Day 3: Tourists doing Tourist Things

"Give me such shows--give me the streets of Manhattan!" (Walt Whitman)

Midtown//Times Square

My mom and I intended to see all that we could see, so the next morning, we woke up early, ate breakfast and headed out to our bus stop. We were going to do the double decker tour of New York! We purchased tickets with City Sightseeing, and overall had a good experience, except for a few bumps in the road.

Some selfies before we got on the bus

Once the bus arrived, we climbed on board and started our tour in Midtown, Times Square. As cool as Times Square is, it’s also one of the most overwhelming parts of New York for me. It was great seeing it all from the bus, but I had no interest in getting off to explore, I’d been to Times Square enough in my life to not need to do that.

After making it through Times Square, we continued on to SoHo, where my mother and I decided to get off. The best part about our tour was the fact that it was “hop-on, hop-off.” It was the perfect way to explore and to economize. Overall, the cost of taxi fare to get to all the places we wanted to would have been equal to if not more than the cost of our ticket for the two-day tour. I highly suggest doing one of these tours, and make sure that it’s one you have the freedom to get on and off of. While in SoHo, we commenced with shopping and ended with lunch from a corner market called the “Gourmet Garage."

One thing that my mother and I appreciated while in New York was the vast amount of markets. It made it possible to eat healthier even while on the go. After eating, we even stumbled across a knit shop which my mother revealed she had seen online before.

After my mother and I were done perusing through SoHo, we hopped back on the bus at its next bus stop as it was making its way down to Brooklyn. This was one of my favorite sites of the day. We were let off just around the corner from the Brooklyn Bridge and walked it in its entirety.

Where the bridge let us off, we could easily walk to DUMBO, another sight on my list. DUMBO is a quaint neighborhood near the Brooklyn Bridge, with beautiful views across the East River. It was definitely much quieter than Manhattan, had calm, clean streets and cute brownstones at every corner. It was an adjustment from emerging out of Uptown New York.

After walking around, my mother and I chose to venture a bit further and found a park in what seemed to be a more residential area. The park was full of kids, from tiny toddlers to middle school age, kicking around a soccer ball, skateboarding, and hanging out and talking. My mom and I sat, and watched peacefully, letting our feet rest for a moment.

When we finally decided to make our way back to Manhattan, we ran into some problems. Primarily the issue came about due to the fact that we were not aware that the last bus left Manhattan to head to Brooklyn at six o’clock. We had just missed the last bus, and didn’t find that out until fifteen minutes of waiting at the stop we were supposed to be picked up at led to us calling the company. My mother and I had to hail a taxi and make it all the way back to the hotel (the taxi fare was NOT pretty). Regardless of this set back, we still made the best of it. I had the opportunity to drive through a predominantly Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn, which made me feel like I was literally in a different world, as well as the not so pleasant parts of Brooklyn, giving me a complete tour of all of Brooklyn, not just the pretty parts.

Even with a few setbacks, we still had positive learning experiences. Day three proved to be eventful and long, and my mother and I made it to bed, perfectly exhausted,
Kaylah

Mom's Birthday + Birthday DIYs

“Who can find a worthy woman? For her price is far above rubies,” and such a woman should be treated accordingly (Psalm 31:10). In my life, this verse manifests itself in my mother, the best of the best. My mother has not only given me life, but provided me with some of the experiences that have made me who I am today. Her sacrifice and hard work to make me who I am has inspired me to always want to provide for and help others in any way I can. Lately, life in the Edward’s house has been kind of hectic. As my brother’s soccer schedule ramps up, my parents still make efforts to ensure that my other brother and I can continue to pursue the activities that we enjoy as well. My mother is Wonder Woman, and God certainly knew what He was doing when He put this crazy family together.

By the first week of July, I had pitched my birthday plan for my mom to my dad and he approved. Here’s what we originally came up with: Kendall, Kyle, and I would clean the house and purchase three gift cards for mom, all geared towards her having a perfectly pampered day. One gift card would be to the nail salon, another for Nordstrom Rack (one of her favorite stores), and the last would be a Visa gift card with enough money on it for her to go to the hair salon. We would leave the gift cards on the island table along with a note explaining that the house was clean, and the kiddies were on their way to grandma’s for the night. She had three gift cards and a free day to herself to relax and enjoy her favorite things. Fortunately, her birthday fell on a Friday which would make it even easier for my dad to leave work early to spend the afternoon with my mom doing whatever they decided to do.

