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Alex McCord and Simon van Kempen Landed Back in NYC with Their Grown-up Sons (PHOTOS)
The Real Housewives of New York City alum is back in the Big Apple — and she brought her loved ones with her.
Alex McCord is revisiting a place she knows well. After moving to Australia in 2014, the former New Yorker returned to the Big Apple with her husband, Simon van Kempen, and their two sons, Johan, 18, and Francois, 20.
In a series of recent Instagram posts, The Real Housewives of New York City alum gave her followers a behind-the-scenes peek at what she and her crew got up to in the city that never sleeps.
Alex McCord shares new family photos from New York City trip
On New Year's Eve, Simon took to Instagram to share his family's holiday plans. "Happy New Year from New York F’ing City and here’s to 2024 and all it may bring (only good things please!)" the dad wrote, sharing a photo of his family.
In the pic, the group was clutching glasses at The Metropolitan Opera, ready to sing — er, ring — in the new year in style.
Days later on January 3, Alex to Instagram to share that she and her Simon had seen the Broadway play Merrily We Roll Along. "Thrilled to be seeing [the play] - so little time so much theatre to see - making the choice of what to see was so hard!" she wrote.
She later deemed the outing a "wonderful afternoon," and added: "The therapist in me HAD to buy the t-shirt. You know the one I mean…" In the pictures that accompanied her post, Alex showed herself wearing a shirt that reads: "The worst vice is advice."
On January 15, Alex returned to Instagram to share more photos of her family, posing in front of New York City sites big (like the Statue of Liberty) and small (like a Brooklyn butcher shop).
In her caption, the mom of two wrote: "Some more places and people from our NYC trip… impossible to pack 20 years or 16 years or 11 years or 9 years into a week, so we enjoyed every minute and did some touristy things we had never done before as well, just because."
Why did Alex McCord and Simon van Kempen move to Australia?
As for the couple's decision to leave NYC a decade ago, Alex opened up to The Daily Dish about going Down Under. Here's what she wrote to BravoTV.com in a statement:
"After 18 years in New York for Alex, and 28 years outside Australia for Simon, we've made the decision to move to Australia to be with family. Over the last few years, all of Simon's family have reconvened from as far as Europe to all live within 20 minutes of each other on a collection of beautiful beaches on the north coast of New South Wales. We are the last of the family to move back, and it's time. Our children have never had the opportunity to live within walking distance of grandparents and cousins, and with our two boys aged 8 and 10 it's the perfect time for the extended family to enjoy each other. We both love New York City, and Brooklyn specifically, almost as much as each other; however, we've been there, done that and written the book—literally—on raising Little Kids in the Big City. It's now time for a new adventure."
She added at the time, "We both firmly believe that change is necessary in order to grow, and to do that, we need to get out of our comfort zone. When we realized that we'd quit traveling because New York was so comfortable and had everything we need, when we realized our 8 year old had only ever lived in one house—we realized it was time."
