Hiking, Shopping, and Site Seeing

Sunday we took a trip to Bushkill Falls, PA. It's in the Pocono Mountains. My mom loves to hike, so we thought this would be great, but it was more like a touristy walk than a hike. It was only about 2 miles, and took about 2 hours (and I think it only took that long cause we stopped so much to take pictures and goof around). But the scenery was still beautiful!

Monday my mom and I went to Philadelphia. We went to some of the historical sites (Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, and some other places that are near there), we went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and of course we went to Geno's to get my mom a "Real Philly Cheese Steak" Last time I went we went to Pat's King of Steaks (right across the street from Geno's). I liked Pat's a lot more (maybe it was the Cheese-Whiz?? haha) but the guy at Geno's was really nice, he gave us pens and a sticker for my mom. Pretty funny. She enjoyed it!

My mom wanted to take it fairly easy her last day here, so we went for a drive out to Lancaster, PA, aka: Amish Country. It's so beautiful out there! And so much fun to see the way they work and live! They have lots of great shopping there, so that's what we did all day. We went first to the Amish shops, then to the outlets. It was so much fun having my mom in town, and visiting all the fun sites with her! I wish more of my family could come out and visit (there's still time guys!!! hehe)!!

Beach & Gardens

Friday the 11th, my mom and I went to Longwood Gardens here in Chadds Ford, PA. It is even more beautiful now than it was when I visited with some friends in May. It was also a lot hotter! But it was a nice relaxing day. Saturday we took a trip to the beach. We went to Cape May, New Jersey. Cape May is such a cute town! They have these ginormous mansions right along the beach (I think most of them are condo's, but some are homes). It was a beautiful day to be one the beach! The shore at this beach was interesting. Instead of the normal sand where the waves come in, it is covered in tiny pebbles and shells. It was so fun! I bet you can find so many cute shells to make into jewelry along this shore! (It was so great we're going back with a few other couples tomorrow!!)

NY NY with Joni Valponi

Last week my mom flew out here to spend a week with us here in PA. We did so much stuff, and had lots of fun! The first day she was here we took the train in to NY City to see The Lion King on Broadway. It was such a great show!! And we had great seats! (though I'm pretty sure any seat in that theatre would have been great!!) They did such a great job with the animals, it was awesome! I definitely recommend seeing it if you get the chance :)
That took up most of our day, but before the musical we did take a long walk through Central Park. It's hard to tell, but that pond my mom is looking out over, is called "turtle lake" It is ENTIRELY covered by this weird green plant. It doesn't look like water, it looks solid, like you could walk across it.
We walked around Times Square a bit, and down Broadway. We took a few pictures of Times Square from the Minskoff Theatre. We got lucky and were in the show while the downpour hit the city. It just sprinkled on us when we left the theatre. I also got the greatest cheesecake I have ever had. I can't remember the name of the bakery, but it's right by the Minskoff Theatre on Broadway. It's sooo yummy!!
We braved the intense subway system all by ourselves, and actually did a great job! Never got lost!! We saw the Empire State Building, and Rockefeller Center. We also walked through Madison Square park where they have free concerts in the evenings. My mom really really wanted to stay, but it was getting late, so we headed back home instead. It was a long day, so the next day we took it easy and stayed around town and did some shopping.

My 25th Birthday!

Well, now I too am a quarter of a century old!  Haha.  

For my Birthday a few weeks ago, we got together with Mandy & Jordan, Tamara & Dallin, Hailey & Dave, and Brittany & David.  

Dave's parents live here in PA about 30 min from our apts, and his parents were out of town, 

so we went to their house and had a big BBQ, home-made ice-cream and cake, played games, and had tons of fun!

  Before the BBQ we took Dave's kayak and canoe to the lake.  We rented another kayak and paddle boat and spent some time on the lake.  

