New York & Philadelphia

One of Dan’s good friend’s at work was getting married in New Jersey and we thought  that would be a good excuse to go to New York City and Philadelphia.  We stayed on Manhattan Island near Time Square and we had an absolute blast.

Here we are the day we got in New York.  We checked into our hotel and hit the streets . . . .  However we forgot our camera at home so the first thing we did was buy a camera so that we could take all these wonderful pictures.

We got pretty hungry as we started walking around so we stopped at little Thai Restaurant for dinner.  It was pretty yummy!!

We walked to Central Park, but it was pretty dark so we decided to just stop for a little while at the southern part and then headed towards Rockefeller Center.

But. . . we were tempted by the look of the pretty cupcakes at a little shop so we stopped for some dessert, a coconut cupcake.

We found Rockefeller Center so we headed for the elevator to get a view of the city from above.

The Empire State Building was lit with green lights in celebration of something about trees . . . ?? Can’t remember exactly.

It was a little windy and chilly up there, but it was an amazing view.

The next morning we walked to the harbor and took a 2 hour semi-circle harbor tour around Manhattan to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.  We didn’t make it on the two smaller islands. . . that will have to be on the next trip.

The cruise was pretty cool and it was fun to see the island from the water versus the street where you had to look up to see anything.  Except . . .

 

. . . we had this “brick wall” sitting between us and the island for the first half of the tour so it was kind of hard to take some pictures.

Luckily he finally moved!

Behind me is Ellis Island.

You’ll have to pardon the hair, it was a little windy. 

The Statue of Liberty

We walked back to Central Park after the Harbor tour.  On the way we stopped and had street food . . . a yummy gyro.  We met some of Dan’s friends/co-workers and their wives and then took the subway down to Little Italy for some pizza at Lombardi’s.  That pizza was the best I think I’ve ever had!! Fresh tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, Yum! Yum!

Then off to the Museum of Modern Art.  Guess the artist. . . . Yep Picasso!

Can’t forget about the famous Campbell’s Soup Cans . . .

Yew! Time for a break at Bryant Park.  This was really close to our hotel and a nice place to relax.

Ahh, how romantic!! They’re at the top of the Empire State Building.  Looks like they got a little too much sun on their Harbor Cruise/Tour!!

Off to Philadelphia

We left New York City on Saturday morning on the Amtrak.  Once we got into Philadelphia we took the subway to the airport and rented a car to get to our hotel and the wedding the next day.

In Philadlephia we didn’t do a whole lot but we did go to Independence Hall and see the Liberty Bell.

Dan outside of Independence Hall.

The Liberty Bell

  

We couldn’t leave Philadelphia without eating a Philly Cheesesteak.  We actually ate them twice during out stay.  They were a little greasy, but tasty!

The Pool. . . It’s Almost Done!!

Well the pool is supposed to be done in about 2 days and boy are we super, super excited!!

The pavers around the pool are complete along with the tile.  Here are a few pictures to show the beautiful work:

Tomorrow they come to do the Pebble Tec.  Then Tuesday they acid wash the Pebble Tec and then start filling it up!!  I am definitely not looking forward to the water bill for this month . . . . . But I’m sure excited to start swimming!!

The Building Continues. . .

After the plumbing was all done, they came to place all the rebar.  They did this in one day!  Pretty amazing.

 

After the rebar, the pool had to be inspected by the city.  Once we passed the inspection, the shotcret came next.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The problem with the shotcret is that it takes a couple days to cure and you have to water it a couple of times during the day to slow the curing process. 

Here’s Dan watering the pool.  We were even lucky enough to have Anna come help us one day to keep it nice and moist!!

They are now working on the coping around the pool for the pavers.  You can’t see that well in this picture, but they have the pavers placed along the raised wall.  Oh and look at the waterfall!!  It’s all coming together; can’t wait to start swimming!!

Make sure to check back soon because as I am blogging this, I can hear the workers outside cutting more pavers!!

Hiking

Sara, Lowell, and I decided to go and hike Squaw peak.  Dan decided that it was too early in the morning to get up on a Saturday so I left him at home to sleep.  In fact I left, hiked the mountain, and got back before he even got out of bed!!  Anyway, it was a fun hike.  It’s about 1.5 miles one way and it is pretty much all straight up (goes up to around 1200 feet in elevation).  It was crazy to see all the people there that were hiking.  Some more ran up and down than hiked.  In fact some crazy people we saw run up and down more than once!! WOW!!

Here are some pictures from the hike:

Lowell, Sara, and Mary about 3/4 of the way to the top.

“Yeah, I made it to the top!!”

 

Yep, Sara made it too!!

Look at the view! It makes the hike so worth it!

 

The next weekend we decided to go hike Quartz Peak.  It’s supposed be a double dose of Squaw Peak.  We left around 5 in the morning in order to get to the trailhead  before the heat of the day started to set in.  It was about a 40 minute drive according to the directions we found.  However it took us about 2 1/2 to 3 hours to find the trailhead.  You have to take a bunch of dirt roads and there aren’t really any signs pointing you in the right direction.  Since it was nearly 8 am by the time we got to the trailhead we decided we better not start the hike.  It’s about 3 miles one way and goes up to over 2,000 feet high.  Also there were these tiny black flies that covered you when you were outside.  There was a constant buzzing around your head.  I don’t think any of us could have dealt with that all the way to the top!! 

Since we couldn’t hike Quartz Peak we then just went to the Estrella Mountain Park and did the Baseline Trail.  This one is only about 2.4 miles round trip and is pretty flat.  It was also probably good we didn’t hike Quartz Peak because on the Baseline trail Harrison kept saying, “this hike is annoying!”

Well, better luck next time!!

Building A Pool

So the good news is. . . .we are finally building our pool in the backyard.  This is something that Dan and I have been dreaming of since we ever thought about buying a house.  Needless to say, we are SUPER EXCITED!!

Anyway as we go through the process we have decided to try and take some pictures of the different stages so that we can document this awesome transformation of our backyard.

So here it is before they have started anything in our backyard.  We forgot to take a picture of our front yard before Dan had to rip out three of our plants and move the rocks.  Oh well. . .

Our side yard. . .

The layout of the pool . . .

 

Say good-bye to the grass!

This is after Day 1 of excavation.  They left all their big equipment in our backyard overnight.   It was kind of crazy to see the equipment along with the quick transformation of the backyard.

Day 2 of excavation:  It only took them two days to dig the gargantuan hole that is now our backyard.  WOW!!

The deep end will be 7 feet deep when it’s all done.

Boy am I excited to be swimming in that deep end!!

Plumbing:  They finished the plumbing in one quick day. 

However they’re going to have to come fix the placement of the pool equipment because they have taken up half of our side yard and that definitely wasn’t the plan!!

 

Say tuned for the next stage of building the Merrill pool. . . rebar.  Wohoo!!