First of all I can't believe it is June already! I haven't blogged once this year. Oh well, I already know I stink at it. Now for the latest news...
For as long as I can remember I have wanted to go and see New York City. I want to do all the touristy stuff like go to the Today Show, the Statue of Liberty, Central Park, Broadway, etc. Well, when my nephew Jared got married in Aug of 2011 I went back east for the wedding with my dad and Linda. We had made plans to go spend a day in the city
but it didn't work out.
Sad day :(
Since then my sister has had her son Lehi get married last August in Portland, her daughter Rachel get married last April in Grace Idaho, and now her son Matthew get married in Carbondale. I wanted to go to his wedding especially since I had made it to all the others. It wasn't looking good for that. Money is tight, especially having a missionary. Well, dad and Linda found tickets for a pretty good price and I decided to go with them and we decided since we were going back east again, to
make NYC happen!
Wahoo! I was so excited but tried not to be in case it didn't work out again. IT DID!
May 24th we flew out of Boise to Philadelphia. (that was the cheapest place to fly in to when we got our tickets) We landed around 10 and drove a ways and stayed the night at the Valley Forge Casino.
The next day we got up and headed to Carbondale getting there a couple hours before the wedding. Dad and Linda stayed in a hotel there and I stayed at Gina's. The wedding was nice and Ashley was beautiful. My job during the ceremony was to keep baby Raelynn happy and quiet. I got up and walked to the back of the church with her but without her binky. Silly me. It took lots of bouncing and rocking and patting but we made it through. Good thing she is tiny because my arms were dying! About 5 minutes before the ceremony got over I noticed 2 rocking chairs at the back.
Oh well.
After the wedding ceremony we headed to the reception for dinner and dancing and lots of people watching. Nothing like people watching when they have alcohol in their systems.
(Not these people)
Sunday Gina had arranged to have family pictures taken since she had all of her kids and their spouses in one place. We went and watched. It was quite a crew to get together.
How lucky she is!
After the picture taking it was back to Gina's house for family game night.
Nothing quite as entertaining as watching the Thomas kids play Quelf!
There were a lot of people in Gina's little house but it was so fun to be there with everyone, even if I did have to take a number to get a turn in the bathroom;)
Monday morning we said our goodbyes and headed off to our hotel in Englewood NJ. It was about a 2 hr drive from Carbondale.
Once there we checked into our hotel and got directions to the bus stop and headed off to see the
Big Apple.
We are newbies at this public tranportation thing so that was kind of interesting but we made it. It was an hours bus ride into the city from where we were staying and I felt like a very blonde minority on that bus for sure. This is across the river right before we went throught the Lincoln Tunnel.
I had a list of things I wanted to see and do while we were there but we only had about a day and a half to do it. We got started right away (Well, after we figured out how to sort of navigate the subway system) with the memorial at Ground Zero. That was very moving and an amazing thing to see. I still remember exactly where I was when that happened. I actually watched the second plane hit the second tower and was glued to my TV the entire day. I can't even imagine what it was like to be there. The memorial is beautiful and the building they have erected is amazing.
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| The new building. They just put the tallest part up there about 2 weeks ago completing the heigth and making it the tallest building. |
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| The names of the people that were killed are engraved in the metal surrounding the fountains. |
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Yep, that is a woman running that
machine gun!
You go girl! |
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Not a very flattering picture but oh well.
This is taken from Battery Park
with the new building in the back ground.
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I loved this church I saw from the ferry.
The big tall building was built right up
around it. |
After the ferry ride we started walking. And walking. And walking. Linda didn't want to take the subway because then she couldn't see anything. I kept trying to tell her where we were headed was 5 miles away! Finally when she figured out we were running out of time we got on the subway and went to Times Square. We were trying to make it to Phantom of the Opera. Sadly that was my big disappointment of the trip. No broadway show. They only had seats in 2's and they were about $150. It was my thing and not dad and Linda's and I felt bad making them pay that much for something they didn't really care about. Next time for sure! (We sort of looked at other options for the next day but there again they weren't really into it so I just decided to forget it.)
