Brooklyn Botanical Gardens

Last weekend a classmate of mine that lives in Brooklyn invited me and couple other guys from school over to go to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. It only took me 40 minutes to get there despite the fact that it was a Saturday and the trains don't run as frequently on the weekend and that I had to take three trains. Last weekend was the first really nice weather that we've had here this Spring so lots of other people had the same idea as us to take advantage of the weather. It was a really nice place especially with most of the trees in bloom.

Magnolia flowers

Later that night as I went grocery shopping, like I always do for fun on a Saturday night, it was still warm out so people were outside on their steps talking, playing guitar, and singing. The funniest thing I saw were two girls who must of been under 10, fencing in the middle of the sidewalk with epees, masks and uniforms. Not the type of thing you normally see happening on the street.

Chery tree blossoms and more magnolias

More of the same

Just so I don't have all flower pictures, this is an army memorial that's outside the park

Spring Time for Jason and Jersey City

The winter wasn't as cold or as long as back at home but the Spring is still a relief. About a week ago the first flowers started showing up with grass poking through the cracks in the sidewalks. This week the trees started to flower. This splash of colour and life is a nice juxtaposition to the concrete and the cars of the city.

Nets Game

A guy in my ward came up to me on Sunday asking if I had plans for for the next Wednesday and if I liked basketball. Obviously I didn't have any plans and of course I like basketball. Anyways, he told me that he had tickets to the Nets game that he wasn't going to be able to use, and because they were playing the Toronto Raptors he thought I'd be a fan of a Canadian team. (I'm not a big Raptors fan but who cares).

He gave me two tickets, so I took a guy from my class that lives on Staten Island. The game was at the Izod center which a little ways inland which means a long bus ride, so we decided to go to Staten Island and pick up his car and drive to the game.

The seats were really good, as you can see from the picture.

It was cool to see players like Vince Carter and Chris Bosh play.

I was a little conflicted about who to cheer for because I didn't go in really liking either of the teams all that much. I decided on the Raptors. They ended up winning, thanks to me.

The game wasn't all that action packed but It was fun to be there.

Because our seats were behind the basket they gave us thunder-sticks but there were a group of kids sitting behind us that couldn't use them without hitting me in the side of he head and they screamed like girls until half time, that's when they lost their voices. You can hear both it the video.

Christmas in the Great White North

I had two weeks off from school for Christmas so I went back home. The day before I left New York there was a blizzard that shut down all the local airports. I managed to make it out without much trouble. I found out that the next day there was another storm that canceled more flights out of New York.

The weather wasn't much better in Edmonton. It was cold. There were only a few days that made it out of the -20s. That just meant that I didn't get to play as much shinny hockey as I would have liked to.

It was fun to be home and play with the kids. The twins were pretty funny on Christmas morning and Grace was cute and always giggling.

We did manage to get out skating once with M&T and the twins, but the ice was really bad that made it hard to skate so we didn't stay out very long.

The Smiths came up from Lethbrigde for New Year's eve.We spent the night playing rock band and watching hockey. Pretty good night.

And of course there was the Resolution Run on New Years Day. Being ridiculusly cold at the start and too hot at the end are just part of the run.

I've been away for 5 months but I was suprised at how much it felt like I hadn't been away at all.

Christmas in NYC

Yesterday I went into the city to see some of the Christmas sights. I wanted to see the tree at Rockefeller Center and some of the shop displays on 5th ave. There were more and more people the closer I came to Rockefeller Center, and by the time I got there it was almost shoulder to shoulder. It was a pretty impressive tree and it was kind of fun to see people skating in the plaza.

The big store turn their display windows into Christmas dioramas that have little to do with the store itself, but tons of people stop to look at the displays.

Of course Macy's has Christmas lights and window displays outside but they also have the Times Square New Year's ball on display too. They also have a Santa set up that is reminiscent to "The Christmas Story". They make a big deal about Christmas.

Before I went home I stopped in at Bryant park where they have another Christmas tree and skating rink. And for no good reason I took a picture of the Empire state building. Merry Christmas from New York.

Thanksgiving Day Parade

My parents are in town for a couple of days and we decided to go down to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. We took the PATH train into the city, and the train was pretty full for a holiday, but it turned out that most of the people on it were heading to the same place we were. There were a lot of people there.By the time we found a good spot to watch from we were there were people 6-8 people deep off the rail, so we were behind a lot of people and the instant the parade started a wall of kids on shoulders and standing on things shot up in front of us. Most of my pictures were taken from between kids heads.You don't really get a sense of how big these things are until they float over you. They say there were 40 balloons.

These things float ominously down the street like Snoopy shaped clouds of chlorine gas over top of the unsuspecting crowds.

I'm not sure if this is Miley Cyrus or Hannah Montana, either way all the kids around us were going nuts when she went by. "IT'S MILEY"

This float has the whole sesame street gang, Bob, Maria, Gordan, Big Bird, Oscar, etc. I think they tried to get Mr. Hooper but had to settle for just his store I put these two pictures in especially for Moses Smith because I know he's a big fan of Neil Young. Keep on rocking in the free world Moses

I started to get kind of cold after 2+ hours of standing there, but most of the crowd stayed till the end of the parade. I think the little kids were kept warm with by their anticipation of the arrival of Santa. I was expecting him to throw candy or have his sleigh pulled by a John Deere tractor. I guess Cardston has just set the bar pretty high.

Parade left overs.

After the parade they kept Broadway closed to traffic while they cleaned up. It was pretty cool to walk down the middle of Broadway through Time Square.

Halloween Parade NYC

Did you even know there is a Halloween parade in New York? I didn't until two weeks ago. I had nothing else to do last night so I went to it with a couple of guys from my class and it was crazy. It's like other parades in that there are floats and marching bands and people walking down the street but think of all of that taking place at night with everyone in costumes.

Anyone in costume is allowed to be in the parade so there were 50000 people in it. I stood and watched for over two hours and is was still going when I left. When I left I felt out of place not being in a costume. They said that there was about 2 million people watching.

There was a lot of creative costumes and floats.

The crowning jewel of the parade was the "thriller" dancers. They had Thriller playing and there were 5 Michael Jacksons and 200 zombies behind all dancing in unison. It was pretty impressive. It was a lot of fun.