Tuesday

On Tuesday we woke up at the crack of dawn...aka 8 AM. We packed our bags, checked out of our rooms, and put our bags in this room thingy so we didnt have to haul them around. We hopped on the subway and rode to Battery Park. Near Battery Park we went to an awesome bakery and had delicious bagels and shmear, but kevin had a croissante. After that we walked back to the park and bought our tickets to get on a ferry to Ellis Island, near the Statue of Liberty. On the ferry we met a group of "college" students from Liverpool, England and from Texas. At Ellis Island we went inside the Immigration Museum. Kiera and Krystal actually found out about relatives that passed through registration. It was neat because they got to see the ship they rode, their age, their signature, and other incredble things. When we got off the ferry we walked around Battery Park and ate food from street vendors. Heather's purse broke so we had to go back to the hole in the wall store, but they wouldn't let her exchange it. After that we got our bags, and took off to Penn Station to head out to Long Island. There was a Haagan Daaz and so stocked up on the sweets we thought we wouldn't have at the friary. When we made it Brother Jacob, Lloraine, Lorane took us to the house. When we arrived we just kinda played it cool. Everyone picked out rooms and settled in the cottage guest house. The place has everything we need and all the tea you could want. Its been glamorous in a holy sort of way and great all around! :)(:

St. Patty's Day Fun

Monday we awoke VERY early in the morning to try our luck at finding our fifteen minutes of fame on the today show. Unfortunately, the only thing we got on film was a flailing arm or two trying to jump over the croud to be seen. As we were leaving, Mary ran into one of the show's guests, David Hernandez who was recently voted off American Idol. She got to get her picture taken with him and as you can see he put his arm around her, evoking much excitement from Mary. To top it all off, apparently he smells very good.

After our cold experience with the Today Show we hopped on a greyline bus for another tour. We got to see times square, greenwhich village, and the empire state building just to name a few. We got off at ground zero to find an emotional, but touching display. We learned about the day of the attacks and the plan for the memorial currently being built. It was amazing seeing the gap in the buildings where the trade centers once were. It truly looked like there was something missing. We then went across the street to St. Paul's Chapel which was unhurt on the day of September 11th because of a tree that took the trauma. St. Paul's was a vital part of rescue attempts and a place for workers on that day. We attended a peace prayer service they hold there every day. We're glad our prayers were a part and hope that they can help make a difference.

After a heavy afternoon, we went back to our hotel for some rest and then checked out some shopping opportunities around the hotel. We found some good buys and were very excited.

That night after a fabulous dinner in little Italy, we headed by subway to rockefeller center for some ice skating. After many falls, but many more graceful glides we headed back to the hotel for some much needed sleep.

And thus our busy last full day in Manhattan came to a happy close.

Mary with American Idol star David Hernandez at the Today Show. It was the "We love Redheads" special! Yay Mary!

more pictures

Fired up and Ready to go

Half asleep we make our way to the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, which was built in 1892. It is the biggest Cathedral in the world. The Service was great; we all got to meet the Dean of the Cathedral and than take some pictures with him!!(That was Awesome!) The Cathedral had an incident with a fire that burnt some of the Cathedral in 2001, but they are recovering very fast. After the service we went to a very nice pizza place that was pretty good. It was neat that there have been famous people that have come to that pizza place and took pictures and signed autographs for them! They claim to be the official pizza of the New York Yankees.

After lunch, we hopped a bus tour to see the Uptown sights around Central Park including the Museum of Natural History, The Dakota (site of John Lennon’s assassination), Lincoln Center, the Guggenheim Museum, Harlem, The Apollo Theatre, Columbia University, and more. After warming up with coffee/hot chocolate (the open bus was a bit chilly), we took to the streets and saw places like St. Bartholomew’s Church, the Chrysler Building, The Plaza Hotel, and Grand Central Station.

We enjoyed a relaxing family-style dinner in Little Italy – thanks to our friend Willy who took great care to make us feel at home.

Every night we try to wind down the group but have a little service, the service is lead by a member of the group. Tonight it was Jenna’s turn to lad us. We start the service with the lighting of the candle. When Jenna attempted to light the candles she didn’t do too well. The candle did not light so for some reason she held the match there, finally it started to burn. She dropped the match on a WOODEN desk!!! Lydia jumped up faster than you can say Episcopalian!! She rushed over to Jenna and put out the flame. (Hurray.. For Lydia for saving the day!!) The rest of the service went normal except the occasional out burst of laughter! One of our prayers was for the many kind New Yorkers who helped us find our way in the city. More than one person has said, “Hello Iowa.”

We had a long and exciting day and are glad to throw in the towel and sleep!

God’s Peace.

Lydia and Jenna landing at the airport! (and then waiting for almost an hour to get off the plane!)

pictures!

We've arrived!

Well we finally made it to New York! We had a great time at jenna's house! It was so neat to have the bishop send us off! When we got to the airport, we expected for a long wait to get through security, but luckily it took very little time! After a plane ride that felt like it took forever, while we entered New York we had a contest on who could find the Statue of Liberty first and who ever it was got a dollar. Lucky for Heather she is now a dollar richer. Once we landed we were very excited to get off and explore, but we had to sit on the run way for 50 minutes! Thanks to Taylor we all made it to the subway without getting lost. She printed off directions to it so that we could get there sooner, rather than wondering around trying to find our way. Of course George made a friends with every person we saw! On the way to go down the stairs to the subway, there was this very happy man that kept wishing us a "Happy New Year!"...we were all just a bit confused. Then we went to swipe our cards to get through to the subway and of course Mary got stuck, out of all of us it is just her luck. Trying to get luggage and bodies through is trickier then it may seem. We all decided that our hands felt germy so Krystal pulled out the germ-x and gave some to everyone. Then she wiped down the handle on her suit case, and the pull she was holding on to in the subway! After sitting on the subway, for what seemed like a long time, we finally got off and couldn't figure out how to get out. Then some guy look at us like we were idiots and said to just go through the door...the only reason why we thought we couldn't was because it said EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY. After we got to the hotel we decided to go to a Chinese restaurant. While eating Kiera found a piece of metal in her food! After we all came home and had our night time prayer service, George was the first to volunteer to read! We talked mainly about Resurrection and what it really means to us. Even though it feels like it took forever to get here, we finally made it:)
p.s. we haven't done any shopping yet..so our bags are still a bit empty.