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I usually like to take a trip right before school starts. I remember visiting Bushkill Falls with my family when I was younger. I thought it would be fun to visit again with my family. We stayed at a Homewood Suites in Allentown/Bethlehem. They had a hot tub! 🙂

Bushkill Falls was nice but very touristy! The waterfalls were very pretty and we did a bit of hiking but there were definitely more people around than I am used to!

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We ventured up to Storm King Art Center in the Hudson Valley. I’ve always wanted to check it out and glad we finally got the chance (despite getting a speeding ticket afterwards, on the way to dinner! coughSpeedTrapcough) It is a beautiful area! Zhang Huan was the artist on exhibit but many artists were showcased as well.

We went to dinner in Tarrytown since it was on the way home. This is when I got the speeding ticket. Yes, technically I was speeding but I feel it was unfair as it was all downhill and I was coasting! And I actually had to go to court for this to the town of Highlands (October!) Aaah! It was super annoying to have to drive up there as it took me close to 3 hours due to morning rush hour. The drove home was much faster. $150 and a day of my time. It could have been worse! Anyway, we went to Little B’s. They have a make your own burger option and Parmesan truffle fries! YUM!

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Here are some shots we took while enjoying the boat ride around the Lake.

After the tour, we drove over to Asheville. The ride was a bit curvy and although Asheville wasn’t very far, it took longer because of that. During our stay, we have come to drive a bit on the same road. There is a town called Batcave and I kept meaning to take a photo of the sign but never did. Drat! Anyway, Asheville is a cute little college type, hippie like town. Very similar to Berkeley and Austin.

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Look who came to visit us!

Later on, we had some sparkler fun on the balcony!

Then it got dark!

And I was having fun with this open shutter app on my iphone! Set 1

Set 2

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We went on another hike! This time with our favorite family (now I worry that Sienna will find hiking with just me and Yves to be boring! LOL). My friend Ingrid, an avid hiker, suggested Sandy Hook, NJ because it opens up onto the beach. We met our friends there. It was really nice, although cold! I found lots of pretty rocks and there were lots of photo ops. The photos say a lot so there probably won’t be a lot of words.

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Fall is my favorite time of year so we decided to go view some pretty foliage upstate and have a picnic. We had only been to Bear Mountain once before, a very long time ago when me and Yves first started dating. So, yeah, it’s been awhile! We made sandwiches and packed a lunch. They were also having Oktoberfest while we were there and thought it would be something fun to check out. It took about 1.5-2 hours to drive up there and we weren’t really sure which entrance to use. We ended up going into the parking area where they were catering to the Oktoberfest people. We didn’t know where else to go so found a picnic table to have our lunch. After we ate, we went exploring. We found a carousel!

After the carousel ride, we walked along the beautiful lake. The Oktoberfest was held along the lake. Lots of people holding big steins for their beer! There were also vendors selling stuff but we kept away from all of that. Too many people! While walking, we discovered that they had a zoo! And it was free!

We also came across another beautiful view!

We came across a statue of Walt Whitman, the other WW.

Sienna posing on a rock herself!

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The last weekend of September, we finally made it to Governor’s Island. It was the last weekend it was going to be open. It was a beautiful day! We just made the ferry from Pier 6 and took the 5 minute ride over to the island. We hadn’t been there since it first opened, before Sienna was born.

Smilebooth was there, a photobooth, so me and Sienna, the hams that we are, tried it out. I’m bummed that our photos cannot be seen online. For some reason, the date we were there is not online. So here is a screen capture of our hamminess.

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In February, we went to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens with Peter. As I recall, it was a pleasant winter day. There wasn’t much blooming at that time yet but it was nice to spend some time outdoors. Sienna had the camera for a little bit and here are some of the photos she took. I’ll have to make a new watermark for her since she writes her name a little differently now!

I LOVE this self portrait!

Some goofy self portraits!


And here are some of mine. It’s been awhile since I’ve been out shooting just to shoot. It was fun!

I love how the petals look like butterfly wings!

I didn’t notice until editing the photo, but I love how the leaf on the lower right looks like an arrow pointing to the middle! Love these little surprises!

They were looking at Peter while he was taking their photo. I like how they aren’t looking at me.

This woodpecker was pecking away!

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On Friday, Yves and I celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary! 10 years ago on Friday, we went to Vegas to get married and a handful of our friends and family joined us. We had planned it earlier that year as October is my favorite month. It was nice to get so many well wishes on my Facebook page. Our friend, Rob, who went to Vegas with us, reminded us of how his room in the Tropicana hotel had mirrors on the ceiling! LOL! He also wanted to make note that he did not request the mirrors! HA! Yeah, ok! 🙂 Anyway, we celebrated on Friday by going to Morton’s Steakhouse. I knew of the place, having bought a gift card for friends Bill and Laura, who were moving from New York to Chicago a few years ago (all the cdmomers chipped in!). Our friend, Jana, highly recommended the place so we said, why not?

Here’s the photo they took of us. The service was wonderful and everyone wished us a happy anniversary. The food was so good! I am still full from the dinner on Friday! We opted for the steak and seafood special. They started us off with warm onion bread. I could have easily eaten the whole thing! But I only cut off 2 pieces! I ordered the chopped salad and Yves got the caesar. I love that salad! It was so delicious! I’m going to have to attempt to make that at home. I got the Shrimp Alexander with my filet mignon. The shrimp was jumbo, lightly breaded with a butter wine sauce. MMMM. I also ordered the brussel sprouts sauteed in bacon and shallots! Yves got the lump crab cake with his filet and the grilled asparagus with balsamic glaze. I was already half way full when our entrees came! I was only able to eat half of my warm chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream! It was so good but I felt like I was going to burst! Yves got carrot cake. It was very light and fresh but it had cloves in it, something that Yves doesn’t like. If it wasn’t for that, it would be the perfect carrot cake! He ended up taking home the carrot cake. It’s too bad I couldn’t take the warm chocolate cake home!

My chopped salad, you can see the onion bread in the back!

Sorry for the bad vegetable photos but I just wanted to make sure I document them. We ended up taking them home too.

Afterwards we had originally thought of going to check out a movie. Going to the movies is not something we do often since Yves has unofficially banned going to movies. He ALWAYS seems to get stuck sitting by the noise makers! But since it was a special occasion, we were thinking of giving it a go. Well, we were so stuffed from dinner that sitting down for a movie did not appeal to us. We had to walk it off! So we decided to walk down to the Brooklyn Promenade. It was very nice! We haven’t been down there in awhile. We also took a few night shots, which we used to love doing!

All in all, a very nice evening! Oh, here is the card I made for Yves too! Very simple.

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