I'm so behind on here, I know. And, I know I have been for a while. The holidays rolled over into getting ready for our vacation to NYC, rolled over into my being sick for about 6 weeks and not doing anything after work, rolled over into spring cleaning, yardwork and getting EVERYTHING in order around here before graduation and Robbie's party. We have a list of about 25 things left to do and we've decided to keep pushing on until it is all done!
The next 3 weeks here at this old house are going to be as hectic as the past several weeks but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Bob spread Weed and Feed on the front yard after we beautified it by landscaping for a total of 8 hours over the past few days so that will pretty much kill our lawn and there won't be much to do out there. ha ha! We've spent the past two evenings in the backyard until dark raking, mowing, planting, moving things around, etc. We still have a couple more evening's worth of stuff to do before I can start planting in my herb garden.
After that we'll start working on party planning and by the end of Memorial Day weekend we'll be planning how we're going to spend the next chapter of our lives. I foresee a lot of sitting in the backyard drinking wine and watching the birds this summer. We normally aren't this busy like we've been the first 4 months of this year. I don't like to be really busy and enjoy hanging out at home and sitting in our porch swing in the evenings before it gets too hot and buggy outside. I'm going to do a lot of that this summer.
So I still have another installment of photos from NYC that I need to post and will also post some photos of our yard in the near future. Thanks for your patience!
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Monday, April 22, 2013
Prom 2013
Taking a break from NYC pictures in order to give you a look at Robbie and Kaylyn for prom last weekend. They looked so cute. Kaylyn's dress was bright and sunshine-y just like she is!
We took a few pictures here at this old house then were invited to take pictures at their friend's house.
After pictures they went to eat dinner at an locally owned Italian restaurant. I washed and cleaned out my car and let Robbie drive it for the evening. He was pretty excited about that. They got back to our house before midnight then changed clothes and went out for breakfast. They stayed up and watched movies for the rest of the night before getting up the next day to go out to celebrate Kaylyn's 17th birthday with her family.
Thursday, April 18, 2013
NYC, part 2
Another thing I would highly recommend if you ever go to New York City is to take the 90 minute Circle Line Cruise around Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty. We were on a double decker boat (the bottom part was enclosed) and our tour guide was excellent. He told everyone so much about the city, etc. We started out at a pier on the Hudson river and cruised around the southern tip of the island and under all the bridges around the eastern side on the East river. After that we cruised over to the Statue of Libery and Ellis Island but didn't dock because both were closed due to Hurricane Sandy damage. (the pictures in this post are out order)
View of Manhattan from the East river.
Times Square chaos
Space shuttle Enterprise on the ship Intrepid on the Hudson river.
Bridge (Brooklyn??) on the East river.
Ellis Island
View of the southern tip of Manhattan (financial district/battery park). The tallest building is the construction of one of the World Trade Center buildings. I love how there is a mixture of really old buildings and new, shiny ones.
We went up in the Empire State Building right after taking the river cruise. What a day it was to be able to see so much from the water's view then up over the city! The view above is looking out towards downtown (financial district--tallest building is again the new World Trade Center). Look to the far right and there is the Statue of Liberty. Clouds were setting in at this time.
In the lobby of Empire State Building and below a view of the Chrysler Building. We went up to the 86th floor deck of the building. If you pay a little extra you can go up to the 102nd floor but we figured we'd be able to see just about as much from where we were....and we didn't want to wait in line any longer.
I haven't added up what all the separate costs would have been out of pocket if we'd purchased tickets individually for all the sites we went to but I'm sure we saved a lot of money by instead purchasing a New York City Pass. I got our passes mailed to us at home before we left. I bought two day packages for each of us. It allows you to go 70 different tours/sites within the time period you choose to use the passes. You can only go to each thing once but you can go to as many as you want to in the two day time period. For instance, we chose to activate our passes on Monday so that meant from Monday until Tuesday at midnight we could cram in as many of the 70 attractions as we could get into. It also meant passing up ticket lines at attractions and getting in quicker. Kind of like how fast passes work at amusement parks.
It took some planning to make sure we made full use of the passes and not end up having to purchase tickets for the places we wanted to go but it was so worth it. We made a list of all the things we wanted to do then mapped out the locations so we could save time in traveling. Once I tally up our savings I'll post it on here. We used our NYC Pass for the Circle Line Cruise, Empire State Building, Madame Tussands, American Museum of Natural History, Top of the Rock and something else I cannot recall. It would've been good for the Museum of Modern Art, where we also wanted to go, but that place is closed on Tuesdays and we didn't find this out until after the fact to be able to go Monday instead. Once opened, the Pass is also good for the 9/11 Museum.
More to come in part 3...
