CARISSA'S BIRTHDAY OCTOBER 28TH

Carissa admiring her reblooming iris, Cantina, which has been reblooming continuously since August! This is October 28th! Amazing! We're hoping it makes it into November. Only a couple of days to go and it's got the buds to do it. It'll depend on how it takes the freezing temperatures.Josiah, patiently lighting all those candles on his famous Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake that he made at Carissa's request. That's Brandon Shinn making sure he does it right. Carissa, trying to blow out all 27 candles at once. They kept relighting for some reason! Honest, they weren't trick candles! We even double checked the box they came in!

THURSDAY AFTERNOON SEPTEMBER 28 IN NEW YORK CITY

Remember the movie "National Treasure"?

Well, this is the inside of Trinity Church.

The only treasure found though was God still being honored down on Wall Street of all places!

Trinity Church as viewed from Wall Street.

City Hall

The Woolworth Building as viewed while relaxing in the park at City Hall.

Ground Zero

World Trade Center Memorial Plaque

These are the roots of the tree from St. Paul's Church, which is the famous church right across from Ground Zero that was miraculously undamaged except for this tree. Go to the link to Jessi and Andrew's blog for a more detailed history.

RELUCTANTLY OUR FIRST DAY IN NEW YORK COMES TO AN END

The Empire State Building!! It became a very familiar sight as our hotel was literally in it's shadow only about a block away.

The Chrysler Building is front and center, being my favorite building in NYC. Notice the smoke stacks from the movie, "Conspiracy Theory" in the background. That's the Williamsburg Bridge in front of them.

The sun setting over Manhattan! We timed it so we could view the city in the daylight, watch the sunset, and view it again after dark. Was so worth it!

Same shot of the Chrysler Building just after dark.

Looking out towards the southern end of Manhattan, where the WTC should be. The Statue of Liberty is in the upper right hand corner of the photo. I love the red of the tail lights in the streets below...I can't believe it but blogger is down for maintenance! I'll have to wait to post this. Blogger has not been very cooperative since I began the NY saga almost 3 weeks ago now. Of course my computer time is limited as well. Sorry! So please be patient as Thursday afternoons sightseeing pictures are probably still to come...Another day! At least you have the beginning and the end of Thursday Sept. 28, our first and only full day in New York!

ELLIS ISLAND

Due to a blogger glitch and hours later, here is the end of our big morning in New York City and my favorite place so far. It's so full of history of which I will tell you just a bit...Ellis Island originally was the sight of Fort Gibson, one of a number of fortifications built just before the War of 1812 as part of New York City's first line of defense.

The other constructions included Fort Wood on Bedloe's Island (now Liberty Island.) The star shaped base that the Statue of Liberty's pedistal sits on is from the original fort), and Castle Clinton (remember the door picture?) which stood 300' off the shore of the Battery at the southern tip of Manhatten (now Battery Park). Castle Clinton (or Castle Garden as it became known for a while) served as America's imigration depot from 1855-1890.
On New Years Day of 1892 the first imigrant entered through the Ellis Island station and it was in operation until November 19, 1954 when it closed it's doors when it became too costly to run.This is a view of Manhattan through a window in the Great Hall or famous Registry Room, which is huge and majesticly beautiful with it's high arched ceilings and beautiful windows. You can almost imagine how noisy it must have been with the thousands of imigrant voices all speaking different languages echoing off the walls and ceiling! On it's first day of operation, 2,251 people were inspected on Ellis Island!

HOW MUCH OF NEW YORK CAN WE SEE IN ONE MORNING?

Battery Park was beautiful at 7:30 am with the sun shining on all the buildings. We met in the hotel lobby at 6:30 am! Our goal was to beat the morning "rat race" through the subway with the 20+ people in our group without loosing anyone. 2 years ago when we went, our group left a little later and got caught in rush hour in the subway! Not an experience we wanted to repeat.However, when we arrived at Castle Clinton where you go to pick up the "will call" tickets for the Liberty Island Ferry and pedestal tour, it was still closed! Tammy and Evette had no luck getting through that door either.So it was hurry up to wait, and wait, and wait some more! That's Paul, Evette, & me in case you were wondering.
We finally got through all the security and made it onto the ferry. From left to right I can see Conner, Jessi & Laura's backs, me, Allen, Rissa, & Nikki.

That's Tammy, Rissa, Evette, & Paul waving from up on The Lady's pedistal...

Down to Andrew, Jessi, Dennis, & I on the lower level. Boy was it windy out there on that island!

WE'RE HERE! WE'RE HERE!

It was a little chaotic trying to get 20 people and their luggage on 2 shuttles! But who cares! We're in New York! Well actually at this point we're still in New Jersey!
After checking into our hotel, we set off in search of a place to eat dinner. We walked a couple of blocks, looked up, and there it was...The Empire State Building!
We all agreed upon (don't ask me how!!) American Burger, a typical New York city style hole in the wall eatery. In addition to specialty burgers, they also had an awesome grilled chicken salad with dried cranberries and a light honey mustard dressing. Am I making you drool yet? By the way, does Dennis look excited to be in New York? Remember it's his and the other spouses first time here. I have to say it was much more enjoyable having our spouses along this time.Dennis wasn't the only one enjoying himself. Above: Tammy, husband David, and Laura (Rissa's & my roomy from last trip)

Barb and her daughter, Nikki, also enjoying a "taste of New York"!

FIRST NIGHT IN NEW YORK CITY!

Then it's Penn Station to catch the Red 1 train down to Battery Park and the Stanton Island Ferry. All 20 of us that had arrived in New York so far were along for the ride.

Our timing was perfect! There were fireworks over the Statue of Liberty just for us? One of the Stanton Island Ferry employees asked how we knew to arrange our ferry ride for this particular time? We said we didn't. It was a God thing! It was pretty awesome - all the lights from the bridges, buildings, and...fireworks too! And the best part was that it was free!
Unfortunately it is hard to get good pictures after dark on a moving ferry! You set the camera on the rail and it's still moving up and down!

Last stop for the evening was Time Square, where we met an enchanting French Canadian by the name of Bernard Lachance, wanting us to listen to his CD. I was a little leary, but not Tammy. (left of Bernard) She put the headphones on and then her eyes got big and her mouth dropped open...I grabbed the headphones to take a listen and I'm sure my eyes and mouth did the same thing. Wow! Another Josh Groban! No joke! Needless to say, she and I both bought a CD and then made Paul Shinn, who has his own solo CD, take a listen. We all ended up making Paul sing for Bernard, worship songs about Jesus of course!

JOSIAH'S GRADUATION PICTURES

Josiah has been begging for weeks for me to take his graduation pictures. Well yesterday turned out to be the picture perfect day! But...Help! We've managed to weed 44 great pictures down to just these 6. What can I say, he was a good subject! But we'd like your opinions. And not to be out done by cousin Benton, Josiah will give you a picture of your choice as incentive. (Yeah, as an aside: if Benton's 2 year old photos look great, (check out the link to the Paul and Andee Show) wait till his highschool graduation photos! He'll knock 'em dead!! Just 16 years to wait!)

LEAVIN' ON A JET PLANE!

The weather over Oregon was beautiful as we took off on our non-stop journey to New York City!Can you guess which mountains these are?Crazy Quilt!

And you thought crop circles were an urban myth?

And then approximately 5 1/2 hours later...the moment we'd all been waiting for!

What a first glimpse! We were fighting over the window! The photographer won out temporarily at least!

It may take a while to relate our New York saga, as it's going to take a while to go through over 300 photographs and decide which ones are worth sharing. So be patient and keep checking.