Back from Vacation....

Well, we had a great time in NYC and Washington DC. We had gorgeous mid 70's weather all week and, despite having really bad sunburns most of the week, really enjoyed walking around both cities.
The first night we were there, we were able to meet Julie and Brian and Brian's family in Times Square for supper. We ate at Hard Rock Cafe and enjoyed a good visit with them. John and I were staying in the Bronx, so we headed back on the subway at around 12:30am. We got a little lost trying to find our hotel.....wondering around the Bronx at 1:00 in the morning was not my idea of fun. We finally just got a taxi and he took us right to our hotel. We NEVER would have found it! Besides the one incident, the Bronx wasn't so bad. A totally different world than I am used to, but not as scary as one might think....at least where we were.
The Yankees game was AWESOME!!! We had bleacher seats, weren't close to anything, were in the full sun (without sunscreen!), and I couldn't take my camera in.....but it was great! They put on a show for us by hitting four homeruns and winning 15-6! It was a great birthday present for me. :-)


The new stadium!

We spent Monday waiting to get out to Liberty Island to see the Statue of Liberty. It was worth it! It is such a peaceful place with a great view of the city skyline. It is a very moving experience to see not only Lady Liberty, but all of the different nationalities of people that are there to view her. I can't tell you how many languages I heard! It amazed me what this symbol of freedom means to so many. Very cool! We could have gone to Ellis Island and toured the buildings where so many imigrants first set foot on American soil, but we were running out of time before it closed and decided to skip it.


Notice the lovely skyline....and the lovely sunburn. :-)


The lovely Lady herself!

We went back to Times Square for a spectacular meal at a restaurant called Keene's Chophouse. Wonderful porterhouse steak!!! That was the highlight of the day for John. :-)



Tuesday, we headed out to Long Island to a town called Riverhead. I think this was the most relaxing time we spent on our whole trip. We went to a great water park there called Splish Splash and enjoyed a few hours of fun in the sun.....kind of. I was really sunburned from the game, so I tried to stay lotioned up and in the shade as much as possible. We still had a great time!
Wednesday, we headed to Gaithersburg, Maryland, via Baltimore. We stopped in Baltimore at the National Aquarium. This was a cool place to go and the wharf was absolutely beautiful! We were glad to get to Julie and Brian's house and so glad to spend some time with them. Even though they worked during the day, our evenings were spent in great company!


A boat at the wharf in Baltimore...it was a beautiful day!

Thursday was my birthday and I chose to spend it at Mt. Vernon, home of George and Martha Washington. I think this might be one of my favorite places to go. It is so peaceful and takes you back to a simpler time and through the mind of one of my heroes, George Washington. Did you know he was an innovative farmer who expanded his lands to 8,000 acres during his time of ownership......while he lead the Revolutionary War and served as our countries first president? Amazing! I truly enjoyed walking around the grounds they have preserved and learning about the life of the Washingtons.


Washington's 16-sided barn designed and built for threshing wheat.

Mt. Vernon from the Potomac River.

Me and John in the garden.

Friday, we went to the Holocaust museum in Washington DC. This was a truly moving experience for me. I had never been to a Holocaust museum, but am glad for the experience. Very moving....very emotional. I don't think I can even put it into words. After that, we would have liked to gone up Washington Monument, but the tickets were gone for the day, so we kind of wandered around for a little while. I was pooped, so we really didn't do much for the rest of the day. We had both been to DC before, so there wasn't anything I really wanted to see. John would have like to have seen more museums, but we decided against it........we were very tired of sightseeing. :-)



These two speak for themselves. :-)

We spent a good Saturday morning with Julie and Brian and then headed home. Whew!! I think that about covers it. :-) We had a wonderful time and felt ready to come home and tackle this fall semester!
If you made it all the way to the end.....thanks for reading!

New York, New York

Well, we are headed to New York City tomorrow! I am super excited about this trip! We will go to a Yankees games Sunday, see the sights on Monday, go to a water park Tuesday (this was John's idea....), and in general have a great time. :-)
We will head down to the DC area on Wednesday to spend a few days with John's sister Julie and her husband Brian. We are really looking forward to this. :-) Funny thing is, they will be in New York City the same time we are, so we may get together with them there also.

Here are a few pictures of John's toque day ceremony. I was so extremely proud of him! His perseverance is inspiring to me and God has been so gracious to give him success. Enjoy!







