Last Official Summer Adventure

Yesterday a friend and I spent the day in Ocean City, NJ. I LOVE going to any beach, but this place holds a special place in my heart as my family used to go here every year when I was little. It was such a gorgeous day! It was so nice to just sit out on the sand, chat and listen to the waves and seagulls.

 

 

Now I *think* I am ready for summer to end, and a new school year to begin!

Go Lady Knights!

Yesterday I went to Alayna's volleyball game. It was the first home game of the season. My sister LOVES volleyball, and could seriously play it all.the.time. This is her second year of being captain of the volleyball team. I enjoy watching the games they play because they always do so well working together as a team. Yesterday I was in awe with some of the plays they mastered! Someone asked me if I missed being out there on the court, and I quickly said, "NO!" Oh I love volleyball, but competition has never been my thing. I like playing volleyball simply for the enjoyment of playing volleyball! But when you get competition involved, it makes me rather tense. :-) I much rather be cheering on the side lines! Oh and it is fun to cheer for this team because they do awesomely! They actually WIN games! Let's just say the ratio of wins to losses when I was in school was rather embarrassing. ;-)

P.S. The Lady Knights won their game yesterday!! :-)

Phantom of the Opera

Today was our "remake day" to go to see Phantom of the Opera in New York City after the hurricane ruined our previous plans. Oh my, what a day!!! Definitely worth all the aggravation it may have caused. :-) An experience none of us will forget any time soon!

Alayna and her fellow Phantom of the Opera buddy, Noreen, on the bus heading to NYC...

We had pizza for lunch once we got to NYC. Alayna was taking this picture of the two of them, but I figured I would be somewhere in the background, so I'd better smile :-)

Majestic Theater! I love how "old" this picture looks after editing it to look black & white. It is like a reflection of how old the theater really is. :-) And yes, the show was phenomenal, as the sign says.

Posing time! Making memories....

Waiting for the show to begin...

I took a picture of the stage during intermission. This was the view we had from our seats. We were pretty far back, but it still was a good "overhead" view of everything.

Seeing Phantom of the Opera on Broadway was an amazing experience to be sure! After all the planning and anticipation, I felt rather sad as we walked out the theater though. I want to go back and see it again!!! Who wants to come along with me? :D

Thursday Vacation Adventures

On Thursday we headed to Niagara Falls. We got a special Discovery Pass, which included Cave of the Winds, Maid of the Mist, the Aquarium of Niagara, and a movie about Niagara Falls.

Our first adventure was Cave of the Winds. We put on the yellow ponchos they gave us, but it was SOOO hot out that they were literally sticking to us. We basically kept them on long enough to take a picture of how ridiculous we looked, and then took them off again. The mist from the waterfall felt so good on such a hot day!

Alayna went up to the "Hurricane Deck" to get soaked... :-)

Because it was later in the day, our next stop was to be the Aquarium of Niagara as that was the attraction that closed earlier than the rest. So we got out our handy-dandy tourist guide, and let's just say that the map should have had an FYI that said "Locations on map are farther than they appear." None of us had ever been to the aquarium so we had no clue where we are going. We started heading off in the general direction that it told us to go. We walked, and walked, and walked. We finally stopped at this welcome center near the border of Canada to ask for directions. Well, let's just say, the guy gave us the longest route possible to get to this aquarium. So we walked, and walked, and walked some more. Eventually Elizabeth got on the phone with her Mom so she could mapquest our location from her laptop at home. She gave us the street name where the aquarium was on, and we were very close. In fact, if we had just walked straight at one point we would have been there 15 minutes sooner! We were literally dripping in sweat by the time we got to the aquarium. The air conditioning never felt so good! So we walked around for a bit, went to the gift shop, took some pictures, and then went to our 2nd sea lion show of the week.

We took pictures with the scary fake shark...this was shortly after we arrived, and we were still slightly deranged from the heat. :-)

Once the sea lion show was over, we headed back to the Falls. Thankfully, we caught a trolley this time, and saved ourselves from the long walk. Our next adventure was going on the Maid of the Mist - by far, the best part of the day!!!!

