Sitting Under the Stars with Fireflies

 

Yes, that is exactly how we spent our 4^th of July weekend this year. We went to Indianapolis and we had a great time with Matt’s family. We did the usual, eat hot dogs, cheeseburgers, rode jet skis, made smores and  listened to good ole oldies music.

We were able to sit around at the pool for three days and not do anything. It was great! 

There was a boat parade over the river on the 4th of July. Everyone in the neighborhood gets to show their patriotism and spirit by decorating their boats. The theme of this year was M*A*S*H.

Later that night we watch the kids play with their sparklers and then we headed to the river deck and watched the fireworks. What I loved the most was sitting there in silence seeing the fireworks over the calm water and then looking around and seeing the fireflies. It was priceless!

It was great to spend time with family, especially now that we have a little nephew on the way. Matt’s sister Jessica is pregnant. We are so excited for her and Josh.

The following week Matt had a week vacation, so we decided to rent a car when we came back from Indy and head to upstate New York.  My poor husband is going crazy in the City. He is definitely a Southern boy and loves to be outdoors. 

 

I have to say we were a little disappointed with the view from the U.S. side of the falls. The Canada side was much more beautiful. 

We crossed the bridge from the U.S side to the Canadian side. Matt was quite excited to be in Canada. 

On the border of U.S & Canada. When we got to the falls the weather was snot pleasant. First it started raining then the sun came out and we saw a rainbow right by the waterfalls. It was amazing. This was the first time Matt had seen a complete rainbow. 

We walked the rest the night and waited for the light show over the falls. 

 

Canada was fun but the I have to say the rest of our trip around upstate New York got even better the following days. I think I've come to love farms and ice cream shops. Will post more pics of the rest of our trip later.

Have you ever stumbled upon a nude beach?

Living in New York City has it's benefits but there has been many times where I just need to get out of the city. At times, both Matt and I feel suffocated by the tall buildings and the big masses of people. Don't get me wrong, I think I am finally getting why people like it here so much but there is nothing like being close to nature and the beach. After much discussion with our awesome friends Pat & Lindsay, we decided to go on a day trip to Fire Island, which is off the coast of Long Island. Our trip there was supposed to be only two hours but everyone knows that to do anything here takes forever. After taking the subway, the Long Island train and a ferry to the island, we finally arrived to the island after 4 hours...go figure.

Once we got to the Island, we just walked around and explore the place. The island is quite interesting. The roads are super small and the speed limit is only 8 miles. I guess the main reason for that is because the main form of transportation are actual bikes.

 Mr. & Mrs. Koelling

Fire Island Lighthouse

We decided to go look for the light house that is right by the beach. On our way there, Matt & Pat noticed three middle aged men that seemed to be walking naked. At first we thought they were just wearing some sort of thongs, but as we got closer we started to see more and more people that seemed to be naked. That is when it finally dawned on us that we entered a nude beach!!!!!!! In my head, I pictured a nude beach in an isolated area. However, this beach was just right next to a beach where there were families and people in bathing suits.

So of course what did we do…we keep walking in shock laughing like 5 year olds of the things we are seeing. The funny part of this is that I thought in my head we should turn back around and walk the way we came from, but for some reason we just could not do it. Lindsay was brave enough that she started taking pictures. As for me, I just could not do it…all I could think of is that I was invading people’s privacy. But wait…these people didn’t care about the privacy. That is what happens when four Mormon kids go on adventures to un-familiar places. I guess I can scratch that off my list of things to do...haha!

This picture just makes me laugh so hard. Pat & Matt just can't stop staring and Lindsay is making sure she got some photos to proof our crazy encounter.  

If you want to see some more in detail photos of the nude beach go to Pat & Lindsay's blog. They are really funny pictures. I wanted to put one of her pictures on this post but my husband was not too happy with this idea. 

After such interesting encounter, we hangout in the beach and then we walked all around the town to look the bay where we could go "clamming". Which is basically look for clams on the bay collect them and take them home to cook them (That is why you see Matt carrying an empty cooler). However, we looked all over and we could not find anything. By the end of it we were exhausted and we ended up in a clothed beach and relaxed for a few hours. 

We did not find clams but we did find a deer. Apperantly, there is a big population of deer in the island.

On our way home, while on the train, Lindsay & Pat pretended to be Matt's patients to help him study for his clinical skills exam two days later in Philly. Thanks Koelling's for the good times.

Hope the rest of you had a great memorial day weekend!

Winter Holiday

This post is long overdue. Since we've been all over the place, I haven't had the chance to post our pictures from our European adventure. Before we left England we visited France & Italy. Matthew's new favorite place is Venice and for me Roma will always have a special place in my heart.

Salam!