We'll talk to you when we get back!

Well.....

Not much going on here at the moment. John finished his summer semester today!!! He will have his toque ceremony Saturday. That is when he will get his big hat. :-) I am so proud of him!! He has made it through the year that he didn't particularly want to do to get to the one that will get him where he wants to be. Does that make sense?

We are preparing to go to New York City in a couple of weeks and then down to the DC area to visit John's sister, Julie and her husband Brian. Really looking forward to this trip! My birthday present is a Yankees game, so, of course, I am extremely excited about that. I also can't wait to see the Statue of Liberty and some of the other sites around the city. We will do some sightseeing in DC, too, but we have both been there before, so not quite the same as seeing something brand new.

Other than that, not much happening in our neck of the woods.

Congrats to my brother and soon-to-be sister! I am so proud of Britt and extremely happy for he and Lauren. I am also extremely glad Britt didn't misplace the ring before he got it on Lauren's finger. :-) Shout out to my honey on that one!

Love you guys, Becky

Vacation Bible School

Well, we've had a fun filled week of VBS at our church this week. We brought in a couple from Alpha Omega Institute to do "Discover Creation". They were really good. LOTS of information about Creation vs. Evolution. John and I were in charge of Recreation time. I have to say, the hit for the week was the Dinosaur Dig. We had a little plastic swimming pool filled with sand and buried "dinosaur eggs" in it. These eggs were made from Plaster of Paris and had little plastic dinosaurs inside. The kids loved it! However, the people that made the eggs made them a little thick and they were hard to crack open. You were supposed to be able to do it with your hands, but we had to use mallots and some kids resorted to just throwing them on the cement floor in the basement to open them! What a mess! But, it was fun and the kids really enjoyed it.

So, we have had an extremely busy week and I am looking forward to the weekend so we can rest up and get some things done around the house. John is in his last block for the summer...........YEA!!!!! He will officially be finished with his first year of culinary school in two weeks! I can hardly believe we have been gone for a year, but next week will be one year since we moved to Pennsylvania. I can honestly say it has been a very hard year for growing pains, but I know it will be worth it we are where we know God wants us to be.

Love to all, Becky

A Busy Week

Well, Mom, Dad and Bryce were here this last week. It was great to have them! They arrived July 3rd and we were supposed to go camping with John's folks at a place called Ohiopyle for the weekend. However, the rain had different ideas. We ended up meeting at John's parents house and spending the weekend in Pittsburgh. We had a great time! We really didn't do a whole lot on the 4th until the evening. We decided to go downtown for the fireworks show....assuming that it wasn't raining. The rain decided not to come down, and we enjoyed a SPECTACULAR fire works show on the banks of the Monongahela River. It was the best I have ever seen! We really enjoyed it. We even enjoyed the 45 minute wait to get out of the parking lot....what a blessing. :-)

Saturday, we headed to the Carnegie Science Museum in downtown Pittsburgh. That was a lot of fun! They have some really cool things to do and look at. We got to tour a submarine, walk through a miniature train village, play some video games, look at anemones in tanks (we actually saw Dora and Nemo), and watch a frog get disected. That was interesting. :-) Bryce loved it! After this, we took the fam up the incline of Mt. Washington for a beautiful view of downtown Pittsburgh. We had a great time with John's parents! They are great hosts!

Mom and Dad spent the next two days with us. We got to take them to church and they got to go eat at John's school. That was really enjoyable for them, especially since John got to eat with them. Tuesday, they headed out to Philadelphia and then back through Gettysburg. It turned out to be a good thing that they were gone because I got sick and am still struggling with a sore throat and no voice. They enjoyed all of the sightseeing that they were able to do, especially Independence Hall. I'm so glad they were able to do all of that! I think it was worth it for them.

They returned to us Thursday afternoon. Mom and I headed out to Smicksburg, PA, an Amish community about 45 minutes from us, to do some shopping. We had fun looking in the little shops and buying some little things. Mom found a cookbook for John...."The Ultimate Potato Cookbook". Anyone who know John knows of his love of potatoes, so she thought this would be the perfect gift for him. :-) I bought mom a "Blessing Star" to put on their house. This is a 5 pointed metal star displayed on the outside of your house (although we have ours inside). These are common in PA, and symbolize blessings on the home. The 5 points represent God, Father, Mother, sister and brother. I didn't know this last part until John's mom told me yesterday.
Pretty cool! Mom and Dad took us out to eat for dinner Thursday and then we went home and watched the movie "Gettysburg". :-)

So, Mom, Dad and Bryce left yesterday. I absolutely loved having them here and hated to say goodbye. I miss them so much! Hopefully I can post some pictures soon.....but we all know how good I am about that. :-)

Talk to you later!

