Central Park in the Fall

This past week Irene and Mom came down to visit.  What a great time we had!  I love when family visits as it always makes life a little more interesting for awhile.  Of course, it also gets you out of the house doing things!  I skipped housework for the weekend and figured I'd catch up next week!  What did we do?  Well, one day we hit the second-hand stores, on Friday night I went on a shopping spree at an outlet mall with Mom, Irene and Katrina (I left one of my purchases somewhere in the mall - grrrr!), and on Saturday, Irene, Mike, me, and Juliet went to Central Park.  Every time we go to Central Park it seems we discover some new monument and area in the park.  This time we hit the Mall - an area with statutes of famous literary figures, Bethesda pool, the Alice in Wonderland statute and a perfect little park for Jules.  It was a fun day!
Here are some pictures:

                                                    Bethesda Pool - no angels here, though!

Jules, Aunty Bubs, Me 

Jules and Mike - this was by a pond where they had remote-controlled sailboats!  Very cool!

Jules loves having Aunty Bean down!

Juliet on the Alice in Wonderland statute

A monument in the little park Jules played on - I loved the inscriptions on it.  

Something I frequently need to remind myself of!

And...the love of my life!

So, I've been having this mental argument with myself on the pros and cons of having family live far away.  Pros?  When family comes and visits, we go out and do SOMETHING!  Whether it is shopping, hiking, visiting historical monuments, going to parks, etc., it is great fun to go out and do stuff together.  And since they usually stick around for a few days, there is time for long discussions about everything under the sun.  Cons?  Well, that's obvious, of course.  It would be nice to pop in and visit whenever one feels like it.  So, I'll count my blessings and thank God for the times when family comes down!  

p.s.  time to get working on some of that housework...