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!

Home

This past week I went home to Florida to spend a much needed time with my family. I miss them terribly and I hate coming back to my normal life away from them. It's so hard for me to be away from my little sisters, they are the world to me and in many ways they are like my own kids. I didn't take many pictures of my trip. I think I am having a love and hate relationship with my camera.

My sister Michelle asked me to take some pictures for her. I think she got the best beauty genes out of all of us. She has my mom's Latin personality and my step dad's beautiful eyes...or I guess you can say, she got the "gringo" genes from my step dad.

Seriously, look at those beautiful blue eyes.

And here is my little Penelope, with her beautiful dark hair.

Being able to spend Mother's Day with my mom this year was probably the best part of my trip. I am so grateful for her, for her love, kindness and for all the sacrifices that she has made for my family.

This past week made me appreciate my family much more. I think sometimes I get caught up in the daily routine of my life and sometimes I loose sight of what is truly important.

Happy Belated Mother's Day!

Pretending to be Olympic Skiers

I know we've been a bit behind on our blog and so here it is to those of you who have requested a new blog post. I've actually started to consider erasing our blog. The main reason we kept the blog was to document our lives in Grenada and England but now that we are back in the States there is really nothing exciting to share. But we will see, this is just an idea that I've had for a couple of days.

Winter is almost gone and we've loved every minute of it. I love to go out and walk around the city, especially on days when it snows, you really get to see the small little details that make New York City so unique.

While Matt was doing his surgery rotation, I used to have a routine walk to central park. And usually on my way back home I would meet Matt on his way home on his exit from the subway.

I know this photo is blurry but it resembles so much the craziness and late nights of surgery.

On another walk across the Brooklyn Bridge I came across something that someone wrote on a construction site and I laughed so hard when I saw it.

A couple of weeks ago we went on a day skiing trip north of the city. It was Matt's reward for finishing surgery rotation, or should I say for surviving 24hr call every third night at the hospital. We drove with some friends from church and I have to say we had a blast.


This was my first time skiing and Matt wanted to make my first time skiing perfect. So he got me to take some lessons and let me tell you, I've never felt so humiliated. I ran into my instructor twice because I didn't know how to stop with those silly skies. I am not going to lie, I did cry at one point since I felt like such an idiot...haha. The day got better as I keep practicing on the bunny slopes and then my hopes of being an Olympic skier were shattered when I saw 4 and 5 year old kids ski better than me.

Like I said the day got better but I think it had to do with the fact that our friend John was wearing a skiing suit that looked like he went back to the 80's. He actually pulled off the suit pretty well while doing some crazy moves. Needless to say, I am considering giving skiing another try. But I better start skiing like those 4 year olds...right.