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I HEART NYC

This is Wendi. Wendi's been my best friend since elementary school. I met her on a school camping trip and we felt bad that she was all alone and asked her to hang out with our little group. Little did we know that she would be the life of the party and she has been ever since. So naturally I couldn't resist when she asked if I wanted to go to NYC for a weekend to see Little Mermaid. One of my favorite people and one of my favorite cities. Couldn't ask for more.

I've seen a bajillion Broadway shows before this trip, but Little Mermaid was my first Disney Broadway show. It was so awesome that it became the theme for our trip.

I love that NYC is alive so late at night. After our show we hit all the fun shops around Times Square that suck tourists in to blow all their money. I have never seen so many M&M's in my life. This shop is new since we moved from there and I couldn't resist bringing my kids home candy in their favorite colors. This is only part of one wall. There were four more with more colors.

When we finally woke up the next morning after our late night out we headed down to see the progress at the World Trade Center sites. It is going to be a pretty cool memorial. It was nice to be there with Wendi and see it again with fresh eyes and remember what happened to all those families and to America on 9/11.

We had so much fun shopping on this trip. We found great bargains at Century 21, H&M and of course one of my favorites...purses in Chinatown! This trip made me so homesick for New York. I wish I could go more often.

(Lourdes, Desiree, Wendi, Carol)

Our second night we met up with some friends of mine that came in from Long Island to shop, eat and see a show with us. Carol and Lourdes are two of the reasons that I love New York so much and it was good to see them again. We ate at Cafe Napoli in Little Italy, so delicious, and stopped by Ferraro's to get some of my favorite treats for dessert. It was hard to find a show that between the four of us no one had seen, so we kept with our Disney theme and saw Shrek. Cute show, probably one that you see last on your list, but still funny. The donkey stole the show just like in the movie.

For our last afternoon before we headed to the airport we went to see a little off-Broadway show called Alter Boyz. It was a parody of all the boy bands over the past few years. It was so funny, we literally laughed for 90 minutes straight! One of Wendi's heros from So You Think You Can Dance the TV show a few seasons ago was in the cast. I'm sad I didn't see that season, because he was hilarious. He happened to be the one right outside our exit door after the show and it was so fun to watch Wendi get a little star struck. It was a fabulous way to end a fabulous trip.

But our trip didn't actually end there. We got to the airport and found out that they had cancelled our flight because of weather (despite the fact that every other airline flying to the same place was still heading out). Our fits and pleas for help were ignored so we grabbed a cab back into the city, booked one of the last two rooms still available in our hotel, literally threw our suitcases into the room and ran down the street to the Lion King theatre minutes before the 8:00 show. There were cancellations and we got the best seats in the house. Plus no one for two rows was sitting in front of us. It really made missing our flight easier to swallow and almost made up for having to wait another day to see my family! The next flight wasn't until the following night so we hit another matinee show and enjoyed the fabulous Mary Poppins. The actress playing Mary Poppins was comparable to Julie Andrews. She did a wonderful job.

We did more shopping, playing and eating than sleeping on this trip. I forgot what a night owl Wendi is, always ready for action. Our husbands and children were so nice to let us enjoy the show and to squeeze in phone calls with us between all the playing. I love Broadway shows and can't believe we were able to squeeze in so many. It was awesome.

Wendi is a year older than me so I've spent my life copying everything she does just a step behind. We did cheerleading together in junior high and drill team together in high school. When I was engaged to Nate I was a little embarassed that he was a dentist, because Wendi was already married and to a dentist. We love so many of the same things that it's just fun. To this day we still find that we like the same things right down to driving the exact same car in the exact same color....and wouldn't you know it when we pulled out our cameras to start documenting our trip I laughed so hard because we pulled out identical blue cannon elphs. Wendi is such a great person and a great friend, I guess its okay to copy sometimes! I can't wait to do this again next year.

Thanksgiving 2008

I am so grateful for my wonderful little family. I only remembered to take one picture this Thanksgiving and that's this lovely photo of Nate with a pickle. When he was in high school his campaign theme one year was "Vote for Nate, he's faster than a pickle!" The ingenius strategy worked and I had to take a picture of the infamous pickle before it made it into the garbage can.

I love spending time with my kids. We try and take turns taking each of the kids out on special dates with us. This time I took Andy to CPK and the Jazz game. The afternoon before we left he took me to the side and said, "Mom, I should have told you this before, but I'm kind of embarassed that this is called a date." It was too cute. It was easy enough to convince him that it's okay because with your mom it's not the same thing as a real date, but it was a reminder that soon enough my 1st grader that gives me hugs and kisses and even lets me hold his hand at school will soon be too old for that stuff. I wish I knew how to slow it down! Andy had the best time at the game. The Jazz were playing the Milwaukee Bucks. Andy was born in Milwaukee and decided that for that game the Jazz were the enemy against his home town and was the loudest and only Bucks fan in our section.