Feeling stylish in our ponchos...

It was so neat to be so close to the falls!

We were on the boat as the sun was setting and shining directly on the falls. So pretty! There were rainbows everywhere! At one point, there was a full rainbow over the falls. Unfortunately, just something you can't quite capture on camera!

On the Observation Tower...

We then went to the Visitor Center, where we watched "Niagara Legends of Adventure" in the theater. It was quite an amazing movie about all the legends and history associated with Niagara Falls. I particularly liked the story of a teacher who went over the falls in a barrel filled with pillows and her little kitten. She wanted to be remembered by her students for doing something daring, I guess!! Nope, sorry...I don't have to be remembered THAT much by my students. :-)

After the movie was over, we went back to the Observation Tower to watch the colored lights shine on the falls at night. The show started later than it was supposed to, so we didn't stay too long. On the way home, we picked up 2 movies at a redbox and some Code Red Mountain Dew for the all-nighter we were planning. We ended up staying up till 5:30 watching chick flicks, playing games on the Wii and just being completely immature. It was a blast :P

Sisters & Picnik.com

Alayna and I tend to do a lot of those "sisterly close-up pictures" whenever we are together and feeling bored. :-) On Saturday, we were at a park near my grandparents' house, when the desire to take some pictures came over us.

This was one of our favorites...

Alayna told me later on that we should "picnik" the picture. I wasn't completely unaware of what that term meant. I knew that there was a website where you can edit photos, add effects etc. Alayna had done that with a lot of her pictures already. So this afternoon I thought I would give it a try.

I love the result!

Picnik.com is now a new friend of mine. You should definitely check it out if you want to edit any of your pictures for free!

Beautiful Flowers

I was one blessed teacher on graduation night! I received 2 beautiful bouquets of flowers from my kiddos and their families.

Well, I stretched out these blog posts as much as I could! First, I didn't want an overwhelmingly long post about graduation, and then second, I wanted to savor that special night as long as I could! Now that I am on my last post, I am feeling a bit sad. I enjoy blogging about my kiddos, and now I am not going to have any more fun Kindergarten activities to blog about! :-(

Well, I am sure I will find more things to blog about soon. Such as a certain road trip I will be going on with my sister next month....yay! :-)

A New Friend

My siblings and I were asked to dog-sit for friends of ours this weekend. I thought it would be fun to introduce my kiddos to Beatrice today. Needless to say, it was love at first sight! She was all they could talk about all day long!

"When are we going to visit Bea again, Miss Follett?!"

They loved running around with Bea as she chased after her tennis balls, they each added some food to her dish at lunchtime, and they took turns giving her a "walk" in the afternoon (It was actually more of a run!).

The poor dog was simply worn out by the end of the day! :-)

Christmas Fun with Friends

On Thursday, my Mom and I met up with friends to enjoy some Christmas fun in Lancaster. We met up at Shady Maple Smorgasbord (the best eating place ever!) and then headed off to Sight & Sound Theatres. We were actually able to see TWO shows in one day! One at the larger Millennium theatre, and one at the smaller Living Waters theatre. I have never been to two shows in one day, so that was fun!

We went to the Millennium theatre first and saw "Miracle of Christmas", which was about the Christmas story. My mom and I had actually seen this show twice already, but the Christmas story can never get old!

When the show was over and we stepped outside, we discovered that the world had turned a snowy white while we had been indoors! It almost felt "magical" to step out of the theatre and be greeted by the snow gently falling down around us! It definitely fit the Christmas spirit of the day! :-)

We had about 45 minutes or so till we had to be at our next show, so we decided to browse around one of Sight & Sound's gift shops nearby called "Noah's Landing". When Elizabeth and I had gone to Lancaster back in the summer, we had searched and searched for this place and never found it. While they had been shopping the day before, Elizabeth discovered where it was, so of course, I just had to go there to fulfill that "need" I had back in the summer!

