The Big E goes to the Big Apple

Lauren and I headed into New York City for a long weekend. It was Lauren's first extended stay in the city. We drove to Dover NJ and took the train to Penn Station. My sister, Alyson, met us at the train station. After leaving our bags and her case of wine at 4J, we went out for yummy Italian food.

After dinner we went for an after dinner drink in the neighborhood (West Village).

An assortment of beverages were had by all! We headed home to Alyson's apartment to get some sleep. We had big plans for the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island the next day.

Alyson went to work Thursday morning while Lauren and I headed downtown on our own.

That's us on the ferry ride over. Statue of Liberty was our first stop.

Lauren's impressive camera work. Even though it was very overcast and rainy...it's one of my favorite pictures.

Tourist Lauren

Please note the ear phones and player hanging around her neck and to top it all off a cup of hot chocolate. Could you ask for more?

Tourist Ellyn and Tourist Lauren

Another picture from Lauren's self-portrait handy-work. I will admit it took about 20 tries to get this right. A man even came up to us and offered to take our picture for us, but we were determined to get it ourselves.

We hopped back on the ferry and made our way over to Ellis Island.

We enjoyed another self-guided tour.

Afterward I found one of my ancestors on a memory wall outside. Those von Rosenberg Family Reunions finally paid off.

We headed back into the city for POP burgers. It just so happened that Reebok was setting up for an anniversary party where we were eating. They had Reebok pumps hanging from the ceiling and a larger than life poster.

After Alyson got off work, we had friends over to 4J for drinks before going out for tapas and sangria.

After dinner drinks.

Lauren, me, sister, Lauren, Lauren's friend and Taya

The evening concluded at Automatic Slims. It's a bar down on the corner from Alyson's apartment. We danced to some awesome music and had a great time! That's Alyson behind the bar!

Dollar Dollar Bills---Casino Night

We took a trip to Turning Stone Casino to try our hand at a little gambling on Friday the 13th. We were hoping to win big so we could pay off our Hawaii debt. Turns out we had a great time and just broke even. First we had to stand in a long line to become Diamond Club Members because you can't eat at any of the restaurants or play slots without this card. After assuring the staff we were their high rollers for the night, they escorted us to a nice steak dinner.

We thought it would be nice to dress up a little for a Friday night out at the casino...with jeans, cute shirt and heels, we were still very overdressed. Clearly, the people watching was pretty great.

That's me posing with the holiday decorations as we make our way over to the slot machines. I promptly lost a large sum of money because I didn't know what I was doing.

That's Lauren with her Diamond Club card. I believe she just put more money on her card when I took this picture. We had a blast playing Village People slot machines! Lauren was on my right and the old lady in her wheelchair was to my left. Old lady kept getting Village People Parties and I was very jealous. I wanted to roll her just far enough away from the slot machine so she couldn't reach. Also very distressed that they did not serve alcohol on the casino floor. You could only choose from an assortment of soda and juice...guess they cater to the old lady crowd (please see old lady reference above). If you wanted alcohol you had to stand in the corner to drink it...I wasn't in the mood to feel like I was in trouble or time-out for having an adult beverage. So we abstained.

After Lauren won her money back on the slots and it was already after midnight...we stood up from our machines and made our way to the door. On the way we walked by a roulette table. Lauren already acknowledged that she was familiar with this wonderful gambling game...so I urged her to just play once to show it to me. 2 hours later still sitting at the roulette table...we were HOT! I loved it and we even won on #13 (because it was Friday the 13th)!

We continued the holiday photo shoot as we left the casino. I could definitely make that trip again!

Hiking in New York

We pulled out the trusty New York State travel book and head out for an outdoor adventure. We drove about 30 minutes to Chittenango Falls. The Falls were beautiful. We took a short little trail down one side of the falls, across a bridge and then up the other side.

This picture and the next are views from the bridge.

View from the far side as we hiked back to the top.

We did a little exploring down another trail and Lauren hiked us straight into a mobile home park. We high-tailed it out of there.

