4th-5th July Fireworks

Nothing too spectacular, pretty badly edited lol but you get the general idea of the night - chopped chunks out of the vid to spare repeating certain fireworks over and over again.

Can't wait for next year - we will have a plan all ready to go by then & an even bigger budget!!

Bright lights .. BIG city!!!

NEW YORK CITY

 

So 2 weeks ago I FINALLYYYYYYYYY got to go to New York city!!  WOW, that place is a trip, it really is like going to a different planet.  There is just SO much going on everywhere you look.  Totally sensory overload for sure!!

There are weird people are far as the eye can see and it was AWESOME lol  The first time we got on the subway, some dude got on and just started licking the windows, if it wasn't so packed, I totally would have got a pic of it and mannnnnnnnnn subway cars are NASTY lol   Hand sanitizer has never come in SOOOO handy!!

 

It is hard to describe New York cause there is just so much going on you can't sum it up! We ended up missing the express bus to get there from where we were staying so it took about and hour and a half to get there which drove me INSANE (patience is not my virtue), we had to drive through Harlem, good god that was scary - not for why you would think ... ok maybe a little LOL but the bus driver was insane, almost clipping people crossing the road, avoiding hitting other cars and he seriously came very, very close to clipping a couple of people on bicycles!  I couldn't wait to get off that damn bus and feel the street beneath my feet once again hahahaha

We finally got off the damn bus and walked about 10 metres and what do we see ... 

BUT

 ... 

the 

...

 

So of course we totally had to go in and start our tour of NY with dessert!!!  I ended up getting a small chocolate cannoli and hubby of course got a mini cheesecake!

Mmmmm NOM NOOM NOM

We pretty much spent the rest of the afternoon/night just wandering around looking at stuff, checking out Macy's, Toys r Us store, Disney store and HAD to go to the M&M store!

Times square was just great, so bright, so busy and totally packed with people, I could have spent ages there with a Starbucks just watching people!

 

We also got some kickass spray paint art from this dude!  He rocks!

 Now that we know NYC is only 4 hours away, I hope we can go back again & again & again, that place is a BLAST!!!

Drove halfway across the USA .... FOUR TIMES!!!

Been busy, busy, busy since I was last on here.  As the title says "Drove halfway across the USA .... FOUR TIMES". 

The inlaws live in Oklahoma and seeing as we are now in Pennsylvania, it is impossible for Kaleb to see his Nanny and Papa like he used to be able to.  We finally managed to arrange for them to spend some time with them and Kaleb was excited beyond belief, he started counting down at "30 days to go" LOL

We set off over a week and a half ago to Missouri, which was the meeting point to drop Kaleb off with Papa.

Kaleb was great on the drive, his had his table to entertain him, music, some toys and his colouring books & crayons.  Only thing that stopped us from getting there faster were the constant pee breaks LOL.  After 2 days we finally made it there, went to hubbys bosses house for lunch, let his lil boy and K play for a few hours.  Papa met us there too and then it was time for them to leave back to Oklahoma.

K said his goodbyes to daddy, daddys boss, wife and kids & then it was my turn for goodbyes, didn't go the way I had planned.  I put him in the carseat in papas truck and when I went to get cuddles and a kiss, Kaleb looked at me, begrudgingly gave me a kiss and said "Go home mum, just go home" - lol the little bugger!!!  It upset me but I didn't let him see it.  Papa and K drove off, we said goodbye to hubbys boss, wife & kids and then we were on the road.

My weather app on my phone is also set to notify me about Oklahoma weather and it went off .... that is when the worry started!!!

Storms were popping up all round the OKC metro and quickly turning into bad tornadoes heading FOR the metro.

I was texting, voxering & calling people, the whole time I was going in and out of shitty reception.  A tornado hit very close to where we were living, did some damage to family and friends places in Yukon, nothing massive but still too close for everyones comfort.

Papa ended up driving through and not stopping just to get back to Oklahoma and make sure that everyone was ok.

We finally got back to PA and then about 1-2 days later we headed off to NY - that is another post all together!

We ended up having to cut our NY trip short as one of papas dogs Eddie was very sick and had to be put down & kaleb was very attached to him, so we ended up going back to Missouri to meet with papa and pick up K so that K wasn't there for the fallout when it happened.  It would have been nice to have a little more time to ourselves but hopefully we have other chances before the end of summer!!

8 days to go ...

As the title says, there are 8 days to go till we drive halfway across the country again, this time our destination is Missouri - where we will be meeting the in laws who are driving from Oklahoma and we will be handing over Mr Squeaks and be off on an adventure of our own, while he gets to see all of his cousins and have adventures in Oklahoma - hopefully none of the tornado type!!!

