GWB and Cloisters

My first time walking across the GW Bridge! It was the perfect weather - sunny with an occasional breeze.









































































Passing through Fort Tryon Park - it was so peaceful and spacious, very different from Central Park :)

















The Cloisters - it's so beautiful, really is like a castle inside too, with courtyards and different 'wings'!

























































































I like how my dress matches the fountain, hahaha

















View from the terrace of the castle. I highly recommend the Cloisters if you have a day to spend outdoors walking around.

BBQ at Tallman Mountain State Park

Last Saturday the families of the church choir went to a park in upstate New York for BBQ. If you recall, we did this last year too - it was such a success that they decided to do it again this year. I can't believe that was one year ago! It was a beautiful sunny day - perfect for a BBQ and games. It was a lot of fun - although we were much tamer than the group next to us - they had like 50 people, loud hip hop music, a trampoline, and a HUGE tent.

Boys playing darts

Boys cooking??

The adults cooking

Admiring a little weird insect

I don't know who they are but it's a cute picture

One of the adults thought of several games for us to play after we stuffed ourselves with food. We split into two teams - the 'older' group and the 'younger' group. The first game of 'step on the other person's balloon'. Oh my gosh, this was so funny. We were all running around in circles screaming. And these adults are vicious! Some of them were teaming up on us kids! SO competitive, lol.

Next game - each team had to toss a ball through a hoop (made by the extended arms of a person). We had a defective 'hoop' who kept moving and head butting our ball. The adults are like comedians - they're so much more fun than us kids - LOL. This is the pastor's wife, thought it was a great action shot. By the way, my dad took most of these pictures, like over a hundred of them in a few hours! He's really good at it - I am very impressed - he's only had the camera since Christmas.

Watching the adults do this was hilarious - it's a relay race but you have to walk by doing this twist thing, I don't think anyone was actually doing it correctly.

Three-legged race. At first the young group thought we'd win no problem since we should be more nimble and coordinate. Woah, were we wrong! There were 5 pairs on each team - it was a relay race. I think the adults finished when we were on our 4th pair - it wasn't even close. But I guess it shouldn't have come as a surprise - the adults were all couples. They've been married for like 20+ years, and I assume they've take many walks in sync with each other over the years, hahaha.

This was a creative game that I'd never played before. You run across some distance and pass a rubber band to each other using a spoon handle in your mouth.

Celebrating July birthdays. Thought this was a great shot of the cake. It's so beautiful!

Gliding at Wurtsboro Airport

This past Sunday, our young adult group leader took us gliding in upstate New York. What is gliding, you ask? I had no idea what it was either when I first heard it. So basically a small plane with an engine is attached to a glider (2-seater plane with no engine) by a long cord. The engine plane takes off and pulls the glider into the air. Then at a high enough altitude, you pull on the cord to release from the engine plane and start GLIDING in the air. It's totally using nature and air pockets to maneuver and change altitude. Those of you who know me know I'm terrified of heights, ESPECIALLY small planes! But I decided to tag along with the group anyway to see what it's like and to take pictures. When everyone was signing up, I almost did (I hate being left out) - I picked up the pen and was about to sign my life away (the waiver basically saying they're not responsible if I die). Then I thought about being up in the air for 20 minutes stuck in turbulence and hating myself - and I put the pen down. So I went and watched everyone get in their gliders one by one. The passenger sits in the front of the glider, the pilot in the back. It looked so much fun - and after a couple of people came back from their rides and confirmed that it wasn't really scary and that it was very smooth, I thought 'what the heck, I should just do it, I'm already here - when is the next opportunity that I'll get to go gliding?!'

