New York City Day Two

Our second day in New York was filled with just exploring.  We didn't start our "real" sightseeing until Monday, as we bought passes that let us into 80 attractions plus gave us 5 hop on and off bus tours we could take.  We made Sunday a day to just explore a bit more than we did on Saturday.  

We had a later start to our day, which was okay since we were on vacation and not on any real time table.  We started out at Jamba Juice for breakfast and then into some of the stores in Times Square.  There is the largest Toys R' Us in North America in Times Square (which was just down the street from our hotel) that is 4 stories high!  It also has a 60 foot ferris wheel inside!  The cars are different games and toys, we were able to get a picture of a few of them...my favourite was the Fisher Price car :)

Besides the ferris wheel, which was probably the main attraction to the store, there was an arcade, tons of different sections of toys, two large candy sections called Candy Land and Wonka, a computer and video game section and Scoops R Us which served ice cream and other desserts. 

Outside the store they had people dressed up as different cartoon characters to take pictures with, however things like seeing the Hulk and Ironman wearing backpacks made it less realistic!

See what I mean?

Next we went into American Eagle, just because I wanted to see inside it as it was 3 stories high.  They had this massive wall of jeans.  One side of it was all female jeans and the other side was male, plus they had jeans all over the store, it was ridiculous!

Here I am getting some jeans!

Next we headed over to the Hershey's Chocolate World.  The outside of the store alone was worth seeing!  Unfortunately we don't have any pictures of the outside, but it had all kinds of different chocolate bars and a large mug of cocoa that lit up which just drew your attention.  Inside it was rather small, but they had a large selection of different kinds of chocolate including white and dark chocolate Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (the white we picked up for John's sister) and huge bags of candy, including extra long Twizzlers which were a foot and a half long (which we got god John's dad.)

After we hit up those stores, we decided to walk down Broadway Ave to Central Park, since the day before we walked down 7th Ave. to get there.  Along the way we saw David Letterman's studio and got a picture of it.

Once we got closer to the edge of the Park, we saw one of something like 7 Trump Towers across the city.  It's as big and gaudy as he is...

After our brief stop at the Trump Tower, we headed into the Park, we originally thought that we would walk the whole Park, but later discovered that after walking 10 blocks and then about half of the Park, that we wouldn't be able to walk another 4 miles and then the 8 miles plus 10 blocks back.  So we instead did the lower section of the Park, here are a few sights along the way...

Strawberry Fields - dedicated to John Lennon.
We later found out that the apartment that he
was shot at was across the street and that
Yoko Ono still lives there.

On the right, you'll see a pick of Belvedere Castle, which we came along on our walk.  It used to be a look out point, but was turned into a weather observatory.  We were able to go up two stories, which are lookouts for tourists, and got a good view of the surrounding area of the park and skyline.  The next two pictures were taken from the observation decks.

The Great Lawn -- had 6 baseball fields, which are all in better
condition than any of the ones here in Ontario.

Here is a map of Central Park, can you see
how easy it would be to get lost?

On the left is a picture of Cleopatra's Needle, an obelisk which was built in Egypt in 1600 B.C. and was given to New York City in the late 1800s.  It was kind of cool to see something that old there, although John made the comment about how much money it would have taken to send it over....

A little water conservatory for kids, young and old, to drive
motorized sailboats.

As we left the Park on the east side, we followed a path which took us right through the zoo!  We were only able to see a sea otter (which is pictures on your right, although you can't see it).  We took a look at the map of the zoo and all I can say is that there is no lions, zebras, giraffes or hippos, so either the zoo never had any or they were mistakenly shipped to Madagascar!

The fountain from beginning of Friends (although this is
just a model, they had to build one which is in L.A. - or so
I read...).

There were a couple of these Apple stores around.
While we didn't go in, it was kind of neat
how it was all glass and you could see down.

I was told by a friend to check out F.A.O. Schwarz Toy Store, as it was amazing, which is was!  They had these guards throughout the store greeting people as they came in, the guy was super energetic!

