So long, farwell...

We didn't think it would come so soon, but we are leaving Manhattan for good tomorrow morning. Dustin finished his internship on Friday and learned a lot from his experience at Pfizer. It finally sank in today while packing that we are really leaving and we got pretty bummed out. This has been a once in lifetime experience and we wouldn't trade it for anything. We were just feeling like we were starting to "fit in" here and now we have to leave. We were to the point where tourist asked us for directions. We loved when this happened because that meant we looked like locals and knew what we were doing!

We are going to miss:

- The food! Champs blueberry muffins and peach smoothies, great Cuban food at Cafe Habanas in SoHo, Shake Shack, Pinkberry, and a good hot dog is never too far away.

- The endless possibilities of entertainment and things to do. Broadway shows, concerts, going to new restaurants, going to the park or just walking around somewhere new.

- Our great apartment. Dustin's work definitely treated us well with a fully furnished, great place downtown

- Our maid, again another perk. We got used to that pretty fast. She will truly be missed.

- The overall excitement of this great city. The people who live here love it and the people that visit love it just as much.

- The great people we have met at work or church and being able to meet a lot of interesting people.

Goodbye Manhattan!

Finally Home...for now

I'm baaaack. It's been a busy and fun two and half weeks of traveling. I went to Seattle to spend a few days with my family and went to my cousins wedding, and then off to Hawaii with my sister and her two friends. I was sent as the "adult supervision" but I'm pretty sure I had just as much fun as they did. Maui was beautiful, warm and relaxing. Highlights of the trip included parasailing 800 feet in the air, flying over to Honolulu and staying overnight in Waikiki, multiple spa treatments, laying on the beach everyday and shopping entirely way too much. Only downsides - a few sunburns, being away from Dustin way too long, and getting seasick twice and throwing up overboard (too much information?). Anyways, it's great to be back in New York and Dustin even had pink roses waiting for me when I got home. Now all we have to do is sit back and enjoy our last week in New York City. Sad!

Im leaving on a jet plane...

I'm off to see the fam in Seattle for a few days, AND soak up the sun on vaca in HAWAII for 11 days. Life's rough I know. Dustin gets to stay here in NYC and work like a dog. Sad. Aloha for now...

If you need me I'll be here (see picture above)

MOMA

We decided to broaden our horizons and made our way over to the Modern Museum of Art and were pleasantly surprised with all the wonderful paintings and sculptures the museum has to offer. After many humanities and art classes in college, it was really cool to see a lot of the paintings that I had studied in real life. There was a special exhibit of all of Salvador Dali's paintings. He's the one who painted the Persistence of Memory and is know for his 'out there' concepts. That guy must have been messed up in the head because his paintings are so random. I could never image coming up with any of the things he did. It was pretty interesting. Here are some of my favorites from the day...

Jackson Pollock's famous paint splatter art

Van Gogh Picaso This Monet painting was beautiful and extremely large. It spanned the entire length of the room. I couldn't even fit the the whole thing in the picture.

Govenors Island

We took a trip this weekend down to Governor's Island which used to be a military base and is now used for public enjoyment. It's about a 5 minute ferry ride from the southern tip of Manhattan and is a beautiful place for picnics and bike riding. You also get great views of the water and the New York City skyline. It was really quiet and peaceful with lots of trees and grass. We enjoyed the island even though we were only there for a short while before it started raining on us.

O Say can you See...

I love holidays because it means no work and all play. Dustin had a four day weekend and I had a three day weekend. We definitely took advantage of our time off to do some more sightseeing and going to new places. To start off our eventful weekend we went on a night ride on the Staten Island Ferry. The city lights were beautiful and so was the Statue of Liberty all lit up. We were lucky because as soon as we boarded, a fireworks show went off behind the Statue of Liberty. So we had a great view of the statue and the fireworks going off in the background. It was awesome.

For the fourth we decided to brave the humidity and crowds and headed down to Coney Island for the Nathan's Hot Dog eating contest. Yep, that's right. Boy was it quite the event with over 35,000 people attending. Before the contest we walked around the boardwalk and beach, ate funnel cake and the famous Nathan's hot dog (sponsor and hot dog of choice to the contestants). I'm glad we decided to eat our hot dogs before the contest because after seeing these people shove water soaked hot dog after water soaked hot dog in their mouth, we didn't have the biggest appetites afterwards. Anyways, the contest itself was pretty amusing. We ended up getting pretty close to the action. Joey Chestnut and Kobayashi were neck and neck the whole time and ended up tying at 59 hot dogs each at the end of 10 minutes. They went to sudden death where Chestnut ended up coming off conqueror. It was entertaining and disgusting and quite the unique experience. PS- My parents watched the contest on ESPN and caught a glimpse of Dustin and I in the background. Our fifteen minutes of fame.

To end the day we walked to the Fireworks show over the East River. They were great and the best fireworks we've ever seen. Hope everyone had a fun and safe holiday.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you...

Hope you had a great day dad,

You sure deserve it!

Thanks Steph, I plagiarized and stole this picture from you blog. Love it.