Summer Lovin' (Part 2)

And now to complete the second half of my summer travels...

After Virginia we headed to upstate NY where I gave my first professional piano concert. It went really well and they want me to come back in January and next summer if I can. I don't have any pictures from the actual recital (sorry!) but I will eventually...I just don't know when that will be, patience is a virtue you know, or so I've heard...

The town (city?) where I gave the concert was really old with lots of history...

I took these pictures the morning we left for Indiana to head to my grandparents house. There were quite a few of these old abandoned factory buildings which I found fascinating. This particular one was across the street from a nice little Italian restaurant where we had dinner following my performance. The restaurant was one my mom had actually been to before, it was where her grandparents had celebrated one of their wedding anniversaries (I believe it was their 50th), so it was neat for her to be back there again. The town was full of giant old houses too, which I absolutely love.

On our way to Indiana, we realized that Niagara Falls was not too far out of the way (16 miles to be exact), so we decided to visit them since Laura (my sister) and I had never been...
These are the "American falls"

This one is just a pretty part of the river on the path towards the Horseshoe falls...


Looking over the railing...such a pretty site, there's even a rainbow!


And finally the Horseshoe falls...


They were ridiculously loud and the water was flowing super fast...I really don't know how anyone survived going over them in a barrel, but according to the history signs posted around the falls more than one person has done it...crazy people.

After NY came Indiana, we stayed there for a day to rest and relax a bit and then headed up to Chicago for my job interview...it went well but I won't be working there since I am now living in the city and not a suburb, as was originally planned. So from Chicago we headed home...stayed the night in Minnesota somewhere, then met up with James (my brother) in SD where he lives, ate lunch with him, and then we finished our journey that afternoon. We made it home right before a giant storm hit...here is a pic of the sweet clouds that we saw...this is about an hour southeast-ish of where I live...


Neat huh? Anyway, that was my really long trip along the East coast...

My other adventure this summer took me to the West coast. I went there to visit Alex, who happens to be my boyfriend. We hadn't seen each other for about 3 months so I was well over-due for a visit. I was there for about a week and in that time we went to an aquarium, a beach, a Bach concert, and San Francisco. I also spent a day in San Francisco with Sarah Lu, who is a friend from TU...she's great and we had a fantastic day in the city.
Here we are (behind the ferry building I think)...


This was the view as we sat by the pier eating lunch(clam chowder!)...The tall structure in the middle that sort of looks like a castle turret is called Coit Tower, I had been there the previous day with Alex.


Pier 39...


We saw a lot of other things too, including a "live" statue, which was just a man who looked like a statue but moved every couple of minutes or so...creepy.

This is from Coit tower the day before I saw Sarah Lu...


It was dang cold up there! The last full day I was there we went to the beach where we saw...

Crabs! There is actually more than one in this pic if you look closely you can find 3 others besides the big one in the crevice...

They are sort of creepy but still cool.

Here are some other pics from the beach...

I'm not really sure what I'm doing here...


I'm a fan of this one...


The following day I flew home and that was the conclusion of my summer traveling adventures. I think it was a grand way to end the summer, I left for Chicago a week later and that trip was quite an experience, but I'll leave that for another time.

Thanks for "tuning" in...
Next time: Chicago! :-)

Summer Lovin' (Part 1)

Summer is almost over and I am about to embark on a new adventure. Before that happens though, I will give a brief recap of what took place in my life the past few months. This will come in two installments because a lot happened this summer and two semi-long posts are better than one ridiculously long post.

Most of my summer was spent traveling, the first stop along the way was Georgia. This is where my older brother's wedding ceremony was this past June. Although he and his wife had already been married a year, they never had an actual ceremony. SO, they decided to have a wedding which meant all of the family could get together. Also, since our two families had never actually met each other, it was a good opportunity to get to know them and vice versa.

We saw an awesome sunset on the way down there, I think we were in TN at the time:


This is the immediate family on both sides (plus grandparents) with the bride and groom:

Not a great pic, but it gives you an idea. Here is the happy couple:



Enough of that endeavor, next stop: Virginia! We actually stopped in NC along the way to visit my friend Christina who lives there. It was great because we didn't have to go out of our way and we had a superb lunch at Panera, although seeing Christina was definitely the highlight of that short stop. My Uncle Brad, his wife Deb, and their two kids Jacqueline and Jonathan live in Virginia (DC area) and that is who we stayed with while we were there for 3 weeks. We made trips into the city a few times and also visited Mt. Vernon while we were there. Since the sites of DC and Mt. Vernon are easily found on the internet, I feel no need to post those pictures. However, here are some of the fam and such...

This is Jacqueline and Jonathan, he has a love for making silly faces:


This is everyone: my fam on the left, my uncle and their fam on the right and then Stephen, his wife Crystal, and their 3 children are in the middle. Stephen is my mom's cousin. They came to visit and have dinner one night while we were there because they live in Maryland, just a couple hours away.


Here we are waiting for the fireworks in DC. We were sitting on the lawn of the Pentagon since my Uncle works there, so we had special privileges :-) The umbrella indicates that it was stormy, but the show went on! My cousins illustrate their excitement with silly faces:

The fireworks show was impressive, despite the smoke and clouds. It was a great way to end our time in Virginia and that was basically the first half of my summer road-trip. Our next stop was upstate New York where I gave my very first "official" piano concert. It was pretty exciting...but that will come in the second part of my summer adventure series...so stay tuned! ;-)