They had HUGE stuffed animals all around the store, like life sided ones.  This pink puppy was one of the cheapest ones we saw, for something like $300.  Other ones like the panda bear below were $1400!!  All I can say is that neither I nor any of my children will ever be getting one of those!












They also had a very large candy section (similar to Toys R' Us, although I found out later on the Toys R' Us bought FAO Schwartz, so it explained a bit).

They also had a very large candy section
(similar to Toys R' Us, although I found out later on the Toys R' Us
bought FAO Schwartz, so it explained a bit).

Largest Rice Krispie Square ever!!

You could make your own Muppets there!

The most expensive stuffed animal I've ever seen...

Halo made out of Lego!

Storm Trooper made out of Lego!

Statute of Liberty made out of Lego!

They had a train set out in the store, which John really liked.

I preferred the fancy Barbies

When we left F.A.O Schwarz, we decided to walk down 5th Ave., and since I was tired, I didn't think about what would be along this street...so as we are just strolling along taking in the sights, what do we come across, but the original Tiffany's!!  Obviously I had to go in, even though I was so exhausted from walking around at this point.  We just checked out the main floor and the second floor where the engagement rings were, just to say that I was there, and so that I could have a better sense of what Reese Witherspoon's character was walking in on when Patrick Dempsey's character proposed to her at Tiffany's in the movie Sweet Home Alabama. :)  (Just a little side note: while all the rings were very nice, I very much love the ring my husband picked out for me and I wouldn't trade it for another!)

We found another Trump Tower!

And yes, it basically looked the same as the other one...

After that, we walked back to our hotel without any other stops.  We had a bit of a rest then decided to go out and pick up some souvenirs for our families, then went back to the hotel to drop them off before heading out to dinner at Planet Hollywood.  After dinner, we tried to get some last minute tickets to the Lion King, but it was sold out, so instead we went back to our hotel and figured out what we wanted to do for the next three days once we picked up passes Monday morning and then went to bed early.

Until tomorrow...

New York City Day One

We are back from our vacation!  We've been in New York City for the last week which was a great experience, although I think we both can safely say that we could never live there!  I thought that I would give a day by day synopsis of our trip over this next week, as it was a busy packed week and I'm sure we won't be able to remember or tell everyone what we did in one shot!

Day One:
We left Ottawa around 7am on October 19th.  We made it to the border within an hour and a half and go through with no problems.  We made our first pit stop around 11am, then again for gas around noon and around 1pm for lunch (which I packed before we left to save some money). Probably my favourite thing about this drive was as we were coming into Scranton PA, we passed a Cornell U coach bus, which for all the Office fans out there, was Andy's alma mater. :)

We got a few pictures along the drive in Pennsylvania, as the trees were still full with their leaves, plus the hills just made it so nice.  Here are a few pictures, they aren't the best since I took them while we were driving.

We got into New York City around 3pm, we had a great view of the Manhattan skyline as we were coming in through New Jersey.  I took a few pictures, but the camera was not co-operating very well and I had to help John figure out where we needed to go, but this one picture turned out really well.

It was a little insane getting into the city.  We took the Lincoln Tunnel, which was cool, but then John started commenting on how it would suck if there was an accident while we were in there and how you'd be stuck for hours and I started to feel a little claustrophobic and started thinking about the tunnel breaking and the water coming in.....luckily it was a quick drive in and we were out in no time with no troubles at all!

Once we got into Manhattan, we were right on the edge of the Theater District, in the middle of the madness of people and cars everywhere AND the GPS decided to stop helping us, as our little X-Wing Fighter icon was putting us in the middle of buildings.  I quickly got John's phone out and navigated us through the one way streets to our hotel, where John quickly decided we would be valet parking our car instead of trying to figure out where the parking building was!

We got checked in and went up to our room and drop our bags off.  When I opened the door to the room, John just stood in the hallway and when I asked him if he was coming in, he asked where the rest of our room was!  Haha, he's too used to traveling for work where he gets half decent rooms from Hilton or Marriott, not something downtown Manhattan, right in Times Square.  We took a couple pictures to give an idea of what we had...

Our bed took up most of the room.

The closet and cabinet with shelves, a draw and the mini bar.

The bathroom.

