New York, New York

These were the first pics we took in the city. We were walking from our hotel across from the financial center to Battery Park. It was a gorgeous day!!! This was my friend Jen's first visit as an adult, so we were excited to give her the tour.

More of NYC!

Megan's first shot of the Statue!

Ian's first shot of the Statue!

We got the cool tour indoors of the Statue of Liberty. Here are Ian and Megan in front of the old torch that they tried to refurbish.

This was an unexpected siting in NYC. We were walking along the Hudson from our hotel. Strange to see someone FISHING and CATCHING!!!! You would think that would be a site in Ohio - not in the city!! It was kind of comical.

You can see my friend Jen here - she accompanied us on our grand re-tour of the city. Here she is making sure the NYPD is keeping a close eye on the fishing activity.

NYC photos

Thanks to Bill Weaver, http://www.livefrompleasantchapeli.blogspot.com/, I was able to retrieve my NYC photos from my poor disabled camera. :( It is at least $60 to get a new charger. I figure this will force me to focus on finishing my European trip (before I forget it all) and use my words and creative images to tell my current event stories.

I only have a few pictures from NYC, believe it or not! My battery was about to die and I had no charger.

So, here we are on the ferry to the Statue of Liberty (see it in the background behind us?). The kids were so excited to finally be back in NYC. They love it almost as much as I do! They had never been to the statue so I got the time passes for the inside tour and off we went! We walked from our hotel to Battery Park, boarded the ferry with no wait, and off we went! The weather was BEAUTIFUL. We couldn't have asked for better.

More pics to follow!

Fireworks, Fireworks, and more Fireworks!!!

Wow...what a crazy, busy week it has been! Happy 4th...uh, I mean 8th of July!

Let me just re-cap for you the how and why it has been so busy...

Last Saturday, the festivities began to celebrate our nation's independence day. The kids and I went to the Longaberger Homestead for some fun. This was after my car had been in the shop for 3 days (catalytic converter, a valve to a something, and brakes - pads and rotors...OUCH!). We got to hang out with a few good friends (Jenny, Heather, Jen, and Aleeessoonn) from the Longaberger days, and I got to see my previous place of employment with a different perspective!

As was the case last year, the games and food were great, and the fireworks were SPECTACULAR. I would highly recommend this to everyone next year.

That was the first set of fireworks. (We got home about 11:30 pm).

Sunday brought us through 3 church services, a double header baseball game set (Ian's last games in the Heath Sertoma league after 8 years!) and then to the Hanover festivities. Hanover? Yes, Hanover! After bumping into a few people I knew (Cheryl from Longaberger, Jodi, and Roy), it was Wes Weaver, the new Licking Valley principal, on the dunking machine and we had first row seats. Megan even got to dunk him. After deciding to depart, I discovered I had lost my keys...so we stay put for the show, to discover they were in the car all along! There was some music and an alumni band playing, and then a pretty nice fireworks show set to a medley of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia", "Sweet Home Alabama", and "Proud to be an American". I think we rolled in about 11:30 again...we had to wait for the traffic to clear out, and as we did, I noticed an elderly lady that appeared to be lost. After checking with her, I discovered she had lost her car. I helped her for a while until the nice folks from the Hanover FD sent out groups to canvas and find her car! Thankfully, all was well and she went on her merry way.

Needless to say, I was a bit tired at the onset of the Monday morning work week. I did my best to struggle through, but in addition to being tired, I discovered my car was noticeably NOT fixed. AND it was leaking fluid, that looked like coolant.

The kids wanted to go to Heath's Geller Park celebration, but I had to stop at the shop first and let them look at my car. They didn't understand the problem, so I took them for a test ride. About that time (add to this I had a terrible headache), my phone rang. Apparently I had missed an important call, because on the other end was an EMT from the local ambulance. Yes, there was an ambulance at my house!!! I ran home (literally) and left my car for them to deal with. As it turned out, all was okay, but Ian had hit his head on the basketball pole (there was a big bolt sticking out) and had been bleeding everywhere. He was fine, but with my headache and the car still in the shop (now they had to fix the leak, replace the distributor cap, and fill the transmission fluid) we stayed in for the night and watched yet another fireworks show from the back deck, where we could set off our own sparklers and enjoy the show.

And so arrived Tuesday. Just as I was going home from work, my friend Davelyn called and wanted to know if we might like to see the fireworks show on Buckeye Lake...from her boat! Okay, I was pretty beat...but I was up for some adventure anyway. And so we did! It was not uneventful however...the boat wouldn't anchor and there was so problem with the idle. Though there was some stress involved, the show was awesome and pretty cool to see on the lake itself!

We finally trudged home about 1:00 am when the boat traffic had cleared out. Well...we quickly discovered that Davelyn's friend Ron had lost his keys to his truck, parked behind mine in her one lane driveway. Needless to say, we had to stay put for the night!

Wednesday came and we missed the Granville parade, so we had breakfast at Davelyn's until Ron got his truck unlocked via AAA. We headed into Granville and I got to run into some good friends and fellow 4-H Band members as we played in the Alumni concert. I then enjoyed watching the kids play the contests - sack race, 3 legged race, egg carry race, and egg toss. Both Ian and Megan brought home 3 ribbons a piece! I did not bring home any ribbons but I avoided being splattered with the egg - I was the splatterer, not the splatteree. :)

From there, the rain came down so we went home and chilled out for a while. Do you think the fun ended there????

Friday brought friends together at Steph's house - Stephanie and her sister Jen, Jenny, Christen and Sydney...and their moms! It was fun to bring up all the old memories while the kids played together.

And finally...Saturday was the grand finale. After spending the day cleaning and doing laundry, I wandered out to Jenny's parents house in Granville for a bonfire. We were having fun roasting some late night hot dogs and s'mores (about 11:00 already!) when her friend Jon and his nephews showed up with a big box of fireworks! These were WAAAAYYYY cool. Our own private show, complete with a bonfire, a really loud bullfrog (no - I did not KNOW they could make that noise!), really great s'mores and a group of fun people. Somehow I didn't end up home until 2 AM...

So THAT is how busy the week was. 4 distinct and unique fireworks shows...fun people and events...a few stresses to work through...No wonder I haven't had time to blog!