During the summer, we had my niece Stephanie with us for a 5 weeks. This was a great help to us since it was during this time that Mona and I prepared to move. On the July 4th, we started our morning by going to the town parade and then went to Lakewood Park for fireworks. Unfortunately, they had computer problems and the show got cancelled. We were hoping to do more with Stephanie but time and money was short especially with moving into the new house. Although we did have a chance to go to Amish Country.
After Stephanie left, my other niece (on Mona’s side) came out to stay with us for a semester of school. I think it was a bit of a shock coming from a small town to a densely populated city with a ton of diversity. However, she did fine and I think it was a positive experience for her. She was able to adjust and find friends and even a boyfriend. For her 16th Birthday, Tyler’s mother Brandy visited and we all went to New York City. I’ve been wanting to go to New York City for some time so this was a big moment.
New York was a really fascinating experience and I would love to spend more time there. I knew the city was dense from the images I’ve seen from movies. However, I had no idea that you would have block after block of people crammed onto the sidewalks. You could walk miles and you still had tons of people everywhere. Anyway, we took the sub under the river and landed at the 911 memorial. After that, we headed to Wall Street and saw the stock exchange and the bull. There is so much to see that you can really stay in one place for an entire day.
Our next stop was to see the Statue of Liberty and take the Staten Island Ferry. This turned out to be one of nicer parts of the trip since it was relaxing to just sit on the boat and take in the sights. From a distance, you could see Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge. Once we returned to land, we headed to China Town. I’ve seen China Town in Los Angeles so I didn’t really expect much. It turns out that China Town in NY is much bigger with a maze of streets that go every which direction. I think we were the only white people around. And again, you could really spend an entire day here just taking in all the sights. After China Town, we cut through little Italy and stopped at Washington Square. We stopped for some pictures and then headed through Greenwich Village and then headed back to the hotel.
The next day, we headed to the Empire State Building which was surprisingly small. Yeah, I know. I guess I thought it would be much bigger. We walked down 5th Avenue and ended up in Time Square. It’s pretty touristy but it was cool to see. Anyway, I’ll just jump ahead since I could write about this all day. Toward the end of the day, we finally landed in Central Park. One thing I found amazing about NY was the number of green spaces throughout the city. Without these spaces, I don’t think NY would be half as nice. At the end of the day, we ended up at Grand Central Station completely exhausted and ready to get back to our hotel which was in New Jersey. In the end, we saw all the major sites in New York. You can really see everything in 2 days if you’re moving fast…which I was. I’m sure everyone was a little annoyed with how fast I was walking.
The next day, we traveled to Ocean City, Maryland and stayed in a beach condo. Not really much to say about our stay but we all had a good time and it was relaxing. We then went to Washington DC to stay at Nick’s house. Unfortunately, Nick and Tanya were in Italy so we missed them. Well, I won’t go over our trip to DC since we’ve been there 4 times and I’ve already written about it. But here are the pictures.
After we returned home, my sister came out to visit for the month of October. It’s always nice to see Jen and she’s a huge help with the kids. She’s also an awesome cook so we had a ton of good food. For my Birthday, Tyler, Mona, and I went to Detroit to see the band Godspeed You! Black Emperor. The show was awesome. A week later and we went to Amish Country with Jen. I’ve been there so many times now, I think I’ve seen it all. The drive up there was really nice especially with all the leaves changing color. When we returned home, we got hit by Hurricane Sandy. This turned out to be a really exciting experience. The winds where incredible as we got massively hit with rain. We only lost power for a couple of hours. During this time, you could actually see transformers bursting in the distance. The damage was much worse than I thought especially close to the lake. Huge trees fell onto people homes and power lines where busted all over the city. Tyler’s school got cancelled for 3 or 4 days and some residents didn’t have power for over a week. Halloween was also cancelled until November 3rd which was too bad because Jen had to return home.
In November, Zola turned 3.
For Thanksgiving, Nick and Tanya came out to visit us from DC. It was nice to see them and we had a pretty good time and ate a little too much. In December, Tyler went back to live in Utah and we took the kids for a long holiday in Arizona for Christmas and New Years. I think everybody in the house got a stomach bug which the kids brought with them. It was nice to see the family although my brother didn’t make it out of Hollywood. That was kind of a bummer. Anyway, we all had a good time and there was much relaxing. It was also nice to eat a ton of Mexican food since you can’t get good Mexican food in Ohio:(
Well, it’s winter now and we are all having a great time with the snow. I love shoveling snow while the kids play. I think we have over a foot and a half on our front yard. Well, we did a ton of other stuff but I can’t think of it right now. Things are going well and after a long break, we are starting to work on the house again.
