New York City, part 1, days 1 and 2

I went away for a few days last week to New York City.  I met my mom, sister, and sister-in-law in Atlanta and we flew up there together.

First stop, Chick-Fil-A!

We had great views flying into the city.

Thank you for welcoming me!!

You know you don't live in the USA anymore when you've completed half your souvenir shopping at Walgreens buying cereal, deoderant, and candy we can't buy in Bogota!

Jacquie and Lynn on the plane

Mom and I ready to go!

Ready to start my first day in the city!

Our first full day was spent downtown and we went up Freedom Tower to their observation deck.

We had great views of the city from the Tower.

Lady Liberty and Ellis Island

This is Freedom Tower.

We visited the 9/11 museum, which is a sobering sight to see.

A fire truck

At the site of the south tower

Me in front of the subway

I like the subway system in NYC and wish Bogota had better transportation.

Loved seeing this Carnival cruise ship just float past our window as we were eating lunch!

We didn't eat here, but nothing says NYC like hot dog stands!

Times Square

Fall Break Trip

This morning I'm back with recaps of fall break.  I like chronological events, so I am first going to share some photos from our MTW team retreat to coffee country.  I am putting all of these on one blog post, so watch out for a lot of photos below!!

Leaving Bogota airport

The front gate to the hotel

The grounds of where we stayed, which was on a coffee farm.

This is a view of the hotel

The dining room

This is me with the co-owner of the hotel.  I have been emailing with her for 2 months so it was nice to finally meet.  I made all the travel arrangements for the trip so I was the go-to person for the team and staff at the hotel.

I had gift bags for everyone.

The girls having some fun on their fall break from school.

This is Marina, who is the nanny with the other family on our team who has kids.  She's awesome and we love her.

We took a tour of the coffee farm where we were staying.

Picking coffee beans

Coffee plant

Dried and shelled coffee beans

Banana trees 

Some of our group went zip lining

Richard and I were showing our scared faces.

Brook 

Not sure who this is!

Isabella

We visited Salento, Colombia, a small town about 30 minutes from where we stayed.

Shopping the streets of Salento

A chapel

This is where we had lunch one day.

They are famous for their trout served on a patacone.  I did ask the waiter to serve it without the head and it was delicious!

He was good!

We visited the Corcora Valley, which is famous for its tall wax palm trees.

We also took a horseback ride through the trails.

And we crossed over a few bridges of water.

The scenery was beautiful.

Family photo

The pool at the hotel 

Avery hanging out with 2 other team members at the hotel.

The kids on our MTW Bogota team

Brook and Fox

This was the transportation I arranged for the team to and from the airport and our activities while there.

The name of the airport in Armenia, Colombia is Eden, so Brook had her picture taken there to show her cousin, Eden.

The girls with Becky

Our ride to Bogota