It was nice to get outside and do some activity.

Pick Me, Squeeze Me, Make Me WINE at Seneca Lake

4 of Lauren's friends came to Syracuse to visit. We had so much fun with Alyson wine tasting on the Finger Lakes, we decided to go again. This time we headed to Seneca Lake. We rented a driver and van. It was pretty snazzy! That's the StarCraft above. They picked us up at our house. Deb, our driver, seemed to enjoy the mix of music we brought with us...definitely saw her bobbing her head a few times and she knew to turn up Whitney Houston without us asking!

Lauren made us wine glasses for the trip. We had a few champagne cocktails on the trip over to Seneca Lake.

Michelle, Lynsey, me and Lauren all in the backseat!

Roomies!

Here we are at the first winery.

Lynsey, Amy, Lauren, Ellyn, Michelle, Lauren

After our first stop, we get a box for ourselves to fill throughout the day. We assigned Care Bear stickers to everyone so we could keep every one's wine straight. Of course I was Friend Bear (that was my childhood Care Bear)!

Second winery and we already broke one wine glass.

Starting to get into it by the third winery. I was loving the red wines on this trip. No sweet wine this time.

Fourth winery we encountered some rude staff. There was a small confrontation which explains my face. I like to avoid conflict if possible.

I snuck around the confrontation and politely asked for 4 bottles and then ran out the door.

Took pictures outside at the fifth winery. They had a nice deck overlooking the lake. We spent a lot of time at this vineyard. They just keep pouring more and more wine. It was never ending. We visited one last winery called Penguin Bay before ending the day. The penguin liked the wine at Penguin Bay. In the end I had 2 more cases of wine. I now have a grand total of 3 cases of wine.

We had a fun ride back home in the StarCraft. We enjoyed some cocktails, music and dancing. Someone may have lost an article of clothing, but I'm disclosing details. Fun was had by all!

Glass & Pumpkins & Glass Pumpkins

Our road trip the next day consisted of driving to Corning NY which is 2.5 hours away to visit the Corning Museum of Glass. The front of the museum was all glass, imagine that! That's Lauren and I heading to the door.

They kept boasting that they had the largest glass pumpkins. They were gorgeous!

5 little pumpkins sitting on a fence...or maybe just 3.

We were super excited to make our own glass pumpkins. We headed outside to blow our own pieces of glass. Alyson and I choose to make pumpkins and Lauren made a Christmas ornament.

In this picture they are applying the little bits of colored glass to the clear glass.

Here she is blowing the glass into a mold that creates the ridges on the pumpkin.

Then came my turn to blow my pumpkin.

While I blow air into the hot glass, the professional glass blower keeps rolling the pole back and forth so the glass stays balanced and doesn't drip off the end of the pole.

Another angle.

She keeps working the hot glass while I blow. You can see the furnace in the background.

There's my hot pumpkin without its stem.

This is her pulling the stem from a new piece of glass.

Here it is all done! They go into an oven to set and then they mailed the glass they made to us a few days later. I love my little pumpkin! It was completely worth the long drive.

Here's Lauren's ornament. It is purple, pink and white.

Alyson made a white pumpkin with a green stem.

After enjoying all the glass we could we headed back towards Syracuse, but first we stopped at Critz Farm for apples and pumpkins.

I found my lucky pumpkin. Can't wait to carve it up!

Look how cute our pumpkins look on the scale.

Sisters in the hay. I loved the barn! It was all very autumn from the barn to the pumpkins to being bundled up. I'm ready for some fresh pressed cider!

That's me moving our pumpkins in the wheelbarrow.

We headed home to eat pot roast and carve pumpkins. Looks like Lauren is having fun getting the goo out of her pumpkin.

Here we are carving. I'm getting pretty serious at this point. Lauren got us an awesome kit that had different designs for us to do. Alyson was picking out pumpkin seeds and cooking them up for a snack.

Here's our final products! Lauren had a tough time with the blinds, but her pumpkin turned out super spooky!

And here's my little pumpkin monster!

Happy Halloween!