Quickie trip to NYC

During national day holiday we flew to New York for our friends' wedding.  We were so lucky to get to go -- these are our good friends and if we had to miss their wedding, we would have been very sad.  The whole trip seems like a blur to me now.  The only pictures I took were at the rehearsal dinner and at the wedding.

Rehearsal Dinner:

Before the wedding, I was waiting in the hotel since the groomsmen needed to go early for pictures.  I was hanging out in our friend Nick's room since he was staying in the hotel that night (our flight back to China was early the next morning so we were not going to be staying in the hotel).  It was actually really fun and relaxing -- I watched movies, ordered room service, etc.

  As I was finishing getting ready for the wedding, I decided I should stick my room service tray outside the room.  As I did that, the door closed behind me.  I didn't realize how big a problem that was going to be since I didn't have a room key, nor was my name on the room.  So I went to another room and called the front desk. They were really reluctant to let me in, I had to call Chris and get Nick's information to relay to them in order to gain access.  Finally, after almost 30 minutes of being locked out (with no purse, no shoes, nothing), they said they would send someone down to let me in.  As I was waiting there barefoot outside the door, a hotel employee walked past and I made a comment like, "Not a good time to lock yourself out of your room…" and he said, "Oh allow me!" and opened my door with his key.  Just like that.  So much for tight security!!

The actual wedding was amazing -- very big, hundreds of people there, fancy, black tie.  It was one of the most amazing things I had ever seen.

 

 

   The food was SO GOOD. 

 The bride looked beautiful!

 

But the tragedy was that they didn't put out the desserts until just about 30 minutes before the reception was over, not so good.  I was able to stuff my face with enough sweets in record time, though.

Catching up... Summer in America

After a busy summer, I figured I could do one catch up post with a photographic summary of my summer.

Here goes!

Our summer in China ended with our friends, Jeff and Olivier, visiting.  We did lots of fun things...

Here we are at Tianyi

 At Starbucks, of course!

 In Tiananmen Square

 At the Great Wall

 

 

 

 Soon after our friends left we went to America to visit our family and friends for the summer.  First stop was FLORIDA!

 Mmm first meal -- Shake Shack =)

 

 Sightseeing in Miami included going to visit my Alma Mater, University of Miami.

 

 Also, we were able to meet up with some of our new friends from China during our American tour.  Here we are eating Cuban food with David...

We also saw and explored Coral Castle in Homestead.  Coral Castle is a strange house made out of limestone by one man all by himself.  He quarried the stone himself and lifted large rocks, some almost 9 tons.  It's mysterious and interesting and I encourage anyone to go check it out.  His views on women were a little f-ed up, though...

 

 

 Our Florida adventures included a trip to Key West!  Here we are parasailing...

and snorkeling...

Here are some miscellaneous pictures from Key West...

 Ernest Hemingway House...

 Hemingway collected 6-toed cats (strange).. Here is one!

 Sunset on the last night...

 Next we visited Mom on the west coast of Florida.  Here we are eating Greek food in Tarpon =) Yum!

 Here we are with my Aunt Betty and Uncle Von =)

 My lifelong friend Bobby was able to get us some tickets to see the Rays play (twice!), and even gave us a tour of the studio where all the magic happens!  We had so much fun =)

 I made it out to Orlando for the day to see my little man Brody! He is getting so big.

 With Maggie and Jose, more lifelong friends =)

 Then... ROADTRIP!  We drove with Mom to North Carolina to meet my sister and her family for a week of mountainous adventures.

 

 Stopping in Atlanta on the way up to see another China friend (and former vegan! she ate pork!! ha ha), Jess.

 FINALLY saw the kids!!!

 Here we are riding the ski lift up the mountain to then ride the alpine slide down.

 Here is Chris, poised to slide down the mountain...

 My niece/bff Aubry ice skating

 Here is Chris, helping Austin with his first ice skating experience.

 Here is the tram we rode... Beautiful scenery!

 Dinner at the Bear Lodge! =)

 My newest nephew, Cameron!  Cutie!

 Here is Aubry with some natives... ha ha just kidding, we are at the museum.

 This is the only picture I have of our cousins we met up with in Asheville.

 Going to see the waterfalls on our last day

 Pretty!

After Florida we went to New York, where we had a delicious car service pick us up (thanks Olivier!).  We felt so fancy.

 This is the view my first night back, with Olivia at her friend's house (no pictures of us two that night! what a shame!)

The first weekend in NYC I went with Aunt Viv and Anna up to Penn State to eat ice cream.  That's right.  We drove for hours and hours, JUST for ice cream.  It was totally worth it, too.

 

 We passed through Amish country...

 This is real, folks.  Amish country is in a town called Intercourse.  Let's not ask questions.

In August we took a short trip to Washington DC and I had lots of free time by myself so I went to the monuments and museums.

Unfortunately, I don't have many pictures of friends in NYC from the summer and I'm not sure why.  I like to think I was just too busy enjoying being around everyone to think about taking pictures!  I really hope I didn't delete a bunch on accident.... Oh well, here is a great one of dinner right before Courtney got attacked by a huge roach. Mmmm I miss NYC...