Once I got John in the room, I unpacked and put everything away while he came to terms with the room. :)  When we were all settled, we decided that we would hit the town and explore a little bit before getting some dinner.

Our hotel was right in Times Square, so we started there.  It was crazy the lights, billboards, people, cars, honking....it was a lot to take in all at once!  It was just as we had seen on T.V. and in movies, so it was really cool to see it in person.  It took a bit to get used to all the people and cars all over the place, we Canadians are too nice and polite, but John got the hang of it pretty quick, so I just followed him!

Our first stop was into the Disney store as it was two stories and I just love the Disney store!  I bought my sister's Christmas present, along with her souvenir and our nephew's souvenir.  All I can say is that it was a good thing John was with me to restrain me, or else I could have bought half the store!!

I never realized that they left the New Years Eve ball up all year long.  John and I had a bit of a debate as we went into the Times Square museum and saw a ball there, which I thought was THE ball, he did not.  Turns out he was correct!  We didn't notice the ball and year until after we came out and looked down the street the other way!  Just shows how much there was to see!!

We made our way up 7th Ave into Central Park, where we walked about a quarter of the way in, but ended up coming back as we were both tired and it was about a 10 block walk to get to the park already.  We decided to come back and have supper, at T.G.I. Friday's and then headed back to the hotel as we were exhausted and decided that we would go to bed early to start the day early!

That's it for Day One of the trip. It was a pretty tiring and packed day, even though most of it was driving. Stay tuned for tomorrow's blog!

Dry Erase Calendar

It has been a while since I wrote a blog.  I have been really busy this fall preparing and leading one of the children's programs at my church among other things, that projects and blogs have been put on the back burner.  I'm hoping that will change now that things are starting to get back into the normal groove!

Many of you know that John has been on a few business trips this month, today he left for his third and final one for the month (potentially not for the year though! :( ).  Since they have been short trips, I haven't had a lot of time to work on any projects, but since it is Thanksgiving weekend and tomorrow is a holiday, I was able to get some "me" time and finish a project I started back in July.

For a while I have wanted to start planning our meals on a month-by-month basis.  Normally I prepare a meal plan on a bi-weekly basis, just writing it down on a pad of paper and putting it on the fridge.  I find that this takes a lot of work which started discouraging me from doing it, especially once we started redoing the main level (for all intense purposes, I basically stopped meal planning, which has lead to a lot of poor meals over the last few months...).  Finally at the end of June I decided that this was going to be something that I wanted to start over the summer.  Originally I had thought about just buying a dry erase calendar from Staples or some place like that, but then along came Pinterest and I discovered that I could MAKE a dry erase calendar which would look ten times nicer than a store bought one.  Over a few days, I started looked at different dry erase calendars on Pinterest, eventually I decided on this one: http://lifeasyouliveit.blogspot.ca/2013/05/diy-dry-erase-paint-chip-calendar.html and used it as my base.

To make the calendar, you need to get a picture frame, bristol board and 35 paint chips in 7 different colours.  I picked up the picture frame and bristol board at the end of the end of July. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get the paint chips because Wal-Mart didn't have any one coloured paint chips, only the ones with 5 colours, which was not going to work.   So I wasn't really able to start working on it, other than cutting the bristol board to size.

Now, while I was in Wal-Mart, checking the blog I had found, I decided that I would do a size smaller than what the woman who wrote the blog had bought.  I would suggest going with her 22"x28" versus my 20"x24", I thought that the larger one was just too large and that the one I bought would be more than large enough...however I regret it because those few inches actually make a huge difference.  It just means that my calendar is a bit tighter than I would like, but it should still work.

I also decided that bristol board was a better way to go than to paint the picture that was inside the frame.  I began to do that, but it was going to take many coats and made the paper funky.  Since bristol board is a $1, I figured that it was worth the money over the hassle it would be paint.

Onto the paint chips.  The original ones I started off with went from white to a pastel green, however after cutting them and putting them down, I realized (with some comments from John) that they really were not the best colours.  See...

Not all the colours, but the others were literally white or off
white.  I don't know what I was thinking when I picked them out....