 On that note, we began planning, but with my father, mother, and fifteen-year-old brother heading out to the Virgin Islands, the plans changed a little bit, so here’s how it actually went down: My parents flew back in to the States with Kendall (my fifteen-year-old brother) on Wednesday the 20^th. While they were gone, I was working with a limited amount of money, thus I couldn’t do the three gift cards, because that ended up being way too expensive. Therefore, I settled on doing some DIYs, because made with love, right? Browsing my inundated “DIY” playlist on YouTube, I stumbled across a simple DIY chic lunch bag that could be done without trouble by my eight-year-old brother. So that would replace the nail salon gift card, and would cost a max of $10, perfect! This gift would mimic the “snack bag” Kyle (my eight year old brother) had made me for my eighteenth birthday. It would be “Mommy’s Birthday Snack Bag,” something Kyle could be hands on with creating.

How We Made Mommy’s Birthday Snack Bag:

Since I completely followed a YouTube video for the snack bag, here’s a link to the video- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlH-BuSxx3Q

Rather than using the metal clip they used in the video, Kyle and I used some wooden clips we had in the house and painted them gold to add a chic touch.

Then we headed to the grocery store (and Chick-Fil-A) to pick up mom’s favorites, a Superfoods Salad from Chick-Fil-A, one Perrier ALWAYS in a glass bottle, never plastic, a baggie full of Cape Cod sea salt and vinegar chips, a Kind bar, and two Lindt chocolates.

Here’s how our snack bag came out:

Next we embarked upon my gift and Kendall’s gift. In an unfortunate turn of events, a bottle of expensive cream my mother had purchased from a store called Origins was tossed while she was going through airport security. This was perfect for me however, because I just went back to the store and bought a gift card in the exact amount for the cream. The Thursday morning after Kendall had returned from the Virgin Islands, I took him to Starbucks to get my mom a gift card as well. I decided that rather than purchasing an overpriced, unappealing gift card holder from the store, I would make a cute one that could be reused.

The Gift Card Holder:

You will need,

·       Fabric

·       Thread

·       Hot glue gun

·       Button

·       Needle and thread

For those that do not enjoy sewing, you can just hot glue/fabric glue together the parts I sewed together.

Taking some fabric I had in my closet, I traced out a rectangle (no precise measurements, I just made sure that the rectangle folded in half was enough to fit my gift cards in). I then measured the midpoint of the short side of the rectangle and used that point to draw a vertical line from that point reaching as high as I wanted the triangle at the top to be. From either sides of the long side, I drew two vertical lines which met at the top of the vertical line I had drawn (shown by the illustration). 

In the illustration, I labeled side A and side B.

Once the triangle is traced out on the fabric and the whole shape is cut out (rectangle + triangle), bring side A to the top portion right before where the triangle is. This will be the shape of your pouch, and the triangle will be the flap you bring over to serve as the closing flap, much like an envelope. Using WRONG sides, hot glue or sew together the sides leaving the top of the pouch where side A meets side A1, this is the opening for the pouch. To add extra flare, I sewed around the edges of the triangular flap with my thread. For the button hole, I located the midpoint of the tip of the triangle and cut a small snip in the fabric. Folding the flap over, I found where the snip hits the pouch and that’s where I located my button.

I sewed the button on and cut the snip a bit wider to fit my button through. To prevent my button hole from fraying, I sewed over the edges with my thread repeatedly until I felt it was secure.

Here's How it should all look when you're done:

Finally, the day came and we had our gifts ready. The only thing to do was wait for my mom to leave the house so we could clean and set up the gifts. We did not account for my mom deciding to spend the first part of the day relaxing, waking up early to make a batch of banana pancakes and not leaving the house until 2p.m. so our plans were set back a little, but it all worked out in the end. When our mom finally left, we cleaned the bathrooms, the kitchen, and folded and put away all the laundry, set up the gifts, and waited.

Once she got to the house (not until 4 that afternoon), she was pleasantly surprised and pleased by the gesture. We had cleaned the house, and to the best of our capabilities, tried to provide her with treats that would make her day convenient and comfortable, as she always did for us. She opened her gifts, and then we left for grandma’s around 4:30.

