Tour Bus

I was going to divide our New York trip up by days, but our days were so full! Instead, I am going to break it up by categories. We decided to ride on the red, double-decker tour bus. Yes, we screamed, "TOURISTS". It was really great. You could hop on and off. Some of the tour guides were great, others were a bit lacking. My favorite was the one sitting by us who was hacking up a lung and kept saying that it was "asthma". Nastiness! It was really enjoyable. The weather was unseasonably cool. It was perfection.

These pictures are from 4 different cameras and are jumbled up. I am too lazy to fix them ;)

One of the good tour guides


Such an amazing number of people. There were even more at night.

Empire State Building





So many beautiful buildings!



The spot where John Lennon was shot
Anna and Alison






The wall by the Apollo Theater where a Michael Jackson memorial was set up












Mandy and me

New York City - Day 1

A group of my college friends always plan a summer get together. This year, life got in the way for most of the group :( Only 4 of us were going to be able to make it. Never fear, with the help of some reward tickets, we made a spur of the moment decision to go to New York City!!

The trip was fantastic, refreshing, marvelous, wonderful - I think you get the point. I am so blessed to have such wonderful, lifelong friends. The kind of friends who can make you cry with laughter and who you can cry with about your heartaches. The conversations easily flow from memories that have us rolling with laughter to struggles in our lives to deep theological discussions. It was a fabulous time. Wonderful. Stupendous. When can we do it again?

Since it was a spur of the moment trip booked using reward tickets, we had to get a little creative with our flights. We knew that we had a long day of travel, but we did not really pay attention to our connections. I was just guessing that we had a long layover somewhere. Nope, we flew Dallas to Austin to ORLANDO to Long Island (Alison started out from Lubbock). Best thing, we didn't care. It just became a joke. We went to Orlando and to New York City :) So, the first day of our trip was spent on a plane then on a train then on the subway, and it was great!

Mandy and Alison

Anna and me

A double rainbow outside of the plane window

VBS

The first week of August was VBS week. VBS this year was a trip to Rome. I could only help a couple of days. I had to work one of the nights, and then I HAD to leave to go on a fabulous, wonderful, refreshing, fantastic girls' trip. More about that later. Here are a few pictures that were taken by volunteers.

Nate painting
Snacks are always good
Dylan providing me with a wonderful blackmail picture for when he is older.
And once again :)

Chase's Birthday

Chase turned 12 on August 6th. I still can't believe it. Since we traveled so much this summer, our birthday party budget was depleted. We gave Chase the option of a party with a little present or better presents with no party. He picked the presents :) A few days before his birthday we went out as a family to a local pizza place. Chase loved his presents and his cookie (Chase is not a cake fan). We then went to see a hamster movie in 3D. We had NO idea how expensive the 3D version of the movie was. Our evening out (plus the extra presents) ended up costing just as much as a party would have cost. Oh well, Chase was happy and that was the most important thing.









Word from the brotha

Nate Quote of the Day

"Is it tomorrowday yet?"

Last Group of Florida

The last group of Florida pictures. Now I can move on to August!


Andrew and Chase investigating jellyfish

Chase....GROSS!




Our friend, Bryce
Nate actually let me spike his hair :) He normally will have nothing to do with that.

Goofy grin







The official sign that you have taken one too many pictures.

More Florida

My poor, pitiful, neglected blog. Here it is almost October, and my blog is still stuck in July :( Life can get so busy!! The problem is that when I wait too long to blog about something, then I forget all of the stories and just have to put up the pictures. I hereby promise to have a post a day until my blog is caught up. Wait, that may not work. I hereby promise to TRY to post on a daily basis until my blog is caught up.

Here are a few more pictures from our Florida trip in JULY! Our friends sent us these pictures.





Chase with one of his very best friends.
Dylan and his friend.
The whole group of kids. Do you notice that there are a lot of girls? (sigh)