I CAN'T WAIT

Now don't get me wrong, we will miss him dearly but it will be nice to finally have a break as we have probably been away from him maybe a handful of nights.  Hubby travels a lot for work so he is away from him usually at a week at a time but I am there .... all .... the .... hair pulling out frustration ... time.

It will be so nice to be able to relax, get up when we want, have a few more than 2 beers if we want (we barely drink when kaleb is at home), stay up till we want knowing that if we did stay up late before we would be paying for it in the morning when Kaleb comes in to jump on the bed or just stand there right next to your face, eye to eye in that creepy way kids do just waiting for you to open your eyes lol Oh and I won't miss the whole finger up the nose trick he does to make you fly up out of bed!!!!!

 

The one that loves to make me tear my hair out!

I had planned on visiting the Waverly Hills Sanatorium - the place that has the "death tunnel" and housed all the tuberculosis patients but it is looking like all the night tours are booked through till July .... to say I am pissed about this is an understatement but oh well what can you do.  I think I will call them again and find out when the next lot of day tours are - fingers crossed none of them are fully booked.  Knowing my luck they will be seeing as they only do one Sunday day tour a month - ridiculous if you ask me!!

If all of that falls through, who knows what we will do, might be a trip to NY & jump around on the massive piano like in BIG lol  - we might just see where the road takes us ........

Also, if you can please donate something to the Red Cross in light of the Moore, Oklahoma Tornado.  The money will go to help them out.  The Red Cross helped us greatly when we lost everything to an apartment fire - they gave us basic things we needed, a few toys for Kaleb, shelter till we could figure out what we were doing and money to buy things that we needed such as clothes, basic needs like shampoo etc & food.

Donate to the Red Cross Tornado Victims

..... long overdue

I spent most of the night sitting in front of this screen thinking what to write .. so many things have happened since I first moved to the US to Oklahoma - what I have considered my second home from almost the moment I moved there from Brisbane, Australia.

Close calls with tornadoes, shitty landlords and losing everything we owned to an apartment fire. All things we learned from, grew from, recovered and moved on.  We moved in June of 2012 from Oklahoma to Pennsylvania for hubbys work and were finally away from the really bad tornadoes - although they do happen here apparently.

However the events that happened today broke my heart beyond words.  Having good friends and family still in Oklahoma I have my weather apps set to Oklahoma as well as where we live now & when May hits I know I am able to stream my favourite Oklahoma news station on the internet to find out what is happening and contact people back there in case they aren't in front of the TV or getting any warnings on their phones.

I plugged in the laptop to the TV and started watching the weather broadcast - things were just starting to get really bad.  It went on and on, worse and worse and all anyone could do was just sit there and watch it.

People were losing all they owned, houses, cars, possessions and for quite a few people ... their lives.  There is no greater feeling of helplessness than watching all of this unfold in front of you on the TV.

You never really understand the effects of a tornado when you see this on the news - you think to yourself "wow that is so sad/bad/horrible".  I have actually seen tornado damage up close and personal at a place where hubby used to live when we went storm chasing and it is mind blowing - you can't really describe what it is like other than seeing a home, now scattered in trees, shrubs etc.  Big strong trees snapped like twigs at the base.  Peoples photos, belongings, childrens toys flung as far as the eye can see.  When you are there in the middle of something like that, looking at everything - that is when the destructive nature of a tornado hits home.

Seeing housing estates - MASSIVE housing estates with nothing but the cement slabs where all the houses were are left, the remnants of the homes looking like nothing but a massive match box that has been opened and all the matches thrown on the ground.

What really got me were the schools that got hit - primary schools flattened - with children inside, many of them would not have survived - that is when I lost it and broke down crying.  It hits home so much more when you have a child of your own.  You drop them off knowing they are at school and should be safe yet something like this happens and your child won't be coming home with you at the end of the day as planned.  It got to a point where I had to walk away from the tv because I just couldn't watch it any longer - the parents of those innocent children and the families of the other people that were killed don't have that option.

I check the updates on what happened now and then but I can't sit there and watch it all unfold, it truly is heartbreaking.

My thoughts are with every family that lost loved ones and anyone else that lost things dear to them in this whole horribly cruel situation nature has forced on to Oklahoma .......

51 lost to the tornado so far, 9.40pm EST

EDIT: Death toll as of 2.44pm EST is now 24 with 234 people injured and many, many animals having to be killed - as heard from a brother in law who is a cop in Oklahoma, he said he has personally had to use over 100 bullets on animals with injuries such as horses with 2x4's through their necks :o(

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