You win some, you lose some, but everything happens for a reason.

2006 was not the year for me, cars and driving.


In April of 2006 I was rear ended and was pushed into the truck in front of me. (I don't have the pictures to post at work, but maybe I'll add them later.)

That car was totaled and not too long after that I bought a car off of a friend of my Abueals.

In June of 2006 I was turning left onto 9th street out of my neighborhood. For anybody who has tried to turn left out of our neighborhood, well, you know how impossible that can be. So as I was attempting to turn left, I didn't see a car that was coming and I was t-boned. Luckily Gods holy angels were surrounding me and my car (Reminds me of Gramma.) and I walked out of that (after blacking out.) with miner cuts and sores.












Needless to say, 2006 was not a good year for me and cars.


I was then given a manual car from a friend while I searched for a new car, but I was not too keen on the idea, so my brothers took over that car and I ended up with a 1989 Toyota Tercel that they were given. Joy! ha! Oh yeah and did I mention it has no air? In Florida....


After 1 1/2, or 2 years of driving that beast, I finally got the car of my dreams.

Our friends, the Devines, have been keeping Barry's dads car, (a 2000 Volvo S80) since he has not been driving. It took some long decision making, they finally decided to sell it to me. :) I'm very happy with the car and so glad that it worked out.


The old:



and the New:


Everything happens for a reason. Patience does pay off... And gives you something to have to pay off. Ha!

NY trip.

It's now Wednesday and I'm just now writing about my trip to NYC. Oops.

Thursday morning mom and I had the alarm set for 6am, but for some reason I was up at 5:55am and ready to get going. (This is rare. But excitement does things to you. haha) So we visited a little more with moms family and we heading off to White Plains, NY.

We got to our hotel around 8:30 and checked in so we could leave our bags in our room. We made it in time to catch our complimentary breakfast at the hotel, so that was a plus. Next up we were driven to the metro station and we bought our tickets and waited around for our metro train.

The metro trains are really cool. I have never been on one and I thought it was cool. We both enjoyed the ride. Although we tried not to look too touristic. That was a hard thing to mask because mom had a fanny pack on, but oh well. ;)

The train ride lasted about 40 minutes or so and in no time we arrived at Grand Central.

Grand Central is so neat! You just stand there in awe exploring every bit of beautiful architecture. It was really neat to be standing there in person because I've seen it in so many movies and it was really great to be able to really experience Grand Central Station and how busy it was.

After we left GCS we started walking into the city. For those of you who have been to NYC you know you walk everywhere and it's insane because there are so many people there. You walk across the street and sometimes you have to run in order to not be hit by a taxi or a crazy NY driver. I'm not even joking when I say crazy. They drive so fast and don't care if people are walking. Forget about pedestrians having the right of way. Ha!

The city is pretty neat, the buildings are beautiful and huge, although the atmosphere is a little odd at times. There is a lot of interesting people wandering the streets of NY, but I guess that's everywhere. Central Park was beautiful too.

Near the end of the day we walked past Hard Rock Cafe and I wanted to go there and look around, so we decided to just stay and get a drink, (well mom did, but I had to have a shake.) and relax a little bit. We decided to get the collectors cup which was a 24oz cup, so mom drank 24oz of some alcoholic beverage. It was funny because when we left she said to me, "Well now I'm feeling a little sluggish.". It wasn't too bad because we were getting tired and I really only wanted to see Time Square before we left, so off we went.

Time square is really, really neat. It's exactly like what you see in movies and it's a very neat thing to experience in person. I took tons of pictures and loved seeing all of the huge movie posters and how many normal restaurants are just shoved into these buildings. It was probably the highlight of the day.


I have some pictures to share and you can kind of get a feel for our experience. Here are the links. It's not letting me post it the way I want, so I had to C&P the link.

http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=201100547&k=ZVFXQ3S435VM5ACCUCZZTR

http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=201100547&k=Y6FX34P3UWYM5ACCUCZZTR

http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=201100547&k=Y3F3Z3T2T5YM5ACCUCZZTR

http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=201100547&k=Y4LT5WPZQ45M5ACCUCZZTR


We went to Albany, NY for a wedding. (That's why we were in NY in the first place.) So there are pictures from there as well. We had a great trip!! :)

In Connecticut...

Today was day one of my mini vacation.

Here's how our day went:

Mom and I got up this morning, gathered our things for NY and left the house around 9:15 to catch our flight at 10:40. We hadn't planned on checking in any bags since we were sharing a suitcase and we just had your normal carry-on bags. Oh how things change... We got to the airport and went through security only to then get taken aside because we had fluids in our bags. We ended up dealing with the most impatient lady I have ever had the pleasure of dealing with. It was quite irritating. We were not able to go through until she went through our whole suitcase and removed all liquids and then told us to go ALL the way back to the main entrance to check the bag in... By that time it was getting close to 10 or after 10 so and we didn't really have time to get back to check it in and then come back, but had no other choice, so Mom ended up going back alone and by the time she got there (after running there.) they said she was late by 3 MINUTES and wouldn't check the bag for her. After all that she had to throw away our shampoo, conditioner, shaving cream and whatever else we had in there that was against the law. :P After that little hassle we were going through the gate to board the plane and we're told our suitcase it too big for a carry-on and the were going to check it right there. We almost lost our minds by then because we just threw away about $20 worth of necessities and they were able to check the bag right there. So they checked the bag and we boarded the plane and we were off to Newburgh, NY. :)


The flight was a little rough at times due to weather I guess, but it went by fairly quickly. We arrived in NY around 1:30ish and were driven to the Hertz car rental place to pick up our rental.

After that we went to Target which was very close to the rental place so that we could buy the items that were thrown away. Then we were off to Connecticut to visit Moms relatives.

The trip here wasn't too bad. About 2 hours and we had Dads GPS to help us, but for some reason I have a hard time trusting these things after watching that one episode The Office. Yeah, Michael Scott drove his car into a lake... Haha! It was fine though and we made it here and had a good time.

It's such a beautiful state and I wish we had more time to see more of the sights, but we enjoyed our night nonetheless. They took us out to this cool little Mexican style restaurant called Margarita's. The food was great and the area was beautiful. The weather is in the 60's here right now which is BEAUTIFUL and such a relief from Florida weather. I love it!

Tomorrow we're headed to NYC pretty early, so I better rest up for that. If there's free wireless in the hotel tomorrow night, I'll try to post a blog. Until then..... Goodnight!