A Quick Trip East

After a quick visit with our friends, Luke and Holly and their daughters, in Iowa in early January, we decided to make a trip east to their place for a longer visit.  Our other friends, Kyle and Callie, from Florida were able to get away too for a kid-free trip!

A quick history on our friendships:
Brent and Luke have been friends since they were young kids growing up in Rochester together.  Luke moved to Iowa in late elementary school, but they stayed connected through the years.
Luke, Kyle, Brent, and I all went to Minnesota Bible College (now Crossroads College) together in the early 2000s where Brent, Luke, and Kyle all played basketball together and became quick friends.
Luke and Holly were married in 2005 and Kyle and Callie were married in 2007.  I am forever grateful for the wonderful women Luke and Kyle married and the friendships we all share as couples:)

On to our trip last week!

Wednesday
We flew out of Minneapolis bright and early and made it to Baltimore by lunch.  We spent the rest of the day at Luke and Holly's place catching up, making dinner, and the guys got some basketball in at the gym.  We also did some online research about our day trip to NYC and got some great tips from Luke's friend who grew up in NYC.

Enchilada Assembly Line

Thursday
We hit the road early for the 2.5/3 hour drive to Staten Island where we park to catch the ferry to Lower Manhattan.  We took the subway to Central Park, had lunch, and did LOTS of walking as we worked our way back to Lower Manhattan catching the sights.  We explored Central Park some (which wasn't very exciting covered in snow...at least not to these Minnesotans) seeing the Wollman Ice Skating Rink and the Central Park Zoo, then we checked out FAO Schwarz, Saint Patrick's Cathedral, Rockefeller Center, Radio City Music Hall all on our way to The Empire State Building.  We convinced a few in our group that they could survive the ride in the elevator and the heights of the view and made the trip to the 86th Floor Observation Deck.  We walked some more to check out Times Square and get dinner.  The weather was perfect for all of the walking at about 50 degrees with sun and very little wind.

Luke,Holly, and us on the subway

Kyle and Callie on the subway

Lunch and Angela's Deli

Central Park

Wollman Ice Skating Rink

Radio City Music Hall

Rockefeller Center

On the Empire State Building Observation Deck

View from the Empire State Building Observation Deck

Times Square

Times Square

Friday 
We had a lazy morning, then the ladies stopped at a couple stores and got mani/pedis.  Unfortunately, Kyle was not feeling well so he rested most of the day.  We all relaxed at home to watch The Butler in the evening.

Saturday
We got all packed up then headed to the Epicenter, the new community center/church that Luke is heading up in Edgewood, MD where they live.  We then made our way to Baltimore's Inner Harbor to walk around and enjoy our last lunch together.  Again, the weather was great (especially compared to back home in MN after the ridiculous blizzard that hit) at 60 degrees, sunny, and windy.  We all flew out around dinner time, us back to MN and Kyle and Callie back to FL, to meet up with our kiddos again:)

Lunch at Cheesecake Factory

Lunch at Cheesecake Factory

Walking Baltimore

Inner Harbor

It was a great trip filled with time together both relaxing and exploring.  We are so blessed by these lovely people in our lives and are thankful for the opportunity to see our far away friends in person:)  We're all looking forward to June/July when Luke and Kyle's families will be in MN!

I cannot forget to thank our amazing parents who made this trip possible sans kiddos (Mom and Dad, Dave and Paula, and Callie's parents who I've never met but must be wonderful:))!  Special thanks to my dad for snowblowing at our house during the blizzard o' February 2014 so we didn't come home to drifts up to our knees!