It was raining all day, but didn't even sprinkle the whole time we were on the lake!  It was perfect!  I'm sure glad everyone was such good sports and even though it pored the whole drive to the lake, we still went, and had so much fun!

4th of July in PA

I know it's WAY past the 4th so sorry I am just now getting around to posting this, but here you go . . .

Jordan only had to work a half-day, so when he got off work, we went with a few other couples to Philadelphia.  What place could be better to  celebrate Independence Day than the place where it all began?! 

They had a big parade (which you kind kind of see in the background of one of the pics) and they had Ice-cream Fest!  You give a $5 donation and get to eat all the ice-cream you want!  

 They had dozens of differnt brands, including Ben & Jerry's!  

We steaked out a pretty good spot on the lawn in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and waited for the firework show, but the weather was pretty bad, and it kept raining.  We moved under the trees, for the concert (John Legend) then stood in the rain with our blankets over our heads so we wouldn't get too soaked.  

The fireworks were great, it was such a long show!  But because the weather was so bad, the sky was a little too much cloud coverage so the show wasn't quite what it usually is I guess.  But we did have lots of fun, rain and all!

New York, New York

While our husbands were all out working hard for the day Me, Tamara, Hailey, and Brittany all took a trip to NY City last Saturday! Brittany was our amazing tour guide - she has been interning in NYC this summer so she's become a pro at riding the metro :) The other two girls have been to NY before also, but it was my first time. We had soo much fun!
Our first stop of the day was China Town. I was WAY unprepared for this place! I was expecting something similar to China Town in SF, but wow, it was Nothing like that! This place was crazy!! There were so many people! And so much cute cheap stuff to buy! But I restrained myself and came out of it with only One purse.
Next, we went to lunch at Grimaldis. It's a tiny pizza place under the Brooklyn Bridge. It's super famous and super good! We waited in line for 45 minutes just to get inside. But it was definitely worth it! I would totally do it again!
Then we headed over to Central Park and walked through a little bit of it. That's when it started to rain! You can kind of see the water hitting the lake behind us in the Central Park picture. I knew Central Park was big, but I didn't know it was BIG!!!! I was amazed! It takes hours to just walk the perimeter! They have carnival rides, ponds, bridges, all kinds of stuff in that park! It was so pretty and so neat!
Then we went to see the Manhattan Temple. That was so cool also! I have heard a ton of times how neat it is that it's right in the middle of the city, but seeing it in person makes such a difference! We took a picture across the street from it, and all the pictures of the taxis were taken from the same place. That's how busy it is!
We then headed down to Times Square, and as soon as we got there it started pouring rain!! It was still so hot though that none of us wanted to put on our sweaters. We eventually gave in. It was so funny seeing hundreds of people trying to crowd under the overhangs to try and stay dry. We decided we were already wet, so we just kept going (plus we were running out of time). So we kept walking through Times Square in the pouring rain! Brittany took her shoes off and was walking barefoot. One time I was trying to hurry across the street so I wouldn't get hit by a taxi and my flip-flop got stuck in the puddle in the street. It took me a few steps to notice, and Brittany scooped it up for me.

You can kind of see how soaked we were in the picture we took in

front of the wall of M&M's. After Times Square we headed back home to meet our husbands for dinner. It was SUCH a fun trip! I can't wait to go back, there is still sooo much more to see in the city!! My mom is coming to visit next week, and we're planning on going to a Broadway musical, so I'm sure I'll post some more NYC trips in the near future.

Amish Country

This past weekend we went with our friends Many & Jordan Barben and Kayla & Niels Hendrickson to Amish Country to a town called Intercourse. It's right outside of Lancaster, PA. It was so neat seeing all the buggies driving along the road right beside all the cars! They don't like people taking their pictures, so all I got was this one of the buggy and a picture of some of their homes. When you're driving in the town you can tell which homes are theirs because they don't have any power lines going to them. We also found this great miniature golf course while we were driving there. It was probably one of the best miniature golf courses I have been too!