Instead of a show we went and ate at Bubba Gumps. The food was awesome and we were starving. Then we just wandered around Times Square. I LOVED it! The amount of people there and the traffic is INSANE!
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The ferris wheel inside Toys R Us. I loved the cozy coupe car.
It reminded me of my kiddos. I think they drove the wheels
off of theirs. |
We finally headed to Port Authority to catch our bus back to Englewood about 11:30. Remember it is an hours ride. It was Memorial Day and looking back at the city from the other side of the Hudson the Empire State Building was all lit up red, white, and blue. It was so pretty. No pictures though. We had blisters on our feet and sore legs to go with them. Our bus stop is about 1/2 mile from our hotel. That is unless you miss your stop. We ended up walking about a 1 1/2 miles at about 1-1:30am. It was rediculous and we were sooooo tired. We had to get some sleep so we could do it all again the next day!
We slept until 10 am and woke up feeling like we had been hit by a truck. We didn't let that stop us and got up and on our way again. With the slow start we didn't get into the city until around noon and it was pouring buckets of rain. Our first stop was at the store in the Port Authority to buy some blister relief bandages. They were a life saver! We had planned to ride one of the open air tour busses but decided against that with all the rain. We started out the day on Canal St for some shopping. Because of the rain they didn't have all the guys on the corners with their bags and purses but we managed to spend some money in the shops bartering our way through. Linda said it reminded her of Mexico. I have never been anywhere to get to shop like that and I had a blast with it. It was fun even with the rain. I want to go back when there is no rain though and try again.
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Poor dad was soaked. He didn't have his own umbrella
for most of it. Then he broke down and bought one |
Our next stop was Grand Central Station. The building is beautiful. We hit there right at the beginning of rush hour and it was madness. Fun to see though. After that it was dinner at Guy's American Kitchen. I had some super yummy mac and cheese.
Yep, I said mac and cheese!
After dinner we headed to Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. I have never been to one before. It is amazing how real those things look. When we were done there we wandered around 42nd street a bit more then decided we were beat. I think we about did my poor dad in. He was a really great sport though and even admits he had more fun than he expected.
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Ummm hello Jon...I've been waiting for you!
And you too Thor:) |
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And I thought Robert was tall...
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We had to wait quite a while for our 166 bus but we finally got on it and this time we made sure
not to miss our stop!
Even though it was still about 2 am before we got to sleep.
Now we are to wednesday the 29th and it is heading home day. Our plane didn't fly out of Philly until 6pm so we headed to Seaside Heights to see the Jersey Shore. Yep, we drove for 2 hours to spend an hour at the shore!
Totally worth it.
Oh yeah, and then 2 hours to Philly after that.
They just had the grand re-opening there a couple weeks ago. Hurricane Sandy about destroyed that place but they have put tons of work into rebuilding. I wanted to stay for at least 3 days.
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| Yep, this cute little guy drives down the boardwalk |
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Philly Cheesesteak and deep fried oreos. I had to try them, they are famous for them here.
Don't knock it till you try it...they were super yum! |
Like I said, we were only here for an hour. Not nearly long enough. Unfortunately we had a plane to catch in Philly and it was a 2 hour drive to get there. While we were on the boardwalk Linda got a call from her sister that her mom had a stroke. As we pulled into the car return place she got the call that her mom had passed away. That was devastating news. We barely made our plane due to rediculous traffic but we got there. Then we sat on the runway for almost an hour. Then we had to fly around storms. After 7 hours in the plane we landed in San Francisco and got off just in time to hear our final boarding call to Boise. Yep, we missed that flight. It wouldn't have been too bad but Linda wanted to get home understandibly. The airline put us up for the night and we flew out thurs. morning and finally arrived home.
Exhausted.
That's the sign of a good trip though, right?
It really was incredible and I had so much fun. I have plans to go back again in 2 years with some friends and my sister. I can't wait!
That's All!