Clearly, the effect I had wanted was not coming across with those colours.  Thankfully, John and I went out and got some new colours, which turned out much better since I had someone there to give me some feedback.  I came away with a rainbow of colours.

It took a while to get into gluing the pieces down.  I tried one weekend when John was away in September, all I was able to do was the two bottom corners and then I wasn't able to measure out the rest so that there would be an even distance between each paint chip...I'm not very good with numbers or equations etc.  It took a while, but I was able to get John to show me how to glue them down last weekend before he left for his second business trip.  He actually did the whole bottom row for me and from there I was able to finish the rest.  Here are some pictures of the progress.

Once I got that together, I used a longer paint chip for the month and I printed off the days of the week to glue over top of each column.  Here is the final product!

The plan is to get it up in the kitchen later this week once John is back and I'm going to start using for November.  Hopefully this will help me organize our meals a bit better!

Ceiling Fans!

It's been a while since I've written a blog.  We've been pretty busy this summer, not any any big projects on the house, mostly maintenance things around the house, we've had family visit and visited family and John's been pretty busy with work, than there hasn't been a lot going on.  I've been working on a couple projects, since I'm not finished, I'm not ready to blog about any of those yet, so that leaves me here with like a month gap in my blog :(

Until today!  Yesterday and today John and I put up new ceiling fans in the guest room and the office.  I didn't get a whole lot of pictures of the process, so while this may be a short blog, I am hoping it is the first into my regular blogs. :)

We have been talking about putting up ceiling fans in the other bedrooms since we put up the one in ours.  Mainly because none the bedrooms had overhead lights in the rooms, the light switch just flipped on an electrical socket.  The other reason was to have extra airflow and to cool the rooms down.  John decided he wanted to do it a few weeks back, but due to being extremely busy at work, that just wasn't an option.  However, I looked online for some fans and we ended up looking around one day while we were at Canadian Tire.  We saw NOTHING we liked, except the one we had already bought, but we didn't want to buy it at full price, so we figured we would just have to watch and wait for it to go on sale before we would be able to do them.  Then my mom told us this really cool thing.  On the Canadian Tire app, you can look up items you want and then set them on this list to alert you when the item goes on sale.  We did that and this past Friday John got the alert!  We were excited because a) the app worked and b) we were finally going to be able to put the fans in.  He went and picked them up that night to make sure we got them.

We didn't get started on them until last night, as John's mom and nephew were here for the weekend.  After relaxing for a bit, we decided to get started after supper.  Probably not the best idea because it gets darker earlier these days, plus it was cloudy.  We made due though, both shining flashlights around to get things and see what we are going.  We only got the one fan out and the whole cut in the ceiling and John started on the wiring, when he realized that it was going to be a bigger job than anticipated.  He found that something had chewed the wires down to the metal wire, so it was now a fire hazard, plus trying to get the new wire down to the light switch was going to mean cutting holes in the wall, at this point we decided to call it a night and work on it today.

Fan accessories and tools everywhere

The hole!

The garbage is almost filled and we had barely started!

My poor desk chair.

Today, I had a friend come over, so John did the majority of the office fan by himself.  I came in and helped him get the fan blades together and pass him screws to finish the assembly.  Due to some set backs in the wiring and poor instructions (or poor reading of the instructions) it took a little longer than expected, but it meant we learned what we needed to do for the next fan.  Here is how it looks in the office!

After finishing the office fan, we had a brief lunch break and then got back to work.  John got all he needed to do the wiring and began measuring and cutting the hole for the fan.  I took everything out of the fan box and started to assemble the fan blades and the ceiling fan to the mount, in between running up and down the stairs to grab things for John or just getting up to help in some way.  We had a little set back when trying to get the wire through all the plates, but once we got that everything went together smoothly.  I cleaned everything up while John replaced the light switch and electrical socket with new ones.  I've been slowly changing all of them in the house because the previous owner painted over all of them and we do not like that.  Anyways, here is how it looks in the guest room.

Well we are one step closer to redoing the whole house.  For now, we are going to rest for the rest of the day.  Hope everyone had a nice long weekend!