One day we decide to do something random so we settled on a nine day tour of Egypt. It was rad!!! In an earlier post I mentioned Hadrian's Wall, which was built around 122 AD, being very old. Hadrian was a baby compared to the ancient Egyptians. Many of the pyramids, tombs and temples we saw are estimated to be around 4000 years old. It's unbelievable, and in some of the pictures we are going to share with you the original colors on the hieroglyphics are still visible. We had some excellent Egyptologists who wet our appetite to learn more. One of them, Sam, explained the hieroglyphs so simply that it made me want to learn to read this ancient writing.

Cairo: We arrived here on our first day. This city quickly drains your energy. I think it was best described as an assault on the senses. What made it particularly draining was the incessant approaches of friendly Egyptians who wanted to take you to their friends shop to sell you stuff. Once in a conversation it was almost impossible to get out. Once we learned that we could ignore them and avoid eye contact we managed a bit better. Our guide said this was necessary. What would be rude in our culture is a key to tourist survival in Egypt.

We visited to the Great Pyramids on the Giza Plateau and were able to go inside the second pyramid. The entrance was a long corridor which was about 4 feet tall and 4 feet wide. It was hot! The corridor led to a large room which housed a sarcophagus. It felt a lot cooler when we got out even though the temperature was around 113 degrees Fahrenheit.

That night we took an overnight train (14 hour ride) to Aswan in the southern part of Egypt. The train had not been cleaned since the British left in the 1950s. We rode camels to a Nubian village where we had an authentic Nubian dinner and some dancing to the beat of the Nubian drums. The Nubians get their name from the Egyptian word Nub meaning gold.


Abu Simbel: Temples for Ramesses II and his wife Nefertari. These two temples were relocated in the 1960s piece by piece from their original location due to the construction of the Aswan High Dam. The temples would have been flooded by Lake Nasser, the lake created by the Dam construction.

That same day we boarded our Felucca, an ancient Egyptian sail boat, for our two day journey up the Nile river. Along with the Nubian village, this was our favorite part of the whole trip. No showers or bathrooms for two days, but we swam in the cool Nile river. You had to do your business wherever you could find an isolated area.

Our motorless boat glided smoothly along the Nile river and made us feel like we were floating on the clouds. We completely forgot what day it was and had no care in the world. Our crew fed us Egyptian food and were such nice people. Although there was a language barrier we had the universal language of football (soccer) and played Nubia vs. The World on one of our stops.


After sailing on the Felucca we arrived in Luxor where we visited the ancient Egyptian temples of Karnak and Luxor.


The next morning we awoke before sunrise to enjoy a hot air balloon ride over Luxor. We were able to see Queen Hatshepsut's temple from the air.


One of our favorite places was the Valley of the Kings. Since the pyramids were so visible and therefore easily robbed the Pharaohs chose this valley to place their tombs instead of pyramids. You can see from one of the photos that the mountain at the end of the valley forms a pyramid. Inside the mountains are about 60 tombs. Each tomb has a long passageway and they are elaborately decorated. Tuthmosis III had a pit in his passageway to entrap any thieves who may have been looking for his tomb.The colors painted inside are all original but no photography was allowed. It was amazing!

We also visited Queen Hatshepsut's temple. She was originally a woman but then she convinced everyone she was a man in order to become a Pharaoh.

Luxor: Queens Valley Hotel Rooftop View

Hope to see you soon.

Hallo & Hoi

On Sunday we sailed off on a cruise across the North Sea to Amsterdam. At first, we were a little hesitant about going but once we got there we loved the city. The cruise was overnight and we arrived to Amsterdam in the morning. We took a bus to the City Centre.

We took a canal cruise through the canals that intertwine through the city.

Some people have house boats that they park in the canals. They live there. Pretty neat.

This is the thinnest apartment in Amsterdam. You are taxed based on the width of your property. So it makes sense to be thin.

Notice the hoist beam on the top of the buildings. Since the buildings are thin so are the hallways. It is difficult to move furniture in and out so everything goes through the windows with the help of these beams.

There were tons of bicycles. Everyone rides a bike. There are 750,000 inhabitants in the city center and 1 million bicycles. Interestingly, they still have 100,000 bike thefts a year. But that is because when someone takes your bike you just take someone elses.

We were amazed how everyone rides a bike to work, school, etc. The city is laid out so that wherever there is a street for cars there is a very nice bike path alongside. The bikes even have their own traffic light.

We visited the Anne Frank House. I've been wanting to go there since I learned about it in my 3rd grade history class. It was a profound experience.

We were running short on time and walked through the city for the rest of the time. We saw the Bloemenmarkt flower market,

the Dam Square where they had some kids playing in an organized beach soccer league.

I decided to jump into a dutch clog.

Then we went back to the ship. Had some fun and watched Iron Man in the ship's Cinema. I felt so bad for Matt, he had the sniffles and made some funny faces throughout the whole trip.

We arrived back in England this morning and it was still raining just the way we had left it. It has been quite sunny lately it doesn't rain all the time.