My pilot's name was Solomon - he's Egyptian and has been flying since 1956. That made me feel slightly better. Solomon explained what all the dials meant and told me that he was going to let me pilot when we got into the air! I got strapped into my seat and the plane took off, with us behind it!! It was a little wobbly going up because we were being pulled, but once we got to 2,500 feet it was fairly smooth and I pulled the ejector cord and we were free! It's amazing that without an engine a plane that small can be so smooth in the air - it didn't even feel like we were moving most of the time. I did feel kind of nauseated when Solomon was increasing our altitude by using an up-current - so basically you keep turning in circles (as if you're going up a column) in order to get higher until we hit 4,000 feet. Sof I do not recommend this for you, you would have thrown up I think. For the most part, it was very comfortable and relaxing after that - sometimes we'd hit air pockets that made it a bit bumpy but it wasn't too terrible. My pilot was really cool - he let me control the glider for most of the ride, primarily just turning or straightening out the wings. Then I got tired cuz I was gripping the controller so hard, haha, so I told him to take over. The landing was so accurate and smooth - it's as if he were flying a normal plane, there was no problem getting onto the runway whenever he wanted to. Supposedly these gliders can stay in the air for hours at a time if the weather permits. There are even gliding competitions - it's a sport! So all in all, it wasn't as scary as I thought it was going to be, although I was still very tense in the plane. I think a few people in our group said it was so relaxing that they were about to fall asleep in the air - they are more adventurous than me :)

David our fearless leader was the first to go in this green plane! He liked it so much he went again at the end after all of us went, haha! I don't know how he does it - he's much older than us but he's got so much youth and energy - we can't even keep up with him half the time! I really do think that it's because he has such an amazing relationship with God - his love for God is reflected in how he lives his life - there is so much evidence of joy and peace and freedom which I guess makes one youthful! :)

Here's a picture of the engine plane pulling the glider (the green plane) behind it.

This is how you get strapped into the front seat

A glider about to land

Admiring the planes and the view

David's back from his first trip!

It just stops on the grass

It took every ounce of effort to actually smile - I was so nervous!

I went up in the air right after Jackson did. I let him take my camera cuz I knew I'd be too tense and scared to take pictures. So here are the pics he took - my pics would have been very similar anyway ;)

The engine plane that pulled his glider up

View from the glider

This is my glider! I was below him cuz he was already at 4,000 feet when I was on my way up

It's so funny - afterwards I was saying how I was tense from holding onto the controller and trying to keep the glider stable, and Jackson was complaining that it was too smooth and safe. He asked the pilot if he could do flips or something or at least make the plane move more, LOL. The pilot said no - I guess he valued his life.

Hanging out in the tent after our glides. There were SO many flying bugs around it was crazy! There were swarms of them everywhere!! We kept swatting at them - the boys were playing frisbee for a bit but I think they had to stop cuz the bugs were flying into their nostrils and stuff.

Cool picture!



















Yay for new and fun adventures!

July 4th in Baltimore

It all started around my 28th birthday when he gave me a ticket to the National Aquarium in Baltimore because we had a conversation about how we both loved aquariums. But just ONE ticket. I couldn't figure out if he was trying to hint that we should go together, or that I should just go by myself, LOL. I thanked him for the gift and said that perhaps when the weather got warmer we can get a group of friends together to go to Baltimore. That was almost 7 months ago, can you believe it? Originally he had given me the ticket with the hope that we'd go on the trip together as friends so he can have the DTR talk with me. But since it's already 'official', the trip became our first vacation together. I have to admit, I was a bit nervous about how it would turn out, but it ended up being really fun and we ate way too much (what else is new) - at the same time I think the trip helped us to get to know one another better and build a level of comfort that I don't think we had before. I guess there is significance and importance to spending some alone time away from the familiar and normal surroundings. Also, having three days where we'd have nowhere to hide or run from each other if we were angry or upset was a good test for our relationship. It's very different from a dinner and movie on a Saturday night and then going home separately or being in a bad mood but you don't want to talk about it so you just stick to text messaging or email. Interestingly, I heard on the radio this week that in a recent survey, 83% of the participants said that they go to sleep angry without resolving an issue with their spouses, and only 17% said that they stay up all night talking (or fighting) until it's resolved. I guess I'm of the opinion that if possible, to never leave a conversation angry or on bad terms - life is so unpredictable and fragile, you never know if that's the last conversation you'll have. Is that just a morbid way to think?!

Anyway, onto happier topics, here are the pictures from our trip for your viewing pleasure :)

Even though we got in at midnight and was exhausted, I could not sleep the first night, I kept waking up and finally just stayed up at 6AM - it's strange that I always wake up so early when I'm on vacation. Our first stop - the Baltimore Museum of Art - for lunch, hahaha.

