South Carolina & New York

On August 6th I flew to South Carolina with Diana, Nick, her sister Joy and her niece Misty to visit Diana's Brother Shaun and his family. Shaun's daughter Elisa was baptised by Nick. What a great event!

The family after the baptism.
South Carolina is so beautifully green. This is Shaun's back yard. Trees and vegetation are everywhere. For about an hour just after dark the fire flies were flickering all through the brush. This was the second time I have ever seen fire flies. The first time was on the "pirates of the Caribbean" ride at Disney Land.
We went to dinner one evening at Kaci's parents house. Here is Diana and I on the front bench.

Shaun's house is about a 4 hour drive from Myrtle Beach. We spent a 3 day weekend in a condo on the beach. It was fantastic. The drive was nice. The highways are so lush. I'm glad that Shaun's cars had GPS guidance systems in them. I had no idea what direction we were traveling. No mountains to judge by.

Here is a view of the beach from our balcony. I love the east coast beaches. The water was so warm and nice.

Looking north up the Myrtle Beach coast line. Just above the last shadow of a building on the beach is where I proposed to Diana. Of course I had to have Holly in the picture. While we were swimming in the waves Holly got a little sting from a Jelly Fish. It didn't stop her from swimming again the next day though. She was a trooper.
It did spark some ideas that there were sharks in the water. So that night Holly and I were on the balcony on a "shark watch". We were sure we saw about a hundred of them. After I got back from the trip someone told me that there actually are a lot of sharks along that coast. He said if you fly over a little way out from the beach you would be able to see lots of them. Yikes!!! Shaun and Kaci.

Shaun, Kaci, Codee, Carson, Holly and Elisa, thank you so much for having us at your home and for making us feel so welcome. We miss y'all and can't wait to see you again soon.

From South Carolina we flew up to New York to Visit Deborah and Logan for a few day's. It was Deborah's last week working in Manhattan on an internship for a design firm. She took us all over the place. Here are Nick, Deb and I getting on the subway to Manhattan.

We spent a lot of time walking around Broadway. Here is the "Late Show" studio. We didn't get to see anyone famous though.
Deborah, Diana and Nick strolling up Broadway to Time's Square.
Times Square. I will tell you a story with another picture below about this infamous corner. It's a good thing it wasn't raining in this picture or Diana and Nick would get soaked from passing taxi's.
We visited the "Top of the Rock" the roof of the Rockefeller building. This is a view of the Empire State building (center) just as it was getting dark.

Here is a night shot of Times Square.

Tut, Tut. Looks like rain!

It is rain! After spending a full day "purse shopping" in China Town we were on our way to see the Broadway show "Wicked" and it starting raining. We saw it coming so we purchased a few cheap umbrella's from a street vendor and actually had fun stepping over puddles and little rivers in the gutters (well, Diana wasn't paying attention once and stepped IN one of those rivers as we stepped off the curb, clear up passed her ankles.) Besides that we were staying reasonably dry until we came to the infamous corner, waiting to cross when the light turned green. I'm not sure what possessed us to stand so close to the curb, but without warning a taxi swerved (it seemed intentional to me) right into the flowing river in front of us and sent a tidal wave of New York City street water over us. Our umbrella's did us no good over our heads at this instance. I swore once in my head, but then we all laughed out loud about it.

As you can see below all four of us were soaked. It is most apparent on my blue shirt. We were quite the spectacle because going to one of the top Broadway shows is like going to a fashion show. Everyone was dressed up in their best, except us. We were getting all kinds of looks because we also had our arms full of bags from the day of purse shopping.

Here is a shot of the Statue of Liberty as we passed her on a ferry to Staten Island.
On the way back I got this cool shot of the south end of Manhattan. Right in the middle of the picture is where the Twin Towers would have stood.
We could not leave New York with out having a hot dog for lunch.

Here is Deborah and Diana in one of the thousand purse shops in China Town. The owner of the shop saw me taking a picture and she got angry at me and threw me out of the shop. I guess those are very special purses and must not be photographed.

We had a fantastic dinner at this little tiny Chinese restaurant. Deborah was able to spend a lot of time with us but Logan wasn't. He had to work so we missed him. He was able to sneak away one evening and go to the show "Stomp" with us. We had so much fun!

Well, after 9 busy days it was time to head home to reality.
Nick was exhausted while we were waiting for our plane at the Newark airport. Great time to take a nap on moms shoulder. I think Diana just wanted to show off that new ring on her left hand. See how she has it positioned just so.

Diana! I Love You!

The time was well spent and we had the best vacation. I am so grateful for family.

Deborah and Logan, Thanks for showing us some of your life in New York. We will never forget the experience. We Love You!