NYC – Central Park

 

I was planning on making this a picture post only for “Wordless Wednesday”, but who am I kidding? I’ve never taken part in Wordless Wednesday. Sorry, but I always have something to say ;)

 

We probably took a good chunk of the pictures we brought home from New York in Central Park. I was astounded by how massive this “park” actually is… I remember taking a stroll through it with my friends my freshman year of high school, we took a couple of pictures and thought ‘well, that’s it, we’ve seen Central Park.’

How ridiculous and naive of me…

I had to Google it just now to find the actual acreage of it and again I was blown away. 843 acres with 58 miles of walking paths, 9,000 park benches and 26,000 trees.

Whoa.

All in the middle of New York City. It seems a little impossible, but I’ve got the pictures to prove it!

 

My love and I…

 

We entered the park right next to Trump Tower.

{Any Apprentice fans out there? I know we were just a little excited to see this building!}

 

 

Entering in…

 

 

 

 

A little bride and groom having portraits taken – you know I had to snap one myself!

 

 

 

 

BEWARE!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some people can’t just have their picture taken. They have to perform a trick worthy of a picture instead…

 

 

 

Celebrating his Polish heritage:

 

 

 

Here we are sitting at the top of the little “castle” pictured above:

 

 

I H.A.D. TO TAKE A PICTURE OF THIS KID’S FRO!!!

Can you really blame me?

 

 

It was windy and we were trying to take advantage of it in pictures… instead of “windy” though, it just came out “dorky”!

 

 

Nick, bank robber, or Survivor Man?

 

 

 

There goes Survivor Man jumping off a cliff again…

 

 

 

This has to be the longest bench I’ve ever seen – it goes MUCH further than you can see here – maybe a mile even(?)

 

 

Is it me, or do we look like crime suspects in a lot of these photos?

Here I am, caught red-headed (!) breaking an entering:

 

 

 

 

Of course we didn’t make it through hardly a fourth of the park and we only walked by the zoo. I’ve said it once about the city, and I’ll say it again: We’ll be back! 

 

thankful hearts

 

Nick and I had a lovely 4 day weekend to celebrate Thanksgiving.

• We got to enjoy 2 big dinners with extended family on Thanksgiving day at my parents and my in-laws’ house.
• Nick’s parents had a big New Orleans style shrimp boil at their house on Friday night which my parents, sister and brother-in-law all came over for {and where the boys faced off against the girls in Taboo and at which the girls DOMINATED! woot!}
• Saturday started off with a breakfast with all the yummy country “fixins” courtesy of my mother, a little bit o’ shopping, and of course followed with lots of Thanksgiving leftovers on Saturday night. {JUST as good the second time around!}
• Dinner out after church this morning as usual – because who wants to cook after all of that??

We have been well fed and filled with joy and laughter the entire weekend. It is such a blessing to have such a wonderful loving family and to have them all come together on any day of the year.

We are so blessed!

{A few of the cousins on my dad’s side Thanksgiving day.}

 

I hope you all got to enjoy the holiday with family and friends and that your heart lights up as much as mine does just to be in their company!

NYC – Regis & Kelly

 

 

After getting up at 5 am one chilly morning in New York to make our way to ABC and wait in-line for stand-by tickets, we watched the first 10 people get in for the taping while we were numbers 15 and 16.

Bummer.

But the show was nice enough to give us consolation tickets to another taping that week.

Yay!

 

We truly did enjoy watching Regis & Kelly film – they are quite the comic duo. Side note: If ya think Kelly is stick skinny on TV, blink and you’ll miss her in person!

We got to see Denzel Washington and Rainn Wilson {Dwight from “The Office” – we love that show!}.

I would definitely recommend going to a taping to anyone who’s visiting.

 

 

 

A lot of my pictures from that day are in between taping session, i.e. commercial breaks. The stars would come out to talk to the audience members and take pictures during the break – so nice!

 

Of course I had to include a shot of Kelly’s gum collection behind stage.

Anyone see the gross little Christmas tree at the bottom?

Hilarious.

 

P.S. – Watch for us on the Thanksgiving episode of Regis & Kelly!! {Ya know, if you’re not too busy with important things like family and eating…} They pre-taped part of the show the day we were there and we got some serious air time in being in the audience. ha! ;)

Happy Turkey Day and many blessings to you and yours!

 

NYC - The Metropolitan Museum of Art

 

Who knew a museum could be so fun?!

Maybe when it’s not just any museum in any city…

Maybe just when it’s the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City herself.

 

I am a museum geek/lover and have been to quite a few, but this was by far my favorite trip to date. The museum itself is gorgeous, not to mention the amazing collections they have inside.

My beloved Met:

 

When you have a man taking your picture, you must remember that he will do just that – take your picture. If you weren’t ready for the picture because you needed to make sure important gizmos were stored safely in your coat pocket before looking at the camera and smiling… well, this is what you’ll get ;)

To be fair, he did get my picture in front of the Met, which is what I asked for… details, details.

 

I think we were excited to be touring something from the inside instead of on the outside in the cold streets of New York.

No rushing because the cold was whipping our faces, no street signs or subway maps to interpret, just relaxed touring.

In our case: relaxation = goofy immaturity in a very nice establishment.

You can take the kids out of Kentucky, but you can’t take the Kentucky out of the kids.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I didn’t see them selling any tickets at the front door for the gun show…

 

Back to some sort of maturity:

I was amazed by the entire rooms transferred from mansions and castles from all over the world to the museum – furniture, chandeliers, sculptures, crownwork, ceiling and wall moldings, entire fireplaces – pictures do not do them justice.

This was definitely something new I hadn’t seen a museum do before – it was like touring the castles themselves. AMAZING!

 

Standing next to a piece from one of my favorite artists – Pablo Picasso!

{Side story: when choosing a name for our beloved pooch, I lobbied hard for the name Pablo. Nick vetoed and Hendrix was his name-o.}

 

Contemplating the amazing works of art he had seen thus far…

 

Nick and I both loved this one. From just a few feet away it just looked like a mess of spit-wads thrown on the wall. {classy description, I know - I should start looking into a new career as a museum curator now}

 

Just a little closer and you see the “spit-wads” are actually people!

I love tedious, detail oriented art!

 

A Jackson Pollock!

{Not tedious and detailed oriented…}

 

Art? Seriously, now?

 

I adore Andy Warhol and I adore this man standing beside an Andy Warhol.

Perhaps this should make the Christmas card this year?

 

Warhol, himself:

 

We spent several hours in the museum and didn’t make it through even a third!

AND it was the only one out of all the many wonderful museums New York has to offer that we made it to on our trip.

 

It’s all good though. Just more reasons to come back soon, no? ;)