Christmas time in New York

All the sudden, there were hundreds of Santas in the street:


Bryant Park ice skating:



Millions of coins:


Rockefeller Center: (it was gorgeous, but a bit too busy)

The City of Brotherly Love

Philadelphia's ChinatownThe Liberty Bell


LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!!!

Yes, we had to run up the stairs in the Rocky movie. ;)

It was a beautiful art building.
Philly seems like a great city. We just spent the day exploring the city, had a philly cheese...umm...sandwich and stopped off for some swanky bubbles before heading back to Jersey.

The Bright Lights

First stop: Empire State Building


The sunset was beautiful from up there...



...and then the city started to light up!



Me and my travel buddy :)

Little Italy - we found the greatest little restaurant!



City, city, city! I love it!

New York!

Katie and I went to the east coast for a week (Dec. 5-12) and checked out New Jersey, New York and Philadelphia. It was a wonderful trip - I love New York City!! (I'll get some more pics up soon.)

Cabin Time

We escaped to a cabin the woods in northern MN for a few days. I love the feeling of being at a cabin. It is a time to relax and reflect and to be a part of the nature that surrounds you.

Messin' round

I didn't have a wedding on Saturday, but I ended up at a church taking pictures! Go figure! I saw this church through some trees and had to stop to take a closer look. It's a Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Arden Hills, MN - so beautiful and rare!
Doing what we love: ;)

Johnny

Recently a bald eagle has made a tree in our front yard his hang out spot. He came to sit on this dead tree last week. The tree is marked to get cut down, but after 4 nights of this eagle coming to sit on it at night, we were thinking that they couldn't chop it down. On one of the nights, there was quite a storm. We watched as he stayed strong and sat up there through the whole thing. Having just seen the play 1776, we decided to name him John Adams (Johnny for short). He disappeared for a few days, so we thought maybe he had moved on, but he was back this morning. He just sits up there looking so wise, checking everything out. This morning there was a crow sitting on a branch near him making a bunch of noise. Johnny didn't even seem to notice.

More Boston

We went to the JFK library on my birthday . It was a wonderful presentation on his life and in a beautiful location on the U of Mass campus.

"I really don't know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea, except I think it's because in addition to the fact that the sea changes and the light changes, and ships change, it's because we all came from the sea. And it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea - whether it is to sail or to watch it - we are going back from whence we came."

-John F. Kennedy
September 14, 1962

Here's his old sailboat:

"Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."

-Senator Robert F. Kennedy
June 6, 1966


Harvard campus:

MIT:

Boston, MA

This is such a great city!We went on what they call a duck tour in this purple vehicle. It toured us around on land and into the Charles River.
Here is a view from on the 52nd floor of the Prudential building:
We had to stop here for a beer:

My fav:
They read the Declaration of Independence from this balcony for the first time in Boston: