Our Cruise and NY

So, the Thursday after the wedding Daniel and I left JoAnn with his parents and flew to New York where we jumped on a boat that was headed for St. John's, Canada. We were off to celebrate our 5th year anniversary and also Daniel's 30th birthday. Never heard of St. John's? Neither had I, but Daniel had really wanted to go on a cruise and he had been planning on seeing a friend in New York. So I suggested we combine the two and go on a cruise out of New York and that just happened to be where the cruise was headed. I'm not sure I would say Canada was the most exciting place I have ever been, but I will say it was wonderful to spend a few days alone with Daniel. He has been talking since before we were married about going on a cruise and I have been putting it off since it sort of ranks right under bridges on my list of things I am afraid of. Somehow, I managed to get over my fear and we set sail for a few days. I really loved the alone time with Daniel, but the cruise was a little disappointing. This is one of the only pictures I have from those couple days because we pretty much just ended up in our room watching the free movie channels they had most of the time. I don't know why we thought it would be different, but the weather was relatively cold for us (60's most of the time feels freezing when you are used to 80's all the time) and also it was pretty crowded. That I don't know why we didn't expect a crowd since there is only so much room on a boat, but it kind of took us by surprise. Anyway, while we were in Canada I really wanted to get a picture of us by something kind of neat in the town and the only thing we found was a statue of a moose, but when the lady handed the camera back to me and I went to look at it later, she never actually took a picture. So, instead we settled for a picture of the two of us by the boat.


Alright, so I don't sound so negative about the cruise when I really did have fun, here are some of the highlights: spending as much time alone with Daniel as I wanted for 4 days, free food anytime we wanted including desert which is always huge for me, 3 free movie channels 24 hours a day, and sleeping in every day. Oh and one last thing about the cruise, I think a terrible trend has started for us. The only two vacations Daniel and I have taken with just the two of us are our honeymoon and this trip. The day we got married Ronald Reagan died and that was pretty much all the news talked about on our honeymoon. The day we got to New York, Farrah Fawcett died and so did Michael Jackson, which of course, is all the news talked about during our trip. I don't know, it just seemed a little ironic to me.

After the cruise we stayed in New York for two more nights so Daniel could spend some time with his friend Jon (and also since Jon offered to take Daniel to a Yankees game if we stayed). Our cruise arrived in port on Monday around 8 AM, so we had pretty much two full days in the city. I have been wanting to go there for some time and I couldn't wait to see the city, so with a little nagging from me, we checked into our hotel (which was the W, right across from the Waldorf Astoria) and headed right back out the door to start sight seeing. That first day we saw a ton, just to name a few things we walked around Central Park (probably my favorite thing we did), saw the UN, went to Time Square and saw Rockefeller Plaza. I feel like I am forgetting some stuff that we saw since we walked pretty much all day, but that is most of it. The second day, we walked to Grand Central and took the subway to Wall Street and saw the World Trade Center area. We thought about going over to Battery Park to see the Statue of Liberty too, but since our cruise went right by it and Ellis Island and I was getting tired from all the walking, we just decided to go back to the hotel and rest for a few hours before we went to what I'm positive had to be the biggest highlight of the entire trip for Daniel. That night we went to the new Yankee Stadium and saw a game. The new stadium was amazing and we had SO much fun being there. I loved the time in New York and really would love to go back sometime to do even more in the city. There really is so much going on all the time that I think I could spend a week there and only get through about 1/3 of the things on my to do list. I had talked to a few people before we went and some of them mentioned that it was a big city with people everywhere and that it can be a little overwhelming at times, but to be honest after living in Manila for 4 years, I was just happy that I was actually able to blend into the crowds and I was also amazed at how they were able to keep the city relatively clean and that you could get around fairly easily. I know there is a lot of traffic in there, but it has nothing on Manila traffic.

Okay, enough talk about New York, here are some of the pictures...
Central Park....

Us with Jon at the UN (standing near the Filipino flag of course)...

Yankee Stadium...

I just had to add these to the post also. Like I said earlier JoAnn stayed with Daniel's parents while we were gone and one night she went over to spend some time with some of her cousins. These are pictures from that night that my sister-in-law took. I just thought they were adorable and had to put them up...

I guess in this one they had tried to get them to give each other a kiss and Eli was having no part of it...
These are from them dancing together...

Catching Up

Yet again I have allowed myself to neglect the blog while in the US and have continued to neglect it because the thought of trying to catch up with everything that has happened really didn't seem like a fun thing to do. So instead of sitting down and doing it all at once, I have decided to do it piece by piece and start with our flight back to the US and the wedding. I actually had started this post when we were home, but the internet gave out and I didn't find a chance to finish it.

Anyway, not long after Daniel returned from his basketball trip we headed to Indiana to attend his sister's wedding, which I will get to in a minute. I just thought these two pictures were pretty cute. The first one is of JoAnn at about 6 AM waiting for our flight to leave Manila. I don't know if she was tired or just trying to get comfortable.


This one was us trying to keep her occupied during our many hours in the air. Technology even since arriving in the Philippines has advanced so much and has made traveling with a toddler much easier. We were able to download a few of her favorite cartoons off of iTunes and she watched them on the computer. I know they have had portable DVD players for a while, but to me this was much better because I didn't have to carry around a case of DVDs and also since we already were bringing our netbook we didn't have to bring a DVD player or our larger heavier notebook that could play the DVDs. Instead all we had to do was download a few shows before we left and carry this 3 pound very small computer (or our iPod, which was the back up if our computer battery died). Anyway, as great as that is to keep her occupied, it wasn't long before she decided that she just wanted to get up and walk. Normally, this would be the time that I would gladly get up and stroll around the plane with her, but on this trip there was a volcanoe errupting in the original flight path and we had to take a detour, which meant two things. One, as if 11 1/2 hours isn't already long enough, it added an hour or so to the length of our longest flight. Two, most of our flight was spent over the Pacific Ocean so we spent probably almost 9 of those hours with the "fasten your seatbelt" sign on since there was so much turbulance. Normally, even if the sign is on I still try to get up for a few minutes every now and then, but this time there really was a ton of turbulance. So, the getting up and walking around was pretty much out of the question most of the time. And as usual on our way to the US, JoAnn decided that she just didn't really need to sleep and slept probably for a grand total of 2 1/2 hours during the almost 24 hour trip. The only good part to that is that she is SO tired by the time we get to Indiana that she doesn't really suffer from jet lag.


Alright, now for the whole reason we went home in the first place...Joel and Kristen's wedding. We arrived in the US on Monday and the wedding was on Saturday, so we got there just in time for all the last minute planning. I loved every minute of it. I just wish I was actually able to help more. I guess I just had so much fun planning our wedding that I love to watch or help someone I love so much plan theirs. I was so sad that for most of it I was so far away. Kristen did a fabulous job of thinking of all the details too. It was probably one of the most well put together and beautiful weddings I have ever been to. Not to mention the fact that Kristen looked absolutely gorgeous in her dress. My favorite part of the whole wedding...they provided childcare for the kids. It was one of the best things ever, it actually sort of felt like Daniel and I were on a date the whole time. I was just so happy that I was able to enjoy the wedding without having to worry about JoAnn going crazy from sitting still so long. Also, I think JoAnn had fun playing with the other kids...well at least at the reception. I guess she cried most of the time during the ceremony, which was yet another reason I was so thankful for the babysitters. So here are a few of the pictures, unfortunately I got a little side tracked during the wedding and didn't take any pictures other than the ones I took as we were all waiting for things to begin.

This picture is actually the only picture from the whole wedding that I got of Joel and Kristen and its from the reherseal and evidently my flash didn't work.


These are all from before the ceremony...

These are JoAnn's cousin's...She was the only girl that was still a little young to be a flowergirl, but Kristen still had her wear the dress. Don't they just look so cute all dressed up.

This is her cousin that is the same age as her and I love this picture with Eli in his tux and JoAnn in her dress and them both being shy. We tried forever to get the two of them to stand next to each other and smile for a picture. They would not get anywhere close to each other, it was so cute.

Alright, so that's the flight and the wedding. Next time I will talk about the trip that Daniel and I took.