I haven't added up what all the separate costs would have been out of pocket if we'd purchased tickets individually for all the sites we went to but I'm sure we saved a lot of money by instead purchasing a New York City Pass. I got our passes mailed to us at home before we left. I bought two day packages for each of us. It allows you to go 70 different tours/sites within the time period you choose to use the passes. You can only go to each thing once but you can go to as many as you want to in the two day time period. For instance, we chose to activate our passes on Monday so that meant from Monday until Tuesday at midnight we could cram in as many of the 70 attractions as we could get into. It also meant passing up ticket lines at attractions and getting in quicker. Kind of like how fast passes work at amusement parks.
It took some planning to make sure we made full use of the passes and not end up having to purchase tickets for the places we wanted to go but it was so worth it. We made a list of all the things we wanted to do then mapped out the locations so we could save time in traveling. Once I tally up our savings I'll post it on here. We used our NYC Pass for the Circle Line Cruise, Empire State Building, Madame Tussands, American Museum of Natural History, Top of the Rock and something else I cannot recall. It would've been good for the Museum of Modern Art, where we also wanted to go, but that place is closed on Tuesdays and we didn't find this out until after the fact to be able to go Monday instead. Once opened, the Pass is also good for the 9/11 Museum.
More to come in part 3...
Monday, April 15, 2013
"The Good Outnumber You and We Always Will" by Patton Oswalt
(I'm posting this tonight because I truly feel this way. Patton Oswalt is a comedian and writer.)
Boston. Fucking horrible.
I remember, when 9/11 went down, my reaction was, "Well, I've had it with humanity."
But I was wrong. I don't know what's going to be revealed to be behind all of this mayhem -- one human insect or a poisonous mass of broken sociopaths.
But here's what I DO know. If it's one person or a HUNDRED people, that number is not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population on this planet. You watch the videos of the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help out. (Thanks FAKE Gallery founder and owner Paul Kozlowski for pointing this out to me). This is a giant planet and we're lucky to live on it but there are prices and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is, every once in a while, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled and they're pointed towards darkness.
But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evildoers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago.
So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, "The good outnumber you, and we always will."
This originally appeared on Patton Oswalt's Facebook page.
Boston. Fucking horrible.
I remember, when 9/11 went down, my reaction was, "Well, I've had it with humanity."
But I was wrong. I don't know what's going to be revealed to be behind all of this mayhem -- one human insect or a poisonous mass of broken sociopaths.
But here's what I DO know. If it's one person or a HUNDRED people, that number is not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population on this planet. You watch the videos of the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help out. (Thanks FAKE Gallery founder and owner Paul Kozlowski for pointing this out to me). This is a giant planet and we're lucky to live on it but there are prices and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is, every once in a while, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled and they're pointed towards darkness.
But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evildoers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago.
So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, "The good outnumber you, and we always will."
This originally appeared on Patton Oswalt's Facebook page.
Saturday, April 13, 2013
NYC, part 1
We started our vacation in Nashville on Good Friday so we could be at the airport early the following day. It was a really crappy weather day; was cold and rainy all day long and the traffic into downtown was backed up all the way to the interstate. It took us an extra hour to get there but we made it early afternoon and shopped at Opry Mills for a couple hours. MADNESS! I think it was even busier than the years when we've shopped there the day after Thanksgiving.
We had dinner that night at The Melting Pot, per Robbie's request. It was very good! It's always so much fun and relaxing eating there. We didn't get dessert fondue but did have a cheese course before our main meal. Robbie and I got shrimp and Bob had some trio of meat thing.
After an uneventful flight, we arrived in New York City in mid afternoon and checked into The Sheraton Towers in midtown. We were on the 36th floor so didn't hear any of the traffic below except the occasional sirens. We were on the opposite side of the building from Times Square, which was a few blocks away, so did not have neon lights shining in our windows either. The buildings you see below did not have any lights on the outside and the one closest to us looked residential and the others looked like offices. Wish we would've remembered our binoculars! Central Park was about 4 blocks up from our window. If the trees had leaves on them we would've been able to see a little slice of the park but in the second photo below the tree limbs blend in with the buildings.
After looking around our smallish hotel room we ventured out to get a hot dog from a street vendor. We walked up to Times Square and watched the chaos of all the people milling around there. That is one of the busiest places I've ever been and it is like that everyday. Well, the entire city is busy like this everyday.
Nighttime view from our room
Our favorite little bakery where we had breakfast or a snack from all but one day...Fluffy's.
I mean, how can you walk past this storefront and not go in to get a pastry??
Bob loves cannolies now. They had regular and chocolate.
Some kids at the informal Easter Parade on 5th Avenue on Easter morning.
This dude was frozen until you dropped some money in his bucket and then he would move around and change positions. It was fun to watch.
Outside the entrance to the 9/11 Memorial looking up at the new construction of new World Trade Center building.
Another highlight was the boat trip around the Statue of Liberty.
