Book Review

Remember a million years ago when I read through “In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day”? Well… Mark Batterson has a new book out and Jay was kind enough to let me borrow it fora few days This one’s called “Wild Goose Chase”…

Here’s some of my favorite parts so far…

“I’m not convinced that your date of death is the date carved on your tombstone. Most people die long before that. We start dying when we have nothing worth living for. And we don’t really start living until we find something worth dying for. Ironically, discovering something worth dying for is what makes life worth living.”

Mark talks about how it’s not good enough to merely pray for things, but God wants action. He tells a story of a girl from his church who goes to India to work with women and children who were trafficked into sex slavery. He quotes her as saying “Why do we turn our eyes from the poor, the widows, the orphans, and the prostitutes? Although prayer is necessary and helps bring comfort, it’s not enough to truly alleviate suffering. God didn’t send His Son to pray for us but rather to act for us. The only thing that upsets me more than downright evil acts are people who allow injustice to happen with their inaction. Jesus transformed God’s message into action, and it should be our mission to devote our lives to similar action.”

Good stuff…

Famous Landmarks

So… we saw a few landmarks in NYC that I thought I would share…

 Rockefeller Plaza – can you believe that this is where the ice skating rink is during the winter months? It was a restaurant while we were there. Also where they place the Christmas Tree. 

 Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art (MET or MOMA) – wish we would have had time to at check this place out for a few minutes… side note – I like to think that those partitions were set up on the stairs because they were getting ready to film a scene from Gossip Girl (they show the girls from GG sitting on the stairs of this museum all of the time in the show)

 The Brooklyn Bridge (it usually doesn’t have a waterfall underneath of it – temporary art exhibit)

 Statue of Liberty who is, by the way, a lot smaller than I thought for some reason.

 The Empire State Building (as viewed from the Observation Deck of the Top of the Rock)

 The Macy’s Giant Shopping Bag (one entire city block with 9 floors plus a few 1/2 floors)

 FAO Schwarz (you can even see the “toy soldier” outside of the main doors greeting customers)

 The Big Piano (remember from the Tom Hanks movie Big)… we just missed being able to play on it ourselves

 And Tiffany’s… makes me want to see Breakfast at Tiffany’s so bad! This place was like Fort Knox… you couldn’t see anything in there and unfortunately it was closed so we couldn’t go in.

9/11

I thought since today is 9/11 I would share a photo we took in NYC… this is one of the areas where people would post pictures of their missing loved ones after the towers fell. Our tour guide explained that the photos have been replaced with tiles made by school-age children in the NYC schools.

A little R&R

YAY So our vacation to NYC was NOT exactly relaxing… we had so much to see and so little time that we barely slept while we were there… so it was EXCELLENT timing that Student Life just so happened to be hosting a FREE conference for youth pastors and their wives Monday and Tuesday. Daniel and I were able to get away for almost two days. The conference was aimed at giving us ”refuge” and gave us plenty of time to focus on slowing down. We were able to sleep in (until 8 am in the middle of the week!!!!) on the most INCREDIBLE bed I’ve ever slept in. I’m usually not that picky, but from the very first second we layed on that bed (you know that’s the first thing you check when you walk into a hotel room for the first time) we knew that bed was going to change our lives! haha Yeah… we’re SERIOUSLY trying to figure out when we can afford to buy another mattress. It was AMAZING!!!! And I’m trying to get the hotel to tell me exactly who makes that mattress! haha (we’re dorks) Yeah so… back to the conference. It was pretty dang cool… got a FREE copy of Chris Tomlin’s new cd… who by the way… is a lot smaller than I thought in person haah jk Also got to hear Louie Giglio who is by far, my most favorite speaker in the whole wide world!

Take-away… if you’re ever in Birmingham and need a place to stay, go to the Wyndham by Wingate… AMAZING beds!

Strange Sights

You know while in NYC we saw some very unusual things… Daniel sat next to an all out drag queen on the subway (can’t imagine how bad I wanted to take a picture of that), saw a HUGE sewer rat, saw a man who I swear was going to blow up our train, saw a real life elf or at least a good wannabe… anything and everything goes up there… there is no “normal”. Strange… here’s some pics of some other unusual things we saw…

 There was a really interesting story about this statue that none of us can remember! ha

 Yes… that’s exactly what it looks like. They had these pipes all over the city which serve as ventilation for the underground…

 An entire store devoted to M&Ms

 Who knew Wall Street is just a narrow little street?

 Yeap a ship in New York City…

 People rub his horns and um… other things for good luck

 Gum Gum for Dum Dum (remember from Night at the Museum?)

 Even saw Freddie Kruger

 And of course we had to get a pic of the naked cowboy

Yankee Stadium

So… the MAIN reason we went to NYC was, of course, to go to Yankee Stadium. The Stadium was soo rundown it was obvious why they are building a new one. The aisle-ways were extremely small and the seats were at a ridiculous angle. I was really glad we didn’t have to walk down or up the stairs because as clutsy as I am I definitely would have tripped or something and tumbled to my death. It was an incredible game and actually the only win the Yanks got while we were in town. Here’s some pics from the game…

   

New York

In case you don’t know… my little surprise vacation I planned for Daniel was to New York City. This is the last season the Yankees will be playing in Yankee Stadium. This was a HUGE deal to Daniel, a fanatical Yankees fan, so wanted to make this dream come true for him He was VERY surprised and didn’t figure it out until we got through security at the airport. There are way too many stories to tell but suffice it to say we had a great time! I’ll post some pics soon.