As we were leaving, my dad was wrapping things up at work to come home to take my mom to dinner and a movie. A successful birthday surprise, if I don’t say so myself. Also, a big thank you to my grandma who found out about our little plan and her part in it a week before it all happened. She always so graciously welcomes us into her home and heart :)

I learned from this that the best gifts are the thoughtful gestures. It doesn’t have to be anything too extravagant, Kendall, Kyle and I managed to pull this gift off for around $45, but my mom seemed to appreciate this gift the most of all the other more extravagant things we’ve purchased for her in the past. Treat those you love well, and thank God for the magnificent people in your life, they were put there for a reason. Blessings on blessings,

Kaylah

Day 2: 40 Blocks in Central Park

Our second day in New York brought walking, walking and more walking, and through all the walking, we ended up finding museums and beautiful views of the city.

That morning, my mom and I decided to get breakfast from the Merci Market just around the corner from our hotel. Preferring fresh air to air conditioning, we opted to sit in the park to eat. Mounting one of the many large rock formations, my mom and I sat, let our feet dangle over the edge, and enjoyed breakfast and the morning air.

Breakfast in the park

Fish eye of the view from where we sat

After eating, my mom and I decided to walk through Central Park, this is the part where we threw the advice about being careful in the park to the wind and proceeded to walk further and further into the park. Honestly my mom and I were aware that the more turns we took, the farther from the hotel we could get (even though it doesn’t even seem like it while you are in the park), but we also had confidence that we would make our way back and be okay. This walking led us to a fountain overlooking the lake that the Loeb Boathouse was located on. We made it through a group of very funny street entertainers, a woman with some hardcore vocals singing under a bridge, and a photo shoot and filming of dancers for a video. 

This boathouse was actually on my list of activities I wanted to do while in New York, and we happened to stumble across it on our walk!

When my mother and I finally emerged from the park, a little asking around identified us to the fact that we were around forty city blocks from our hotel. Lol. However, we had also made it to Museum Mile, and were just a block down from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. After taking some pictures and poking around, my mom and I resolved to relax and make our way back towards the hotel with the direction of some friendly passersby. This trek back to the hotel led my mom and I to the Payne Whitney Mansion, which housed a small book store offering audio books, films, CDS, and novels and children’s books, tout en français. We purchased two books, one children’s book and a novel for me, as well as an audiobook.

The Met in all its glory

My purchases from the Payne Whitney Mansion

Once my mom and I made it back to our hotel, we met up with my mom’s cousin Deidre and her son Kadeem, and hit the streets to do some shopping. I had come to New York with a few key purchases in mind, one of them being to buy a good eyeshadow palette, and some shorts. My family accompanied me on my hunt, and we enjoyed good conversation and catching up along the way. In the end I found my shorts, a pair of cute simple denim shorts at Gap (on sale for $20!!!) and my eyeshadow palette. With the help of the ever-so-knowledgeable staff at Sephora, I selected the Tartelette In Bloom palette, and went back to the hotel with my marvelous new purchases. On the way back we stopped to get some pizza and took it back to the hotel with us. Another family member met up with us, Donovan, and we sat together, ate together, laughed together.

My mom and I waiting on our pizza before heading back to the hotel with family (to see more pics from the trip and our other travels, my mom's Instagram is @kimlucretia)

My beautiful palette!

That night my mom and I ventured back out into Times Square for dinner. Initially we planned on getting some hot ramen at Ippudo NY, but the place was packed and we weren’t looking to wait around to eat. This led to us going to a smaller ramen shop tucked away in Times Square called Black Organic Rice Ramen. Even though I didn’t get to have my ramen from Ippudo, the ramen I had at this smaller restaurant was incredibly flavorful and all the ingredients tasted fresh and delicious. My mom tried the black organic rice with her chicken and once again, an A+.

Ippudo Ny, where we initially wanted to eat

We ate well, and decided to grab dessert from Junior’s, my uncle’s favorite place to get cheesecake. Truthfully, I found that the cheesecake I had eaten the night before from a small French market called the Merci Market, tasted better, but Junior’s definitely wasn’t bad, and was much better compared to some other cheesecakes I had tried.

We ended another eventful day in New York. Good food, good shopping, and a little exercise in between.

