla eventually wanted the dolls to remind her of her favorite characters. The dolls are expensive but thanks to Santa Claus and Oma, she has been able to collect 3 dolls over the years--Felicity, Elizabeth, and Kit. For several years she has wanted to visit the American Girl store in NYC and we were finally able to go this year for her 10th birthday. She chose to do this instead of having a birthday party with friends. We couldn't have done it without Oma's help, she gave us the train tickets. Kayla had to use her own money for all of her purchases--birthday money really came in handy. We were so happy that Kayla's close friend, Olivia, could join us for our special day.

Here is the report of our round-trip to New York in less than 24 hours:

3:30 a.m. Wake-up and drive to the train station in D.C.

4:30 a.m. Panic because we can't figure out where to park at the train station and our train is leaving at 5:00 a.m. Interesting note: We saw several rats running around the streets of D.C. at that time, a little unnerving I must say.

5:00 a.m. We make it on the train just in time (yes, we eventually figured out where to park).

8:30 a.m. Arrive in NYC. The store doesn't open until 10:00 a.m. so we eat breakfast at McDonalds and enjoy walking around the big city.

10:00 a.m. Enter the 4-story building and make our way to the 3rd floor to visit the doll hair salon. We've heard the lines can get pretty long so we sign-up right away and only have to wait a few minutes.

After the dolls are fixed up and looking beautiful, we head over to the photo studio where the girls have their pictures put on the cover of American Girl souvenir magazines.

The girls go window-shopping until lunch. They want to use their precious dollars wisely. They carefully plan where every dollar is going to go.

12:30 Birthday lunch in the fun cafe. The dolls have their own special chairs. We have fun reading the table talkers. I can't figure out how to turn the flash on my camera, it somehow got turned off and I can't rely on my usual automatic setting. Hence the poor quality of so many of our photos!

Everything about this place is adorable, even the bathroom!

4:00 Our shopping money is just about gone so we decide to leave the AG Store and enjoy NYC. One big problem--we are loaded with shopping bags.

We divvy up the bags and think we'll be okay. They aren't too heavy...until we walk about a mile, our hands really start to hurt! We think to ourselves..."If we can just make it to the famous Toys-R-Us we'll be okay. We can put our bags in the shopping carts once we arrive."

We finally make it to the biggest Toys-R-Us and discover, to our dismay, they don't have shopping carts. I guess they figure people are walking around NYC so they are only going to purchase what they can carry. I don't know but we were pretty disappointed, we were counting on some hand relief!

Fortunately, we are able to put our bags on a shelf while we ride the giant ferris wheel. There are all kinds of different ferris wheel cars--Scooby Doo, Princesses, Cabbage Patch kids, etc. The only car the girls don't want is the Jimmy Neutron/Spongebob car, of course that is the car they get! :)

5:30 p.m We are exhausted and ready to go home. Our train doesn't leave until 9:00. We take a taxi to the train station anyway, maybe we can hang out there for awhile. Guess what? Penn Station in NYC doesn't have ANY place to sit! We finally collapse on the ground but we quickly realize that isn't going to work for 3 hours. We check to see if we can change our train tickets. We can for about $300, uh...nope! We learn that we can store our packages for a small fee which we gladly pay. Freedom!

6:25 p.m. The girls are ready to go back to the AG store that closes at 7:00. We decide to take a taxi to save time but end up sitting in traffic. We bail out of the taxi and run to make it to the store just as it is about to close. While making our final purchases, we realize we have been robbed! Okay, well, that is what we thought at first. We actually just spent all our money without realizing it, I guess that can happen easily in NYC! :)

We use the remainder of our time to walk back to the train station, grabbing a bite to eat at Subway on our way.

9:00 We board the train to go back to D.C. The girls have a great little set-up on the way home.

They make a doll hair-salon on the train and I even put rollers in the doll's hair. My dreams of being a beautician are finally realized. :)

Eventually, the girls fall asleep.

12:30 a.m. We arrive in D.C. and make the final trek to the car with our purchases, those bags are really feeling heavy now. As I drive home exhausted, fighting to stay awake, I ask myself...was it worth it? Yes, definitely.

The next morning the girls set-up a doll hair salon in our kitchen using the cool new chairs, hair-kits, and aprons they bought. They actually didn't buy any new dolls, just doll stuff. These girls have so much fun together, we wish Livy still lived in our neighborhood.