Sisters

Sisters
Showing posts with label New Jersey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Jersey. Show all posts

Thursday, November 6, 2014

Pompton Plains

We had the privilege to be able to make a detour home from Wellandport to visit Pompton Plains where we served last summer. When we left Pompton Plains we didn't think we were going to see these lovely people again this side of heaven but God is good and planned our summer in such a way that we were able to! We stayed with the Rossis. They were a Mid America Student family. Roberto is now the associate Pastor at Pompton Plains. We were so blessed by the Rossi's generosity and willingness to host us. We were able to relax and spend time catching up with old friends. I was also able to meet a 'new' friend Franci. I had heard of her and read her blog but I had never met her. So since I was kind of in the same part of the country as her, I asked her if I could visit. What a lovely visit it was. It was great to put a 'face' to a name! Driving to her house after living in the country for 11 weeks was a bit of a challenge! Franci also told me to drive to the river where you can get an awesome skyline view of NY, unfortunately (arrgg) I had not only left my camera behind but also my ipad so no photos :(. I did look at it was well worth it!
  
New Jersey!
 
At the playground with the Rossis
 
Dinner with some special people.
(Grace's special friends)
 
Visiting another special couple.
We spent a lot of time last summer at their pool!

After looking through my photos from last summer
I realised that I didn't take any photos of this pool. So here it is!

The girls are having races in their tubes!

More races

Kate

Me on lifeguard duty.

Zara, look at me I did it!
(she retrieved the rings from the bottom of the pool)


Michaela showing off her flips

Girls with the special couple!

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Highest Point of New Jersey

On one of our last days in New Jersey we decided to visit the highest point in New Jersey. We naively thought that this would be free. Ha, joke's on us. We should have done our homework. It turned out that not only was there a fee for this State Park, out of town people paid double! Since we have an Illinois licence plate that kind of gave us away as being out of the NJ state. Since we drove 45minutes to get there, we were reluctant to turn around and go home but also we were not prepared to pay the out of town fee. Finally, thanks to a letter that Pompton Plains church wrote for the library/YMCA stating that Albert was working there over the summer, we were able to get in for the NJ price. Phew! We also didn't realise that people come here for the day to 'hike', swim and picnic. We didn't go swimming and only went to the very top and drove around (in our air conditioned car!) and went back home. 

Looking out of over NJ
Can we see NY?
As part of the highest point was also a tower. Since we came all this way, we decided to climb the tower, I probably now in hindsight regretted that. While the stairs might be a engineering miracle, I wasn't very fond of it and engineering aside, scared me. My heart was racing by the time I got to the top and it wasn't because I just climbed all those steps! I gave Albert my camera in the end as I just wanted to concentrate to get out as fast I as possible could! 

Spiral staircase, I could handle that, wait to see what came next!
Stairs only attached to the walls, argggg!
Nice view, not sure if the stairs are worth it!
Quick Albert, hurry up, I WANT to go down!
(standing on a platform attached to the wall!)
Loooong way down
Going down to safety
Zara
Tower
Look what we came across on our travels?

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

NY Trip Three - Brooklyn Bridge/Staten Island Ferry and THE Lady!

Here is the second to last installment of our NY trips. It's been a while now and while I'm typing this there is snow outside, it is hard to go back to when were in NY when it was soo hot! 

After reading Franci's email with regard to NY sights, we took off on our third trip to visit NY and had planned to visit the 9/11 memorial, take the free Staten Island Ferry and see the Lady, and finally walk the Brooklyn Bridge. Phew I think we managed to see most of the sights that Franci suggested! 

Like last time, we took the Path train in. We drove 45 minutes to the train station (Newark, took the commuter train (the PATH) for a 12 minute train under the Hudson river to NY. Once we got to NY, our feet were our mode of transport! We had been blessed by one of the families in Pompton Plains with some spending money, which we decided to use to have dinner  and an icecream in the city. We figured we might as well spend the maximum time in NY as this would be our last visit while we were in NJ. 

The girls were excellent again and being quite fit by this time, did very well with the long walk especially going over the Brooklyn Bridge. 

The Staten Island ferry was interested also. It's a free ferry and so every man and it's dog crams onto this ferry. We waited our turn and hopped onto the boot, I thought that we were doing quite well in getting a spot at balcony and wonder where everyone else was! Oh dear, was I wrong! The reason why my side of the ship was empty was because 'The Lady' was on the other side. Needless to say I didn't make that mistake twice and on the return trip, I nicely 'ran' to the right side of the ship to be in the prime position to take some photo's of 'The Lady'. I'm glad also that we didn't pay to see 'The Lady' as when we went past there was a HUGE crowd waiting to get in (circling a good part of the island), not to mention the heat that day! 

If you look careful you can see the
 people lining up at the bottom of the statue
Looking back at NY, notice the freedom tower at the left
Ferry (we like free :) )
On Staten Island, refueling :)
Notice how the ferry has a lean towards the side of 'The Lady'
Albert and 'The Lady'
(although his lady was taking the photo!)
Walking towards the Brooklyn Bridge (in the background)
Meg, I was thinking of you!
A dog park along the water front, no grass though, poor dogs
CHCH I was thinking of you, with the container shops!
What a treat M'M ice cream cones.
(We bought them in a grocery store, so much cheaper!)
A very busy Brooklyn Bridge
(Albert with the backpack on)
Our return trip, we walked over and walked back. 
Pizza and Sushi for dinner with some Mountain Dew for Mom.
(I needed that!)
The train - PATH
On the way home.
Back in NJ after a long day!
To be continued.....

Friday, September 13, 2013

American History - Ford Mansion & Jockey Hollow

The older girls have studied early American History in their home school curriculum. Since the East is full of history we took the opportunity to explore some of these sights. One cool thing we 'discovered' that all the National Historic parks offer a junior ranger badge for free! The girls get a booklet with questions about the relevant historic site, once completed they get a ranger badge. We ended up doing six badges in total. What a great way to learn history! (Do those trip count as homeschooling field trips?)
Ford Mansion where George Washington spends a winter
We were able to have tour inside the house
George Washington's 'office'
Ranger (with Kate)
Mrs Ford's bedroom, she gave up her house
to George Washington and his men
Kitchen
Servants sleeping quarters
More sleeping quarters
In front on the mansion
This badge/park consisted of several sites of interest and so we explored all the various sites. 
In the information centre
A map of Jockey Hollow. This is where George Washington's
men spend the hardest winter on record
A soldier's hut. This is how they managed
to survive the winter despite the lack of food.
This hut was actually inside the information center,
quite impressive
One of the gardens
Kate and Michaela working on their badge work
Grace
Albert and Zara, notice her badge
Supervising!
Ford Nonsense
A ford on top of a hill that was never used.
View to the town
Walking/tracing the Fort walls - Albert and Kate
Jockey Hollow - The hard winter
The actual Soldiers huts
Reading the history!
Papa, look at those fences, no nails!


In front of the hut


Bunkbeds
Kate