Elizabeth and I always get together during the heat of summer, so it felt weird to see each other in cold weather...but a good weird :-)

We THOROUGHLY enjoyed the next show "Voices of Christmas" in the smaller theatre. We got to see where a lot of the Christmas traditions originated from, and even the history of some of the Christmas carols. I think my favorite part was when they talked about the history of the song "Silent Night", and all the actors/actresses on stage lit candles, and then had the audience join in singing "Silent Night" with them. They turned off all the lights in the theatre, and there was no background music. It was just all of our voices blending together in the flickering candlelight. I must admit, I got a bit choked up at that moment!

The show was such a mixture of songs, instruments, scenes, and costumes! However, for every Christmas song or Christmas tradition they mentioned, they would always show how it pointed back to Christ. Wow, I could probably go on and on with how much I enjoyed it! Sadly, its in its final season, and you only have till December 30 to go see it. Sooooo if you hurry, there might be tickets left! It is definitely a fun Christmas show for the whole family to go see! :-)

Needless to say, it was a definitely a fun day with friends as we enjoyed the Christmas season together!

Sunrise & Day at the Beach

This morning we woke up at the EARLY hour of 4 am, so we could make it to Ocean Grove in time for the sunrise. Alayna and 3 of her friends had come up with this idea a few months ago. Despite the fact that we were all dragged out of bed WAY too early for a Saturday morning, it was totally worth it! We made it just as the early morning light was beginning to peak over the horizon. Seeing the sun rise over the glistening ocean waters was beyond amazing!

All I could think of as I was seeing this breathtaking view was the one hymn we sing in church...

Here is love vast as the ocean...

Enjoy the short picture video I put together (well, actually Picasa did!) of today's adventures at the beach!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abJm0Z-9Z6I

Vacation Week

What a fun-filled, busy, exhausting vacation week I have just experienced! Definitely something I needed before I got into a crazy work routine again!

Here are a few pix of the week to give you a glimpse of the fun we experienced.

As you saw in my previous post, we enjoyed lots of junk food :-). I felt like we were ALWAYS eating something! But, hey, we kept saying, "It's vacation!" Good excuse, right? ;-)

Enjoying Dunkin Donuts after church on Sunday...

Monday night we went miniature golfing at Putt-U. Fun times! On the way home, we stopped at Rita's...like I said.... :o)

We went to Ocean Grove, NJ, on Tuesday. Actually, we ended up at a beach a little ways from Ocean Grove, but it's the same idea. :-)

I could have stayed all day! I love the beach!

As if we didn't have enough junk food already, we made chocolate chip cookie dough truffles on Wednesday.

Remember when I blogged about all the old, broken crayons I had peeled? Well, we started working on the whole melting process. There are still lots more to do though!

Elizabeth and I then spent two days in Lancaster. Of course, we went to Shady Maple (more food!). We also got to enjoy two productions at Sight & Sound, do lots of shopping at the nearby outlets, eat more food...you get the idea!

On Thursday, we saw Psalms of David at the Living Waters Theatre, and on Friday, we saw Joseph at the Millenium Theatre. Both were great shows!

And last, but certainly not least, we went to Knoebel's Grove on Saturday. Despite the crowd, we enjoyed a gorgeous day going on fun, "dizzifying" rides and eating...you guessed it...lots of food!

Not seen in the pictures, we also went on a few walks around the neighborhood, attempted an exercise video, played multiple games of Mexican Train, Mad Libs, In a Pickle and Mad Gab; stayed up late each night watching movies, shopped at the Lehigh Valley Mall and nearby stores, had lunch at Panera Bread, Olive Garden & Subway (different days..hahaha!) and supper at Bob Evan's, Friendly's, and Freeze and Frizz (somewhere in Lancaster :-)) There is probably more, but I can't think of anything else at the moment!

It was a great break from the "real world", but now I must enter that world again! Time to focus on getting ready for Kindergarten!!!! I am TOTALLY okay with that though!!