A Memorial kind of Memorial Day

I know Memorial Day was almost two months ago, but I'm finally getting around to documenting our day. It was a rather warm day, but we decided to spend it in the city with the Cabes [they're on staff with Cornerstone].  We arrived just in time for the Shake Shack to open [you can get a glimpse of that meal here] and enjoyed a nice lunch in Madison Square Park.

Our main attraction for the day was the 9/11 Memorial. "It commemorates the lives lost, recognizes the thousands who survived, and allows visitors to come together again in the spirit of unity that emerged in the wake of 9/11." [quote taken from a pamphlet we received at the memorial] The rebuilding has already begun. You can currently see the "Freedom Towers" in the midst of construction.

A little patriotic shot for ya.

The memorial consists of two pools set in the footprints of the original Twin Towers. These are where the towers used to stand. Thirty-foot waterfalls [the largest in North America] cascade into the pools, each then descending into a center void.

Click to enlarge so that you can get a better view!

The names of the victims are inscribed in bronze parapets around the pools. The arrangement of names is based on layers of "meaningful adjacencies" that reflect where the victims were on 9/11 and relationships they shared with others who were lost that day, honoring requests from victims' families for specific names to be next to one another.

After taking this picture, I rested my purse on the wall to put the brochure and my camera up. I was then approached and scolded by a guard, asking me not to put my belongings on the names. Enter the feeling of absolute shame and insensitivity... I felt like such a terrible person. 

They also had an interesting little thing called the "Survivor Tree." All but one of the trees on the Memorial are swamp white oaks. The exception is a Callery pear tree that is now known as the "Survivor Tree." This tree was planted on the original World Trade Center plaza in the 1970s, and stood at the eastern edge of the site near Church Street. After 9/11, workers found the damaged tree, reduced to an eight-foot-tall stump, in the wreckage at Ground Zero.

The tree was nursed back to health in a local park and grew to be 30 feet tall. In March 2010, the tree was uprooted by severe storms, but true to its name, it survived.

In December 2010, the tree returned to the WTC site. "Standing just west of the south pool, it embodies the story of survival and resilience that is so important to the history of 9/11." Today, the tree is supported by temporary guide wires as it takes root.

The closing paragraph of the Memorial's mission statement says this:
May the lives remembered, the deeds recognized, and the spirit reawakened be eternal beacons, which reaffirm respect for life, strengthen our resolve to preserve freedom, and inspire an end to hatred, ignorance, and intolerance.

The language used in this statement is beautiful, but still falls short. I say that not out of disrespect, but with excitement because it is Christ who will reawaken and restore. It is Christ who brings freedom and will one day bring an end to "hatred, ignorance and intolerance." We are groaning. Come, Lord Jesus.

Family Time in the City

So I'm still working on recapping our New York episodes... Don't worry, nothing too exciting is currently happening in the life of the KamPughs— just getting ready to have a baby in a month. That's all :)

This post is dedicated to the weekend when my sweet family came to visit us in the Big Apple. My middle sister, Valerie, lives in Chambersburg, PA [though she and her fam are moving back to Bama in a couple weeks!]. My parents went to visit them and then they took a road trip [about 3.5 hours] to see us in New York. So Kam and I got the pleasure of hosting my mom, dad, Valerie, and my niece, Emma for the weekend. B-Money, you were missed.

We started our Saturday with a light lunch at a local sandwich shop and then headed to Battery Park to catch our ferry ride to Liberty and Ellis Islands.

The girls on the ferry.

Emma thoroughly enjoying her Aunt O on the ferry.

We arrived first at Liberty Island to take in a wonderful view of the city from across the water, as well as the Statue of Liberty [of course!]. This was probably one of my favorite things we did. The weather was great and it was so fun just to stroll around with the fam and take in all the scenery. Enter an abundance of pictures...

View of the city from Liberty Island. 

Papa and Nana with their little stinker. Man she's cute...

Me and all my favorite boys... dad, Kam, and Haddon :)

There were some other interesting sights we got to see while on Liberty Island. I'm not sure who or where Nicole was, but I hope she said yes. The plane kept flying by so we started to get a little nervous for the guy!

And then there was a pirate ship...

On to the main attraction...

There she is. Why hello Lady Liberty. 

Who said the Statue of Liberty wasn't romantic — I mean, it was a gift from France, right?

I love the crazy zoom on my camera...

After our wonderful time on Liberty Island, we boarded the ferry to head to Ellis Island.

My pictures expose the fact that we were very bad Ellis Islanders... Lady Liberty just took it out of us, so we didn't do much tourist action at Ellis Island. We did watch a 30 minute documentary, though - so at least we'd be a little more historically informed! Emma enjoyed it...

We ended the day with dinner at Max Brenner. You may recall my ravings about MB from this post. It was a great way to finish off a long, full Saturday.

I don't have any pictures from our time on Sunday, so I'll just give you a quick synopsis. Everyone headed to Bay Ridge in the morning to be a part of worship with the Cornerstone family. It worked out that Kam was actually preaching that morning, so we're very thankful the fam got to be there for that. After showing off my family to the locals, we headed to Nino's for some lunch followed by dessert at Little Cupcake Bakeshop [the food lovers were not disappointed]. Then the big plan for Sunday afternoon was Central Park. Epic fail... Little did I know that the Puerto Rican Day Parade would be going down, causing half of the park to be closed off. I didn't know Puerto Ricans could make such a raucous, but they were representin' fo sho... quite the experience.

The crazy PRs [yes, West Side Story style] + being hot and sticky = family leaving early. Not the equation I had in mind, but it was for the best. We had a lovely time doing everything else and I was thankful we got to spend that time with them. They're such good sports!