This cream of crab soup was SO good

Asian style shrimp

More crab with portabello mushroom - delish!

Since we're already at the museum for lunch, we pretended to be cultural and looked at a few exhibits. This one was really interesting - displays of miniature old-fashioned houses

Views of Inner Harbor

We gravitate towards bookstores wherever we go ..... not quite sure if it's for the books, the restrooms or the Starbucks

The hotel with a balcony where he originally wanted to stay at (back in December) when he gave me the Aquarium ticket - but now there is no need for a balcony so we saved some money, haha

View of the harbor from a lighthouse

The first picture I am posting of us - this is monumental!

Another view of the harbor with little dragon boats and pedal boats

At the aquarium - we took SO many pictures of the fish, they're amazing and their colors are so beautiful! I love this fish - it looks like it's swimming around looking for someone to kiss.

The jellyfish exhibit was great - can you believe these are jellyfish??!! There are so many different species!!

The colors and the way it moves is so beautiful!

After the aquarium, we went to a really nice restaurant called Charleston (rated 28 on zagat!) so we didn't want to be rude and take pictures, although I'm sure we violated several fancy-restaurant etiquettes by passing food to each other across the table so we could try all the dishes. There was an older couple sitting at the table next to us - I don't think they said more than two sentences to each other the whole meal. I find that odd because just the food itself was worth raving and talking about - I think half of our conversations was about how great the food was. We highly recommend this place. It's funny - our reservation was for 8pm, by the time we were done eating we were one of 3 tables left in the restaurant. I guess people in Baltimore don't stay out as late as New Yorkers :)

We snuck this in at the end ... kind of a bad picture but that's all we got ...

I was so sad that there were no pictures of us at the restaurant so we played with the timer in our room - I am testing the placement of the camera :)

Breakfast in bed - literally!! Just an FYI in case there was any doubt in anyone's mind - this is HIS bed, MY bed is to the right of the picture

After a filling breakfast, we went to Fort McHenry where we fought off the British in the War of 1812 and also where the Star Bangled Banner was written. I felt so patriotic - especially since it IS the 4th of July! I love historic sites!

Huge canon

Those things are heavy!!

I like how he's totally into the camera timer too :)

It took this many people to unroll the flag - it's a replicate of the flag that was flying at the Fort during the battle - it's HUGE!

I guess this is where they put the soldiers who misbehave :(

We went exploring at a really nice hotel where we went for lunch - the food wasn't very good but the hotel was gorgeous!

Walking around the harbor - so many people out on the 4th of July!

Roy's for dinner - it's a Hawaiian restaurant chain - I had wanted to go to Roy's in NYC months ago but it closed down so we found one in Baltimore! :) The sashimi was so good - can you believe I actually eat sashimi now? He loves Japanese food so I guess I've been trying it more and really enjoying it!

My drink is on the right - it's a Hawaiian martini - one of the best drinks I've ever had. I especially like the fact that it's clear and very light tasting.

Molten chocolate cake with ice cream - one of our favorite desserts

My camera can't take pictures at night - especially of fireworks. It was hilarious - we were sitting in an area for like an hour and a half waiting for the fireworks to start. We thought it was a great spot because so many people were there. Then it's 9:30pm - we started hearing the fireworks go off but couldn't see anything. Everyone was in an uproar and walking around to try to figure out where the sound was coming from! It turned out that the fireworks were behind this building that was to our left. So then we all scrambled out of our spots and walked in and out of streets, dodging the bumper to bumper traffic to find a spot where we could actually see the fireworks. It wasn't as outrageous as the ones in NYC but it was pretty and the finale was great :)

Chaos after the fireworks - we ended up driving and stopping for like 2 hours before getting to our hotel (without traffic it would have been 15 minutes)

I was so exhausted that I slept until 10am the following morning! After checking out, we went to an Italian restaurant for brunch - I had the crab quiche (gotta have as much crab as possible in Baltimore!!) There was a tree in the middle of the restaurant and a live keyboard player.

Walking around Little Italy to digest the huge brunch we ate before having to sit in the car for 5+ hours

And that's it folks! Our drive home from Baltimore - we hit SO much traffic! But it gave us an excuse to extend our trip longer =P Who knew a long weekend trip could be so eventful! :)