Our Trip North

Hugh and I were blessed recently with a trip up North.  Hoboken, NJ to be exact.  He had an interview for a job (more on that later), and they paid for both of us to visit.  I tried my best to take lots of pictures (because I forgot to do that on our trip to the South Land), so here goes my best efforts at photo journaling:

The view of Hoboken from our hotel.  We were on the 14th floor.  Most of these buildings are 3 stories high with commercial and retail on the main floor and residential in the basement and top 2 floors.  I really enjoyed how colorful a lot of them were (again, hard to see from this picture).

On the first night, we walked around campus (Steven's Institute of Technology) and saw this amazing view of NYC from one of the overlooks.

It's a little hard to tell from this shot, but campus stretches from the brown building on the left up a 30' cliff to a little past the tall building on the right.  

An even better view from the overlook with the sunset.

 This is the Hoboken side of the Hudson.  See that outcropping into the river with some lights on it?  That's the park I'll show you more of in a few seconds.

Another view of the lovely sunset over Hoboken that the Lord blessed us with.  

And of course, after dark all the lights went on and the view just kept getting better.  Hugh and I agreed that this view was quite spectacular and that if possible, we'd want to live near the water (which we later found out was quite expensive, oh well- wishful thinking is still fun).  

The next day, we attended a Redeemer church plant that we really enjoyed, ate lunch with some of the locals, and explored more of the town.  

Random fact: Hoboken is only one mile wide and one mile long!  

On Monday and Tuesday, Hugh interviewed pretty much all day, so I explored with Little Man between naps.  On Monday evening, we ate dinner with two couples who are doing international ministry on the campus, and we were so encouraged by the fruit they are seeing in such a secular place. 

Here are more photos from my adventures with Enoch:

This is another view of that fun little park.  It has multiple little play areas, great seating, decent landscaping, and amazing views of NYC.   Every time we walked past it there were lots of different people (from varying demographics) enjoying it.  

The Empire State Building

The Freedom Tower (new building going up where the Twin Towers used to stand).

This was the walking/running path that went along the Husdon.  This lady with the stroller was only one of the 6,000 moms in Hoboken that we saw while walking around town. (The realtor I met with told me that more and more people are choosing to stay in Hoboken even after having children, a new trend in the past 5 or so years.)  Even though it was in the 40s the whole time we were visiting, we ran into a lot of other moms and babies which was fun and also confirmed what our taxi driver told us: Hoboken is a pretty safe and active town.

Overall, we thoroughly enjoyed the trip.  Looking back, we see how God blessed us by giving us direction in our decision about where to go next (more on that later), and Hugh and I agreed that we could see ourselves living in a city like this someday.  :)