I'll leave you with some fun frames of little Em rockin' the subway. Such a city girl...

Foodie Review - NY

You may already know this about me but... I love food. Not just eating it — everything about it. Cooking it, reading about it, watching TV and movies about it... you name it. As I type, I'm struggling to stay focused because I have Food Network on. I thought it would be an appropriate mood setter for this post :)

I come by my love for food honestly. The Klein family is all about it. Kameron has a good chuckle pretty much any time I'm on the phone with my family because 9 times out of 10, food will come up. We want to know what you ate, where you ate, what you're going to eat, what you're cooking. Guess it's God's grace that we're not all a bunch of fatties!

Moving along, this is why I have a post devoted solely to the food we got to enjoy during our time in New York. If it bores you, I apologize — but I know some of you out there will really appreciate it!

Before I begin, let's not forget about the best.steak.ever that we got to experience while in Brooklyn. It definitely deserves a shout out on this post and you can read all about it here.

Let's start with pizza, something you just can't get away from while in New York! Here are a few of the places we got to sample...

The famous Grimaldi's! Check out the line in front of us. I'm so glad we were mentally prepared to wait.

Here's a view of all the goods as well as all the great company!

Some more of Kam's fabulous faces while modeling with our Olde Brooklyn Root Beer. The KamPughs love their pizza and root beer...

Post Grimaldi's smiles! I love eating good food with my husband. 

The next place [which may have been our favorite] was L & B Spumoni Gardens. I've included a quick video below from the TV show Man vs. Food. He visited Spumoni Gardens and this clip shows how they make their pizza. Spoiler alert: the cheese is underneath the sauce. Oh my...

Another table of wonderful pizza and sweet community. We all came here after Jill's baptism. 

Left: Yummy Sicilian pizza - "the square" // Right: We had to try the Spumoni at Spumoni Gardens. It was... interesting. I'm still not sure how I feel about pistachio. 

There were many other NY pizza experiences that I failed to document - one of which being Nino's. This was right down the street from us in Bay Ridge and I was definitely a fan [shout out Kristi Cabe!]

Moving right along... here are some shots from our Shake Shack experience.

We went to the original one in Madison Square Park. Shake Shack is another place where you must be prepared to wait in line. This was our third attempt to eat at Shake Shack (we bailed the first two times because of our state of hunger and the length of the line!). So this time we arrived before they opened to get in line- hardcore. 

Best eating buddy EVER - and definitely the cutest :)

I took the picture on the right so that we could check out the menu and get our order down before we got up to the window. Gotta love that super zoom...

Our burgers, cheese fries, lemonade, and vanilla shake (after all, it is called the Shake Shake) were definitely worth the wait.    

The next place I'm about to showcase may have been the most dangerous— Max Brenner. Oh my chocolate...

Our first visit (yes, there was more than one) to Max Brenner's was with Molly and Justin Rigoloso. Not only are they wonderful, fun people, but they know where all the good food is. My kind of people :)

Just hanging out with some huge vats of milk and white chocolate. No big deal. 

Why hello best dessert ever. This beauty involved two sweet waffles topped with one scoop of dulce de leche ice cream and another scoop of chocolate ice cream. Throw in some whipped cream, chocolate covered crispy things and an additional vial of  melted chocolate goodness and you have a winner. My goodness I want some more now.

So happy...

Bad lighting, but this was our second time at Max Brenner. We took my family when they came to visit. This time, we ate dinner there too (not just dessert). They have wonderful regular food as well. We were very pleased! 

Now that I'm salivating... I'll close with some fun shots of us truly getting the NY food experience.

First food truck experience! It was much better than we expected, but also more expensive than we expected...

So maybe a 7-11 slurpee isn't iconic New York, but it definitely became a classic experience with some of our Bay Ridge friends [the Cabes started it...]. This is Kameron at 11:00pm, the night before he preached at Cornerstone. An extremely large Mountain Dew slurpee with a Sour Punch slurpee straw [yes, you read that correctly] is just what every young pastor needs for optimal sermon prep :)

Well that concludes this Foodie Review. Thank you to those who stuck with me through the entire post. You may now go raid your refrigerator.

The Many Faces of Kam

For those of you who do not know, my husband has some great facial expressions. That's probably why 90% of the pictures we take together are ridiculous, because we're more comfortable looking dramatic than normal. As you can imagine, this can make life living by his side quite entertaining. Just take a look...

As we were riding on the bus one day in Manhattan, we realized we were passing the Plaza Hotel. If Home Alone 2 is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear "the Plaza Hotel," then you and my husband would be fast friends. So naturally we had to do a quick funny face in front of this fabulous landmark.

One of our first Saturdays in New York was spent at the Natural History Museum. It was interesting, but definitely not what I expected. When you are completely bombarded by an evolutionary worldview everywhere you turn, you have to find a way to lighten the mood. Enter Kameron Pugh and his dinosaurs...

And then there was the mammoth...

I'm thankful that the Lord has given me a man who can make me laugh and keep me entertained, all the while answering my serious and intense questions about the Lord and His creation. Yes I know, he's a keeper.

Speaking of being a keeper, I'll leave you with a Kam face that makes me weak :) I captured this one day while babysitting for the Tubbs (this is sweet Caleb). Here's a little foreshadowing for you of what's to come in the Pugh home— Kam, his boy, and his book. Hopefully they'll make room for me!

Emma

Here are some photos I've been editing of my beautiful niece from our time together in New York. Isn't she lovely?