10 Random things...

I was reading Lauren's blog and she listed 10 random things about herself. I got to thinking.....I don't know if I could do that. Not too much about me that is random...I'm actually pretty boring. So, even though I wasn't tagged, "sniff, sniff", :-), I am going to try.

1. I love thunderstorms. They used to scare me when I was little, but they are actually really fascinating. I was a little sad this spring when we didn't have any thunderstorms here, only to find out they come later in the year. We have had one almost every night this week!

2. Burping is my BIGGEST pet peave. You can ask my sister, Beth, or my husband about this. Actually, anyone that knows me very well will testify to this fact.

3. I am a junk food junkie. I LOVE junk food. I have to really make a concerted effort not to eat it most days, but I am doing much better and am very proud of myself for this fact.

4. I love music. Now, I know you are thinking, DUH! But seriously, everything about music fascinates me. I love to figure out the different harmony parts in songs and can seriously sing every part of the "Hallelujah Chorus". I think if I had some help, I could really be a good song writer, but I don't have the technical "know how". Maybe someday....

5. I am extremely silly. I think most people think I am really kind of serious, but not so much. Just ask Debra and Charlanne.....or any child that I have taught in children's choir....

6. I love to punch buttons. Seriously, typing this out is a blast. I have always loved punching buttons, especially if I have long fingernails. I love the clacking noise it makes!

7. Money fascinates me. When I was a teller, the Fed was always sending out fliers on the new money that was coming out and its different features. I loved reading those and then examining the money to see all the different aspects of it. I don't know about the newer bills, but the older bills had teeny tiny print on the collar of all the Presidents that read "The United States of America". Just really cool how they can print it that small. You can't even tell it is words at all! On a side note, we just rented "Mad Money". Really cute movie....and that really does happen. They actually shred ugly money. Money is actually very disgusting.....probably shouldn't be so fascinated by it.......

8. I turn into a pumpkin around 9:30.....I am not a night person AT ALL!

9. Quilting is one of the things I love to do and don't have enough time to do. I love to put the colors and patterns together and see the final product. I am getting better at the actual quilting part and hope my Granny would be proud. :-)

10. I actually hate math.....so the fact that I work with numbers every day and am very good at it, is nothing short of a miracle. God really does have a sense of humor!

YEA!!! I made it through ten things.....and it wasn't that hard!

Have a great one!

Update

Sorry its been a while. There really is not much going on around here. Julie was with us last weekend, which was good. We had a great time having her in our home. We are making plans for Mom and Dad and Bryce to come up the first week of July. I'm really looking forward to that.

John is doing well in school. His blocks are now only 10 days long instead of 15 and he is in the kitchen for the whole time. Much more hands on, which I think he enjoys. It has been nice because I don't have to make him a lunch half the time!

We are also planning a trip to New York City the week of my birthday. I was able to get tickets to a Yankees game on Aug. 17, which is a Sunday. I went ahead and took the entire week off since it was available, so we are going to try and make a trip out of it. However, lodging, as you can imagine, is very expensive. We would like to camp if we can find a campground that is not too far out from the city. We'll see. We are also hoping to get to go down to Brian and Julie's later that week and spend a little time with them in Maryland. So, things are coming together for that. :-)

This is turning out to be a busy summer, which I think is good. I am finding myself a little discontented with my job. I enjoy the work, but it doesn't keep me busy all day and I get incredibly bored in the afternoon. I hate that feeling and it tends to drag on me quite a bit in the attitude department. I am considering looking for something else, but since I am going to be here for less than a year, don't want to get into a "hard to fill" position. So pray that something will either open up that I can apply for without feeling guilty or that my bosses will find more for me to do!

Here are a couple of pitures from our recent trip to OK! I need to get Beth and Mom some copies.....maybe I'll get those in the mail this week. :-)








Here are a couple from our trip to Gettysburg!





Have a great week!