The southern pool of the 9/11 Memorial. This was totally worth the trip to go to this area. It was eerie, sad and stunning all at the same time. Despite the large crowd it was very quiet except for the sound of water in the pools.
Both pools are the same but have different names carved in the stone all the way around each pool. Every soul who died as a result of that day has their name engraved at one of the pools. It was free to get into the memorial but you had to get a pass first. I got ours before we left for our trip so we didn't have to wait in line very long but there is a security area just like in an airport that everyone has to pass through before getting into the memorial area.
We had dinner that night at The Melting Pot, per Robbie's request. It was very good! It's always so much fun and relaxing eating there. We didn't get dessert fondue but did have a cheese course before our main meal. Robbie and I got shrimp and Bob had some trio of meat thing.
After an uneventful flight, we arrived in New York City in mid afternoon and checked into The Sheraton Towers in midtown. We were on the 36th floor so didn't hear any of the traffic below except the occasional sirens. We were on the opposite side of the building from Times Square, which was a few blocks away, so did not have neon lights shining in our windows either. The buildings you see below did not have any lights on the outside and the one closest to us looked residential and the others looked like offices. Wish we would've remembered our binoculars! Central Park was about 4 blocks up from our window. If the trees had leaves on them we would've been able to see a little slice of the park but in the second photo below the tree limbs blend in with the buildings.
After looking around our smallish hotel room we ventured out to get a hot dog from a street vendor. We walked up to Times Square and watched the chaos of all the people milling around there. That is one of the busiest places I've ever been and it is like that everyday. Well, the entire city is busy like this everyday.
Both pools are the same but have different names carved in the stone all the way around each pool. Every soul who died as a result of that day has their name engraved at one of the pools. It was free to get into the memorial but you had to get a pass first. I got ours before we left for our trip so we didn't have to wait in line very long but there is a security area just like in an airport that everyone has to pass through before getting into the memorial area.
Monday, April 8, 2013
Cell Phone Picture Dump
Here's just a taste of pictures from our trip to New York. These are all from my cell phone so the quality is not that great. It will take me a few more days to get the ones from our good camera edited to post on here. As usual, if you click on the pictures you can see them better.
Above, view of the financial district from our boat ride. The tallest building on the far left is the construction of one of the new World Trade Center buildings.
Robbie in Central Park
Rockefeller Center lit up one evening
With my people at Madame Tussands
Me and Bob at The Today Show in Rockefeller Plaza
Looking in at Al Rocker, Natalie Morales and Willie on the Today Show set
View from our 36th floor room at The Sheraton in midtown
Bob being randomly interviewed in Central Park
View of the city lights from Top of the Rock...blue building is the Empire State Building
The Today Show on the plaza...Savannah Guthrie, Matt Lauer, Al Roker and Natalie Morales
Chinatown
Madison Square Garden....Rangers vs. Penguins...warm-up
Sunday, April 7, 2013
NYC
We've been home a couple days from our trip to the Big City. We had a GREAT time and stayed busy from morning until late at night. There's nothing like New York that I can compare to describe what it's like to be there. You just have to go there in order to understand the energy of that place. While I would not want to live there, it would be fun to return again and see some of the places we didn't have time to see during this trip.
I'll work on posting pictures here over the next couple days but here's a list of what we did during our trip:
9/11 Memorial and Financial District
Easter Parade
Trump Tower
90 min. harbor cruise around Manhattan and Statue of Liberty
Empire State Building
Chinatown
Double Decker Bus Tour of Downton and Uptown
Times Square (several times)
Macy's
Top of the Rock (at night)
Madame Tussand's
The Shake Shack
FAO Schwartz
Dylan's Candy Bar
Central Park (southern area)
American Museum of Natural History
Waldorf Astoria
Battery Park
Carnegie Deli
Magnolia Bakery
The Today Show/Rockefeller Plaza
New York Rangers vs. Pittsburgh Penguins/Madison Square Garden
Strawberry Fields
The Dakota (saw where John Lennon was shot)
I'll work on posting pictures here over the next couple days but here's a list of what we did during our trip:
9/11 Memorial and Financial District
Easter Parade
Trump Tower
90 min. harbor cruise around Manhattan and Statue of Liberty
Empire State Building
Chinatown
Double Decker Bus Tour of Downton and Uptown
Times Square (several times)
Macy's
Top of the Rock (at night)
Madame Tussand's
The Shake Shack
FAO Schwartz
Dylan's Candy Bar
Central Park (southern area)
American Museum of Natural History
Waldorf Astoria
Battery Park
Carnegie Deli
Magnolia Bakery
The Today Show/Rockefeller Plaza
New York Rangers vs. Pittsburgh Penguins/Madison Square Garden
Strawberry Fields
The Dakota (saw where John Lennon was shot)
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