My sister Esther, who is currently living in London, and my other sister Lydia, who lives in Auckland, met Sam and I in America last month! We started our East Coast adventure in Boston, then travelled to NYC where we stayed for a week, then Sam flew back to Salt Lake City and the sister road trip began! (#kateeslydusa15) We hired a car in NYC, drove down the coast, staying in Philidelphia, Annapolis, and ending in Washington DC. The East Coast is so different from anywhere in the US I have been, I LOVED being near the ocean again (but don’t get me started on the humidity)! It was INCREDIBLE to explore New York especially, a city I have wanted to visit for so long.

I know looking at other people’s holiday photos can be annoying/boring, but I love posting our adventures on here to make a record, a kind of online scrapbook. I love the idea of being able to look back on these photos! Speaking of making records, I definitely need to get our personal photographs off the computer and into photo books…!

I hope you enjoy our travel pics of our fun adventure, I hope it inspires you to have a change of scenery wherever you might be in the world. Cue the copious amounts of food photos! xx

BOSTON // we started our first day with some good old fashioned American breakfast, including free coffee refills to set us up for the first day of exploring this city.

We bought some dinner at a local deli and sat in the park to eat, listen to the buskers perform and people watch. I love this photo Lydia took of us!

Donuts. Need I say more?

We stumbled upon this awesome Flea Market when we were on our way to Harvard University.

This is in Harvard where we found a cute ‘free library’.

We stayed 3 nights in Boston, and honestly it was enough to see what we wanted. Boston was a beautiful city, we had fun there, but I feel like it had been hyped up so much by other people, we were a little (tiny bit) underwhelmed.

NEW YORK!!! // We stayed in an Airbnb on the lower east side, which was an awesome location and close to everything.

After our daily ritual of finding a cafe with good coffee to start the day (not a hard thing in NYC, the coffee is amazing!) we walked to the Brooklyn Bridge!

After many photos, we walked over the bridge to Brooklyn, wandered around Dumbo and worked up our appetite for this incredibly delicious pizza from Grimaldi’s (rumoured to be one of the best tasting pizza’s in NYC – we agree)!

I was so excited to meet up with my gorgeous friend Falcon, who lives in Brooklyn and was kind enough to give us a tour of Dumbo and the surrounding neighbourhood and also took these photos of us.

The hauntingly beautiful memorial for 9/11.

This day was our record for how many steps we took in one day, I think it was around 35,000. Pretty pleased with myself, especially at 21 weeks pregnant! Nikes were essential. We ended our epic day with a sunset ferry ride to Staten Island, it was free and included a great view of the Statue of Liberty!

Next morning, coffee! Of course. We found a great place a few steps from our apartment.

Walking, walking, and a stop at Magnolia Bakery which was made famous because of this little TV show :) Their banana pudding was divine.

Flat Iron Building, and High Line!

We waited a long time for these coveted seats to watch the sun set and eat our tacos.

Cafe Lalo, another cafe made famous by this scene in one of my favourite movies!

Our first stroll around Central Park, including hot dogs for lunch of course!

The amazing Metropolitan Museum of Art. We spent a whole afternoon here, and could have stayed longer. It was pretty amazing to see some of the most famous paintings in the world in the flesh.

This is on the rooftop garden of the Museum. We were the last ones allowed up for the day!

Next day! Yes stripes are my uniform :) We hired bikes and rode around Central Park which was a lot of fun.

New York was getting really hot by now, so riding around was a better option to walking. After biking, I met up with Sam and we went to the Museum of Natural History. Sam loves animals, so I knew it would be really interesting for him. But I loved it too!

PHILADELPHIA // Girls Road Trip begins! We started the day at the Italian Market…

…and of course I took advantage of the pretty streets and got my sisters to document my ever-growing bump!

Lots more walking around the city…

…and we ended up at the famous ice cream shop, the Franklin Fountain. By this point we were HIGHLY anticipating some frozen goodness. Our enthusiasm was slightly dampened by the queue out the door, and the 30 minute wait…! But we kept positive by the promise of a sweet treat. I have a thing about trying new ice cream flavours, and I thought ‘Tea Berry’ sounded like a great choice. Unfortunately, it tasted like Deep Heat… so I stole some from my sisters more sensible choices of peanut butter and butter pecan.

ANNAPOLIS // What a cute, charming little coastal town! We loved it here, made even more awesome because we had the chance to have lunch with my friend Natalie Franke!

The temperature was reaching 39 degrees celius in Annapolis, and this combined with the humidity made us desperately crave a swim. We soon discovered you had to pay for the privilege for the beach…but I admit, feeling cool water on my skin was completely refreshing and worth it.

WASHINGTON D.C // Our last stop! We stayed in the Capitol Hill area, so had to visit Ted’s Bulletin (as per Natalie’s recommendation) for the homemade pop tarts, I wish we would have had breakfast here! It was such a great diner.

The cutest bookshop, and the White House! Unfortunately, we couldn’t get too close because there were security guards blocking the entrance.

The beautiful Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool. Crazy to think of all the amazing triumphs and moments in history that have happened here.

That’s it! Just a snapshot of a fun couple of weeks. The highlight of our trip for me was definitely New York. It was different to how I imagined, but in a good way. It wasn’t as busy as I had expected, and the people were lovely, helpful and welcoming – not rude at all. I can see why people want to live here, something about the city is almost addictive and draws you in. It’s the city where you feel like anything and everything is possible. Highly entertaining, alive and buzzing.

The photos are a mixture from my sister Lydia and me (mostly iPhone).