Fun with Bokeh {Downloads}

For my Christmas card this year I decided to utilize one of the bokeh photos I took during a Thanksgiving parade in Ashland, Oregon, and use it as a background. And then I decided to share some other bokeh images here. Feel free to click on whatever images you want and use them for your personal use only. Merry Christmas!

Bryant Park & More of Central Park

November 8 was spent enjoying the day at Bryant Park and Central Park. (I love parks, can you tell?) We took the kids over to a cute little French carousel that Jones and Ella just love. The blue tokens give them the rides, and the horses produce the smiles. Ella got to ride the carousel twice and chose the horse with the roses on the front.

Bryant Park had these darling little holiday shops, and one of them was a waffles booth called Wafels & Dinges. What is a dinges, you ask? Summary: stuff. Longer version: you can read the company's blog entry on it. At any rate, this chocolate-smothered waffle was heaven.

The lighting in mid-afternoon Central Park was amazing. We walked down a hidden path (okay, off the regular one) and spent time time dancing among the trees and enjoying the lovely golden leaves. And I caught some beautiful images of my babies.

9/11 Memorial

I took a little visit over to Ground Zero and the 9/11 Memorial. It's the one thing I wanted to do on this trip that was tourist-related. Tickets are free but given out on a staggered schedule. My visit was Monday evening just before it started to get dark. The memorial is quite lovely and I took a few shots of some of the sights and the details.

Brooklyn

Lesley, the kids, and I took a trip over to Brooklyn. The day was fantastic—I had the best weather on this trip. Jones was still elated about learning how to walk, and Ella continued enjoying her stroller rides like a darling little princess. We took the Subway to Brooklyn and walked down Brooklyn Heights, and because we just love walking, we took a trip across the Brooklyn Bridge. Walking that bridge never gets old.

Jonesy isn't the biggest fan of sitting in the stroller because he has to sit in the back. So he started to get creative about changing his perspective on the world.

New York Marathon

November 6 was the New York Marathon, so we stopped by to see it as I have actually never seen a real marathon before. We had a great time winding through Central Park and figuring out how to get around despite the hordes of people. Travel included walking under tunnels, scaling small walls, and climbing over rocks and hills. And there was dancing, too. It was a great day.

Leaving Manhattan

We decided to go on an adventure and see if we could find some leaves outside of Manhattan. Manhattan leaves were in transition, but it's quite literally the last place for the leaves to turn on the East Coast. So we rented a car and off we went. We headed over to a place called Bear Mountain State Park and drove to the top to the Perkins Memorial Tower, an area that gives a fantastic overview of the valley (which is amazing to everyone except people who have grown up with real mountains). I was able to find a geocache there so I was really happy! On the way back we dropped through the city of Warwick to pick some apples on an apple farm. All marvelous fall activities.

Getting back into the city wasn't as much fun, but we're glad we took the trip.

Shadow pictures with Ella

On the hunt for apples

Mild discouragement...

Wrapping up... we managed to fill our bag, hooray!

New York Parks

I love the parks in New York City. We made some visits to Straus Park and Central Park, and even though all the leaves hadn't fallen yet, there was still plenty of beauty to be found. Jonesy had just figured out how to walk, so he was enjoying his freedom from the stroller.

Anyone who knows me knows that I could spend days in Central Park. Days. I love that park.

Exploring Straus Park; Ella enjoying her bagel and sporting her cute boots

The Mall, Central Park