Kaylah

Day 1: Uptown Girls

In the words of Andy Mineo, “I’ll be uptown New York City where you can spot me,” and uptown I was. Just to give a brief review and summary of my trip with my mom, I plan on breaking down each day of our trip (but mostly in pictures).

First and foremost, we have the hotel. The Park Lane was wonderful, comfortable, and had great service. Either my mom and I are overly friendly, or they just had perfectly amicable staff members. Regardless, we made good friends with the lady that had the duty of cleaning our room for the week, and who happily greeted us every morning as we were on our way out to go exploring the city.

Our view wasn't completely a brick wall view, thankfully

Next, there was the food. I started my food adventures at the wonderful Rue 57 with my mom and my cousin who met up with us. Rue 57 was a Japanese-French restaurant in which I ordered mini burgers with provolone cheese and truffle oil and parmesan fries, my cousin had a salmon and avocado sushi roll, and my mother a scrumptious burger with all the fixings.

Mon dîner

   After our wonderful dinner, we decided to walk it off in Central Park. Before entering the park, we were pre-warned about just how lost you can get in there, therefore to be cautious of taking too many turns (we would later not heed this advice and end up very, very far from the hotel, but that’s another day, another story). Since we had flown in to New York that afternoon, this was our last outing before heading to the hotel and going to bed.

Some very drunk, very groovy guys in the park (can't actually tell you how we found them, one turn and there they were).

Views

Until next time,

Kaylah

New York, New York

Amidst all the planning of soccer trips for the summer, my parents stopped to ask me what I wanted to do, especially since I had just graduated. Of course I wanted to travel, but where to was the question. Initially, I must be honest and say that New York wasn’t my first thought. I actually wanted to rent a beach house on Rosemary Beach and maybe spend a week with the family (or even a group of friends) there. In the end, we all ended up agreeing on a week in New York. This New York trip turned out to be much, much better than I expected, and there were a few notable aspects that made this trip as spectacular as it was.

First of all, I had the chance to stay in a posh hotel (right next door to the infamous Plaza Hotel to give you some perspective on just how posh I’m talking) called the Park Lane. This hotel was right in the midst of it all and overlooked Central Park. Even more, this hotel was host to myriad international guests, some speaking languages that I didn’t even recognize. This was a major plus for me and reminded me of being in Europe, where I came in contact with so many different people and cultures. As a whole, New York is incredibly diverse. The people, the food, the culture, it’s all so varied, and conversations with taxi cab drivers and vendors on the street told tales of people coming from countries all around the world just to live there.

Aside from our wonderful hotel, this particular trip was significant because it was a girl’s trip. My mommy and me, taking on New York. We created the vacation that we wanted to have, and I believe this made it all the more enjoyable. We did as we felt, and did not feel pressured to do things that we didn’t necessarily want to do. This included long walks in the park (forty blocks away from the hotel to be precise), perusing through French museums, eating in several wonderful restaurants that we may have avoided had the boys been with us, and of course, shopping. We took pictures, did tours, and just enjoyed the atmosphere and the surroundings.

Finally, I have to say that I just loved the city itself. I was incredibly fortunate, and am still counting my blessings and thanking God, that I had the opportunity to stay uptown in a very nice area. My mom and I met wonderful people, we ate well, we wandered around the city to our hearts content, and had experiences that were significant to us. We ventured out of uptown down to Brooklyn, and even parts of Harlem where we had lunch at the magnifique Red Rooster. We spent an afternoon in Soho and did tours of nearly all the boroughs (except the Bronx). I was intimidated by the intense bikers in Central Park, and did more walking than I think I run in a week.

                           The best part about New York to me was all that it had to offer. Where I live, our only foreign foods are all of the Americanized Asian eateries, Italian, and Mexican. While in New York I had breakfast and dinner in a Japanese-French restaurant that served steak frites as well as a vast array of sushi rolls and sashimi. I passed restaurants advertising Italian, Mexican, Grecian, French, and many other types of cuisine on the regular. The people dressed as they pleased, but it was all fabulous of course, and anything I could think to want I was sure I could find it if I looked hard enough. So many people were adapted to the New York life while still maintaining important aspects of their cultures. A few poignant examples include the predominantly Jewish neighborhood my mother and I passed in Brooklyn, or the Pakistani street vendor across the street from our hotel. It was beautiful and amazing to see and experience. People in New York may not be as polite as southerners are, but they are much more real and hold no shame about being themselves, and maybe that’s better than just being ‘polite.’ Much love,

Kaylah

Cow Appreciation Day Overview + Costume ideas!

