In August, my family decided to LIVE IT UP during Shawn's last week before he left on his two-year church mission. Although he needed time to catch up on errands, buy missionary attire and pack, we found time to fit in a beach day, family time, visiting relatives, movies and more.
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| Road trip to the Jersey Shore |
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| Left to right: My toes, Marissa's toes and Shawn's farmers tan in the sand |
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| Squinty eyes means it was a perfectly sunny beach day! |
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| Someone convinced me to grab a board and run in the ocean. It turned out to be more like taking a beating with sand that was falling out of strange places of my swimsuit for the next three hours straight. |
I also played tour guide, as we took visiting relatives who came from Utah for Shawn's farewell, to tour just a couple fun spots in the Big Apple.
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| Central Park |
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| In one day, I kept our group busy. We ventured through the west side of Central Park and Grand Central... |
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| ...saw the Manhattan LDS Temple. |
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| Took a couple subway rides, enjoyed the views from the top of The Empire State Building, and ate a delicious lunch at Shake Shack in Madison Square Park with views of the Flatiron Building.... |
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| My cute parents |
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| We waved to TJ who was stuck at work. Look just left of the MetLife building at the tall, hexagon-shaped building and you might see him too! |
After taking in the views from up high, we hit the ground in Chinatown and Little Italy.
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| I dragged the group around via subway so they could have the "real" New Yorker experience. |
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| My cousin wasn't too sure about some of the food he saw in the Chinatown markets |
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| "I'll try it if you try it" |
Time was flying, as most of the day was already over at this point, so we took off for the lower tip of Manhattan to catch the ferry to enjoy The Statue of Liberty from one of my favorite "rides". Come visit me and there's a good chance I'll make you ride the ferry too!
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| Check out that pose of the girl to the right of my Aunt...she's got it down! |
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| Father-Son photo opp - just missing Tyson who was still in Japan for his summer internship :( |
It was an awesome week, but bittersweet. I love my family. I hate goodbyes. However, I wouldn't want anything else more than this opportunity for my brother at this time in his life.
I am one lucky girl with one awesome family. Since they knew I would be in Arizona on the date of my actual birthday, my dad, mom and sister came into the city to get the party started early. They told me to pick something to do - so I picked what I thought sounded fun and allowed us to enjoy the perfect weather outside - paddle boats in Central Park. Little did I know that it was about to change my life. Okay I'm being a little dramatic, but seriously it was so fun. I missed my husband who was unable to join us as.....yes.....he was stuck working on a Saturday, but otherwise it was a perfect day.
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| We had lunch at my favorite neighborhood Mexican food restaurant... |
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| ...and OF COURSE made a stop for frozen yogurt at 16 Handles! |
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| Then we were off for our first-ever Central Park paddle boating experience :) |
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| That is the face of pure excitement on my face. My dad, however was just worried I was steering us in the wrong direction! |
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| Look at us girls go! |
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| Someone wasn't as excited as the girls were to be paddle boating. |
Marissa, who is a budding professional photographer, also snapped a couple fun pictures as we weaved our way back to my apartment through Central Park.
Thanks for a FABULOUS birthday celebration Mom, Dad and Marissa. I'm a lucky girl!
