My favorite part of New York, (except for my family of course) is how green it is. Even though the humidity makes my hair poofy and sweat feel stickier, everytime I look out a window or step outside, I feel blessed to be able to come back to see the giant trees and rain drops falling.

Everytime we make a trip back up to the North, my family strives to get out on at least two hikes. When most people think of New York, they think of the old, grey city. Not a lot of people venture outside the concrete jungle to see the gorgeous Adirondack Mountains, the Erie Canal, or the finger lakes.

During a visit back, we went to SeaBreeze Amusement Park. My dad and aunt were taken here multiple times a summer, and some of the rides they adored were still there for me and my brother to ride.

Celebrating my second Easter at our house in Rochester, NY where my dad grew up. Although I don’t have many memories of when we lived there, I get vivid flashes of memories where I’m sitting on the couch with my brother, and watching TV on the giant box that was taller than me.

Although I wasn’t born in NY, we moved before I had my first birthday. This made the event more special because most of my family had already lived in Rochester or Irondequoit, so they got to see me for my first birthday party.

Me, my dad, and my nephews at one of the finger lakes in Honeoye. Although these aren’t my nephews by blood, our moms are so close we are basically related. Almost every year, we go up to the lake house on the 4th of July to watch the “Honeoye Ring of Fire.”

After a couple of hours of sailing on Lake Ontario with my dad’s high school friends, I fell asleep and got the worst sunburn of my life. Me and my dad have a sailboat, but since we live in Colorado, we never got to sail like we did on the 34ft Cutter rig in New York with over 3ft waves.

After an exhausting week of swimming, hiking, shopping, and revisiting places of my childhood, we made the journey back to our beds.