Cow Appreciation Day is always a fun, chicken-filled day. We started doing Cow Appreciation Day four years ago, but have only participated in three because one year we were out of town. The best part is definitely getting your friends together, creating some last minute cow costumes, and of course all the free food. The first year we did it, I woke up to my mom declaring that I needed to get dressed because she was taking me to Chick-Fil-A for breakfast. We ended up doing lunch with a couple of friends, and meeting up with my aunt and her kids and having dinner there later on, even grabbing a couple of extra meals to take back for my dad, my uncle, and her older son.

Fast forward to yesterday. I made Kyle and I’s costumes two days ahead of time (a first for me, usually the costumes are made the morning of), and woke up early enough to finally make it to breakfast with a couple of friends, and Kyle. For this year’s Cow Day, they reigned in the policy by making it that costumers dressed in cow costumes could receive a free entrée, and children could receive a free kid’s meal. When Kyle and I went back for dinner, we arrived around 6:40 and didn’t end up parking until 6:55 because the parking lot was backed up so bad that just trying to drive through (not even looking for a spot at this point but content to park at the QT across the street) had us sitting there for fifteen minutes. Luckily for us, in that fifteen minutes a car pulled out just in the right spot for Kyle and I to pull in, but we still had to wait awhile before the cars pulled up enough for us to have space to turn in to the spot (God was looking out for us definitely!). This year Chick-Fil-A also decided to stop serving the free food at 7. People rushed to get there just in time to get their final fix of free food. They cut off the line of people that could get free food because many were still in line waiting to order at 7, and some customers left very disgruntled, but Kyle and I were fortunate enough to get there in time to get our dinner, and get out. It was a great way to end our Cow Appreciation Day. Below I have some ideas for your Cow Appreciation Day next year,

Kyle’s Costume:

For the Shirt:

-          A white shirt/jersey (we used Kyle’s soccer jersey)

-          Black construction paper

-          Tape, scissors

-          White paper, or I just cut up a mattress cover that I found at the dollar store

-          Black and red sharpies

-          Safety pins

First and foremost, cut out the cow spots.

I just free-handed the spots all over a sheet of black construction paper and Kyle outlined them in white color pencil so I could see them better, then I cut out the cow spots and taped them to the shirt.

                                                    

After arranging and taping my spots to the shirt, I used the exacto knife to cut out a rectangle of the mattress cover (you can also use copy paper) and traced out the chick-fil-a logo onto the cover followed by “Soccer Cow.”

Using safety pins, I attached the piece of cover to the back of Kyle’s shirt.

And Voila, our shirt is complete!

Under normal circumstances, I would use paint and apply everything straight on the shirt, but because it was necessary to preserve the shirt, I taped and safety-pinned everything to it. If using a shirt you don’t care about painting/writing on, you can use puffy paint instead for the cow spots and draw the logo.

For the ears:

-          A baseball cap

-          A piece of white felt ($0.69/sheet at Hobby Lobby)

-          Black sharpie, fabric pen (a regular pen will work as well)

-          Scissors, fabric scissors work best

-          Safety pins

-          Online Template

Using a template I found online http://www.ultimatepapermache.com/bongo,   I printed and cut out the ear  and traced the shape onto my piece of felt.

Then I proceeded to cut out the ears I traced. Once cut out, I used a fabric pen to draw out some cow spots, which Kyle filled in with the sharpie.

Ears complete, I just used safety pins to attach them to either side of the hat. To make the ears hang right, safety pin the ears on from the back side of the ear (shown in picture).

Here’s the completed look!

For my costume, I simply used an iron transfer for the Chick-Fil-A logo, and cut out and taped spots onto a t-shirt the same way I did for Kyle’s.

A cute little extra included a bell that we originally purchased as part of a father's day gift. The bell was picked up from Jo-Ann's (it was a little expensive if you ask me), and used a sharpie paint pen to write "Ring for food" on either side, we refurbished this father's day gift by tying some yarn around it and wearing it as a "cow bell."

Finally, some pics from this year's cow day,

Thanks for keeping up with me, a bientôt!

Kaylah