Death of ANOTHER Iphone

In my head right now I'm hearing "another one bites the dust".  I am on my 3rd Iphone in 2 years, I might have a problem.  I lost the first one riding the matterhorn at Disneyland on my 30th birthday :(   This last one went for a little swim.  I walked right into the pool with it :(.  Luckily, I have a warranty on it and I'm waiting to get my replacement.  I have to be honest, it's a little sad how lost I am without that phone.  I had EVERYTHING in that phone.  It's such a bummer.   

I LOVE the Library

I love reading! I always have. From the time I was about 8 years old, I was always reading. While other kids were saving up their money for candy or trips to the mall, I was always saving my money for the latest Christopher Pike or Jack Weyland book. It never occurred to me that my love of reading wasn't very common. When I think back now, I don't recall any of my other friends ever mentioning a book they were reading, or had ever read. :)
I now have a number of friends that also read quite a bit. My very good friend Amber reads A LOT. She is usually reading 4 or 5 books at the same time. We belong to a website called goodreads. It's sort like facebook, but for books. You can follow people and what they're and see how they rated the books they've read. Amber has over 700 books on her shelves. She also has a 3 week old daughter, a 3 year old son and she is still reading 3 different books right now. Anytime we get together Amber is always talking about how she goes to the library all the time. As far as I know, she doesn't buy any of the books she reads, she gets everything from the library. I hadn't been to the library in about 15 years, so I didn't understand the appeal. But Amber told me about how she checked out dvd's and cd's in addition to all her books. They even have audio books. The library opens after I went to work and closed before I got off. On the weekend I just never could talk myself into going. I always thought that I should go check it out and some point, but I never did. Now that I'm FUNemployed, I totally have time to go the library everyday if I want to. So I finally went to check it out.

O-M-G!! The Library is awesome!! The nearest book store to me is about 25 minutes away. The library is a 10 minute drive. When I got there, I first had to get a library card. They give you a regular card, but they also give you a mini card that you can attach to your key chain.

Once I actually got inside, I was totally overwhelmed. I didn't know where to start. I had a hard time taking it all in, and I didn't really even know where to start looking for things, so this is what I ended up with on my first trip. 

Once I got home I went on the library website. That was really cool too. You can go online and search for items. If a certain item is not available at your library, you can request it and they send it to your library for you. When it comes in, they put it aside for you and send you an email that it.s there. You can also put yourself on the waiting list for more popular items. The only thing that sucks is that you can only have a maximum of 20 items on your waiting list.
I finished my books that I originally checked out that weekend and I received an email saying that some of the items I requested had arrived. So when I went back on Monday, I did much better :)
Since then, I have gotten a couple more emails saying that the items I requested were in.  I might be slightly obsessed, but these are the books I'm working on now.  :)

New York, New York!!!

So in April I got to mark a pretty amazing item off my list of "Things to do before I die". I got to go to NEW YORK!! It was so amazing. My friend Karen just got a new job and they were sending her to NY for a conference. Karen invited me to go with her!! I was so stinkin excited! It was a super short trip, but I loved New York. It was the perfect time to go, because all the cherry blossoms were blooming. Since Karen was there on business and actually had work to do, I was on my own most of the time. I got to do and see most of the things I wanted to. It was so much fun and I can't wait to go back someday!  Here are a few of my pictures...

Grand Central Station:

 

Times Square:

Mary Poppins on Broadway:

When I was little, Mary Poppins was one of my favorite movies. I watched it over and over and over. Even today, I enjoy watching it occasionally. I have a small crush on Dick Van Dyke. ;)
The show was really really good. I was thinking that I didn't know if I would like it because I was so attached to the disney version from my childhood. I mean who can compete with Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke? I was pleasantly surprised. The set design was amazing as well the musical numbers. There is a part in the show where they have Mary Poppins float out over the audience with her magic umbrella. It was really wonderful.

Cruise around Manhatten:

The cruise was fun, but the already raining weather got much colder once we were out on the water. We got to see some really cool landmarks. Our tour guide was really cool and gave a lot of details about everything we saw.
We got to see the Statue of Liberty! I have always wanted to see it. We wanted to do the whole tour that goes up into the crown, but they were sold out until July. :( It was still really cool to see the Brooklyn Bridge and Ellis Island.

  

New York Public Library:

This library is AMAZING! It spans two whole blocks and the architecture is beautiful. The amount of marble and detail just blows my mind!




 

Empire State Buidling:












Central Park:

My other favorite movie growing up was Alice in Wonderland.  Central has an Alice in Wonderland sculpture that kids can climb all over.  It's really cute.