concrete jungle where dreams are made of

I got super lucky to be able to go on a fun trip with some good friends to New York City last week. The stars kind of aligned. My friend Paige has a sister that lives out there, so we were able to stay with her. I had a leftover voucher for American Airlines I had to use in the next few months which covered all but $4 of my plane ticket. So, I mean, I HAD to go. I went out there with Duke about a year ago, but it was fun to have the girly experience out there. You know, be able to shop as long as you want and not feel bad. Stroll down adorable streets and browse cute little shops. It was really great.

First day we spent at a beach in Long Island. Beach was great, the water was freezing!

That night we went out to the city and checked out The Highline. We were excited.

Next day we headed to the Met. It was suppose to rain and we wanted to dodge the rain, but we didn't do a very good job of that. After the Met we headed to Central Park where buckets of rain drenched us in no time. To say we were completely soaked would be an understatement.

  Paige got caught across the way when the rain started pouring. It was kind of hilarious.

It pretty much took the rest of the day to dry off. And once we left Central Park we seemed to be the only people who were wet :(

 Rainy Times Square

4 story Forever 21 in Times Square

 Rockefeller Building

 Madison Square Park. I think they have the prettiest Shake Shack. I like the lights.

Subway Problems

Charleston- Part II

One my favorite parts of Charleston was just walking around the amazing historic district of old AWESOME homes in Charleston. They are all amazing. And right on the water. I took a million pictures and tried to weed out my favorites. I'd like to write more, but I want to get this post up today before my computer is packed away for like a month! And I'm really tired (I went to 8am church this morning--who has church at 8?!)

Rainbow Row

Boone Hall Plantation-a few scenes from The Notebook were filmed here! Which means I need to rewatch it. Duke is thrilled.

My favorite part was the Avenue of Oaks leading up to Boone Hall. The trees were planted more than 250 years ago in two evenly spaced rows and now the  branches meet and form the loveliest of paths up to the home. It's amazing. The image above I took, the image below I got from google images because it's much prettier than mine :)

obsessed with these zinnias!

the original slave quarters. I guess not many of these still exist! Cool to see

One of (or maybe the only?) still standing slave trade markets left standing. They've turned it into a museum and we didn't have time, but walked by.

Battery Park

Goodbye Charleston! I will be back! (last cool pic my mom took-have to give her credit!)

Charleston-Part I

Charleston South Carolina! I have been DYING to go here forever. It's only 4 hours south of where we are living in North Carolina and I told Duke I was going there if it was the last thing I did! (I also said that about Savannah, and well, that didn't happen). Anyways, Charleston was an absolute dream and definitely on my go-back-to list. We only had 2 days there so it was a quick trip. We hit up 3 plantation homes, some yummy restaurants, and saw the lovely homes downtown. I LOVED IT.

 Drayton Hall Plantation Home-It's not restored only preserved, so the inside doesn't look that great. ha.

 Magnolia House & Gardens-The gardens were beauuuuuuuuuuutiful. I think I took about 100 pictures just in the gardens, so I tried to pick and choose below! It was hard!

 This 5 ft snake crossed our path!

 A mini bamboo forest^