Happy Thanksgiving

Just wanted to give a quick wish of warmth and love on this Thanksgiving Day!

I'm so very thankful for every person that I have in my life, friends, family, pets, etc. I pray that you all have as blessed a thanksgiving as ever!!!

Love you,

Jess

Isaiah 65:17-19

New Heavens and a New Earth

17 "Behold, I will create

new heavens and a new earth.

The former things will not be remembered,

nor will they come to mind.
18 But be glad and rejoice forever

in what I will create,

for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight

and its people a joy.

19 I will rejoice over Jerusalem

and take delight in my people;

the sound of weeping and of crying

will be heard in it no more."

A Manhattan Adventure

Well I certainly had quite the adventure on Sunday. It was the day after the wedding and I was taking Forever Friend and her Husband down to JFK for their flight to San Diego. I had made arrangements to take God Daughter to the Central Park Zoo in Manhattan, but none of us had a chance to print directions to there or the airport.

We miraculously made it to the airport and got them squared away and then Forever Friend had me use her phone to map quest the directions into the City. I got them all written down (had a writers cramp after) and God Daughter and I were on our way. About an hour later, I made it into Manhattan and was driving around looking for somewhere to park. I had found a spot but realized after I parked that there was no parking there, including Sundays. At the same moment that I noticed the sign and man came out of the building I was parked in front of and I asked him where the nearest public parking garage was. He told me it was only two blocks away.

I made it to the parking garage on the corner of E 68th and Lexington, the Imperial Parking Garage. Sounds so noble, huh? Got God Daughter and all of her things together and began the 5 block trek to the Central Park Zoo. Keep in mind the blocks in NYC are smaller than the ones in Albany so it really wasn't that bad of a trek. What made it interesting though was that God Daughter didn't want to walk so I had her on my shoulders the whole time.

We got to the zoo and she was so excited. Walking around and looking for the gate we saw a sign that said last tickets sold at 4:30pm. I looked for my cell phone and it was 4:51pm. I knew I needed to make this up to her somehow. She was very disappointed that she didn't get to see the "aminals." So I decided we would go to FAO Schwartz. If you have never been there, it is 3 floors of majorly impressive toy store!!! But I'll get back to that in a minute. I started heading down 5th avenue in search of FAO Schwartz. I had never been there and was never able to find it when I went to the city...maybe I wasn't really looking that hard for it but I had heard it was incredibly fun! So I began asking street vendors if they knew where it was. When I saw the puzzled look on their faces I explained it's the really big toy store. A couple didn't know so God Daughter and I continued on.

We passed by a really big brass band. It had about 3 trombones, a tuba, some trumpets and they were really, really good! There was a child in the band (I'm assuming it was a family/friend thing) who couldn't have been more than 5 years old and another no more than 8, both playing trombones. So we listened to them for a while and continued on our way. I finally asked one more vendor if she knew where the store was. Again I explained that it was the really big toy store and she pointed across the street and said, "Did you try over there? That's a big toy store over there." I thanked her over and over again and we made our way across the street.

At this point my shoulders were throbbing and I was glad for the relief of God Daughter walking on her own. As we entered the store there were massive amounts of people all being greeted by someone dressed up like a giant toy soldier. Once inside, there were toys everywhere! It seemed like they were stacked floor to ceiling with displays everywhere! God Daughter immediately made her way to a display of Accredited dog breed stuffed animals...Translation...$25.00 for a little stuffed k9! I told her we'd look around and maybe we would come back to it.

We made our way past a huge candy store section, past the Make Your Own Muppet section and down the escalator to the toddler section. There she found a ball that she liked that was pink and had "sunny flowers" on it. She opted to get it and I was okay with that choice. Then we made our way up to the third floor and checked out the giant stuffed animal zoo display (she did kind of get to see the zoo after all) and all of the other toy displays. They had the Barefoot Reading Room and we opted for a book called Shopping With Dad. It's really cute!

One last stop and we would be ready to head home. When I checked out in the Barefoot Reading Room I made sure I asked about the Big Piano. Thankfully it was still open and we made it just in time for the second to last group of children to make their music on the Big Piano. We got in line and got her shoes off as I prepared my camera. I wasn't about to miss that! She had a blast dancing away on the Big Piano as the keys lit up and sang notes underneath her.

I think that everything kind of wore her out. She needed to sit and rest. As God Daughter was dancing on the Big Piano I suddenly realized that I had not gotten directions OUT of the city!!! And my cell phone was dead at this point. I asked a clerk if she knew where I could get a map nearby. She said I could just talk to their concierge and he should be able to help me.

Wait...This STORE has a concierge???

Yes it did!!! And he had a map! And he gave me directions to the thruway! I was amazed. I wasn't going to end up stuck and lost in the city all night! So I left the store with God Daughter and bags in tow. We were hungry at this point so we got some NYC stand hot dogs and hailed a cab. "Imperial Garage E 68th and Lexington please." I actually felt like I knew what I was doing at that point. Back to the garage and then on our way home!

We were absolutely exhausted by the time we got home and no wonder because it was almost 11:00pm! Got God Daughter settled and into bed and I quickly followed suit.

And that is the Sunday Adventure I had!

Some Silly Girls

I think there very well may be a new band at Grace Chapel!!! Move over Isaiah... There's some tough competition with these ladies. :)

We've got Becky on the Congas...

Talia on the keyboard...

And Gnat rockin the drums...

This is the next blow up band from Grace Chapel in Ravena... With their faces, hair, and talent, they're sure to give the crowd a good show!!!

Even Becky wonders..."Hey, how could you not love us???"

This is they're new album cover artwork... pretty creative if you ask me (but I didn't think of it.)

And at least we know they get along...

Well...most of the time anyway...

I am sure that you ladies will kill me but I could not resist posting these pictures!!! I think they're so much fun!!! :)

Bridal Shower Part 2

So I thought this was absolutely adorable! We had enough ribbons and bows to make three hats!!! One for the bride to be, one for God daughter...



And one for NayNay! :) She erupted into fits of laughter when wearing that hat!!!



I have absolutely no idea if this is what's happening here or not, but it cracked me up because it looks like Amy is hitting the bride to be in the head with a paper plate!

Miss Annie and Miss Barbara enjoying the festivities. Poor Barb...with the broken thumb!!! Thankfully she's got the cast off and was able to attend the wedding without the extra pounds on her arm!!! Yay!

And these are all of the shower pictures I have until I can get the pictures from my mom. Hope you enjoyed! :)

Bridal Shower

Well this is a post that I had promised a long time ago!!! It feels like forever since I talked about doing this post but haven't had any time to do it since I've been so busy with wedding things. But now that Jake and Jessica are finally married and I'm on vacation, I'll be able to get back to blogging!!! Yay!!!

So without further ado...

These are the boring food and drink tables...nothing special here...

This was the prize table. The little girl flower basket was part of a game. It was filled with red and ivory m&m's. Each person had to guess how many were in the basket. The closest guess won one of the prize bags that I assembled from Bath and Body Works (I found so many good smelling things that I even walked out of the store with things for myself...).

And this was her delicious cake... yummy!

Well, that's about it for now. I'll try and post more later. I need to double check my way through the pictures though and see what else I have that's good...

Night!

Dancing Like You've Never Seen Before

Well I got bored a couple weeks ago and created this video through www.jibjab.com.

I thought it was a lot of fun and had a blast in creating it. Jake thought it was absolutely hilarious as well as his sister and brother-in-law.

Hope you all enjoy too!!!