Summer in the City

What I loooveee about New York in the summer is all the fun times I get to spend outside and all the free fun events that are offered! Let me tell you every night of the week there is something exciting to do here in nyc...constantly all over the city are movies in the park-the most special was when me, Mike and Emily saw "Stand By Me" in Brooklyn at the waterfront overlooking the Manhattan skyline and having this shared experience with thousands of other young adults who were also touched by this movie in their childhood....how many good scenes are there!! Ahh I love that movie! Ok so also summers here are known for the abundance of free concerts in parks all over the city, from no names to Miley Cyrus you name it. That is just a few things that I love about summers here...anyhow so here we are in Central park where we tanned...bc there is no private outside space here in the city, to tan we get in our bikinis and go to Central Park! Later that night we, prompted by a good friend, went to see Bon Jovi, (for free) at the "historic concert" in the great lawn (everyone was saying that...this a historic concert..I guess bc only 4 have been performed of that size in the park.)There were 50,000 ppl there...and who knew I even liked Bon Jovi, I mean I NEVER had a cd or anything, but its funny how much we absorb in our youth...because I could sing along to EVERY song..."shock to the heart", "bad medicine"....and on and on...so here are some pics that I love of that night...this one of just me because I look like I am having the time of my life..Mike took it soo funny! And this other one where Mike is singing his heart out! It was Emily's highlight of the trip!
It was nice to be able to share so many special and exciting memories with my sister...I know she will remember our summer together forever-I was so touched that she wanted to share half of her summer with her big sister.

Family Time!!!

So what an eventful few months we have had...June started with Mike's family visiting for a week, which was fun-we got caught in a rainstorm 2xs each time getting soaked but as my sister in law Stepo says "When else would we be able to run though New York in the rain", true! Then we had Neil our good friend from SF visit, it was refreshing to spend time with an old friend, though we missed his wife Britt. And most recently my Mom and sister Emily were here. It was soooo good to see my mom, it had been over 6 months, which is way too long, and the longest we had ever gone without seeing each other. To be honest I am not a "missy" type of person, I mean I love my friends and family but even being this far away I don't often get homesick...well until I realized after about 4 months, then its been too long. So It was amazing to spend time with my moma...we spent the first week here in NYC and just doing regular stuff that I like to do, have picnics in the park, go to the beach...and then we spent a few days in Boston, where me and my mom lived years and years ago. It was nice to have that girl time-it was just me, my mom and sis, and my mom's old friend and her daughter, who we stayed with. It was nice to be in Boston and nice to reminisce-I saw my old preschool, which was surprisingly a bit emotional, not that I cried but it felt nostalgic in a special way. To be honest I think alot of the emotion was that Boston was the last place we lived with my dad (my biological father-for those of you who don't know I have 2 dads :), so it was kinda hard to remember some of those times, but good. It was good to have a new perspective of my childhood as an adult looking back.
So then after all that adventure my mom went back to Cali and my sister Emily stayed here for 2 weeks by herself, it was a fun and sweet time. Wow has my baby sister grown, she is now a "tween" (you know that phrase people are using for teenagers) anyhow so I was so impressed by her, she is truly growing into an independent beautiful young woman filled with personality and opinions!
I will share a few of our adventures on the next post for now enjoy this cute photo of us, me,em and my good friend dawn, chowing down on fries...that by the way we got for free..we had noticed them on the counter waiting to be picked up by the person that ordered them and were like "wow those look good" and the customer heard us and was like "take them we ordered two" of course we at first refused but then gave in, who could reject a huge bowl of fresh fries!!!