Maya is growing up so quickly. I've never seen a four year old so obsessed with jewelry and make-up. She still is obsessed with anything pink and constantly hovering over her little brother Luke. She's such a sweet little friend, I hope that adolescence doesn't change what we have. It's nice having her on the girl team in our family. This picture was taken at her friend's birthday party at Classic Fun Center, we had fun with the scooter and bounce houses and jungle gym. I wish my basement looked like that!

Luke is my little joy that almost wasn't. We were done at two kids because I get so sick when I'm pregnant, but we decided to go against the fear in my gut and have been blessed ever since. He's such a happy little camper and so curious and into everything. I love hearing him say, "Hey, mama" with the biggest smile when I get him out of his crib each morning. He loves "jumping" and Bombee (Barney the dinosaur), cows and talking. The other day he brought me the phone and said, "I wan call my daddy, happy bithday." I dialed Nate and Luke sang Happy Birthday to him on the phone. It's his favorite song right now. Sometimes I call people in my family that are patient enough to listen to Luke babble on the phone. The other day he was wandering around with the phone and ten minutes later I realized that my poor mom was still listening to him sing Happy Birthday and telling her over and over "Um, cow moo."

Pumpkin Patch

A little pumpkin for me, and a little pumpkin for "Lukey."

We love the corn maze!

Each October we take the kids to a fun pumpkin patch by our house for one of our FHE activities. It's fun to watch the kids race around checking out every pumpkin. They try to find their favorite small pumpkin and their favorite giant pumpkin. This year they added small tractors for the kids to climb on and a simple corn maze.

Tagged...

4 things I like about my husband
he is service oriented

he works hard

he loves me and our children

I feel myself getting happier when he walks into the room
4 movies I would watch more than once

Notting Hill

Anne of Green Gables
Pride & Prejudice

The American President (I dream of one day having a fabulous leader for our country!)
4 TV shows I watch (If I get a chance)
The Office

So You Think You can Dance
Grey's Anatomy
Dancing with the Stars
4 places I've been
New York City
Paris
Cairo
Iowa (just passing through; corn fields get old)

4 places I'd like to go
Greece

Pyramids in South America

Mount Kilamanjaro

seriously I'd go anywhere new!
4 things I would like to eat
chocolate chip cookies
homemade ice cream
thick cut french fries

fresh fruit from the Meditteranean
4 things I am looking forward to in the coming year

trip to the Wisconsin Dells

maybe a trip to NYC
finishing my allergy shots

being done with bruises from the nurse who can't give me a shot without leaving her mark

The Big Read

I found this list off of my friend Amber F. 's blog and decided to check out the list for myself. It was a lot of fun!

The Big Read is a National Endowment for the Arts program designed to encourage community reading initiatives and of their top 100 books, they estimate the average adult has read only six.

Here’s what you are supposed to do:
*Look at the list and bold those we have read. *Italicize those we intend to read.*Underline the books we LOVE .
Share this list in your blog, too, if you like.



Here's what I did: I had programming issues with my post so I just italicized books I loved rather than underlining them, however if you post on it too the underlining seems to show more love!


1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6 The Bible

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (Do I get points for reading the first few chapters one summer in high school before I abandoned the book?)

25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (macabre, I know but I really liked this one)

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (I probably just loved that I actually finished it!)

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34 Emma - Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel (Does it count that I checked it out of the library? I had to return it before I got around to reading it last summer!)

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte's Web - EB White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas (I don’t think it counts that I’ve seen almost every version of the Three Musketeers in movies, time to get reading I guess!)

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I’ve read 38 out of 100, not too shabby unless they gave a horrible guess about the average person having read only six off their list. I didn't italicize any I haven't read yet because of laziness with my blogging problem, but I hope to read the remaining 62 books someday. If I don’t finish them all, I intend at least to make a good dent at the list, it’s always nice to read something besides my copy of Parents magazine (which I do love, but something without a story on better potty training techniques is a nice read sometimes too!). If you love books have fun with the list. Thanks to Amber for the fun idea!

The end of summer...

It's been so chilly in the mornings this week that I've begin to feel the panic that sets in when I know the warm summer days will soon be distant memories. So after school today we invited the kids on our street to come and play on the water slide one last time and had cookies and popsicles and a nice afternoon. Then for family fun night we went up Big Cottonwood Canyon and had a picnic dinner at Silver Lake.



When we first got on the trail we read all the moose warnings posted and started off our walk around the lake singing "We're going on a moose hunt, we're not afraid, we're not afraid." So it was fun to find this moose track on the boardwalk at the end of the night.


It was even more fun to actually see the moose. We were worried about ending up on the news as the dumb people who got attacked by a moose after ignoring the warnings, but the mother seemed so calm with all the people and was letting her baby eat with all the people watching. So we walked around whispering and flashing the cameras with all the other people who might some day end up on the news with us too.

Bingham Copper Mine

We live near Bingham Copper Mine and from the side view I think it is quite ugly. We decided to drive up through Butterfield Canyon, which is beautiful, to check the view from above and I thought it was so cool. The view is much better from above.

Originally for family night we were going to go on a hike but since the mountains on the other side of the valley were on fire, we switched our plans to visit the upper view of the copper mine. You can still see the smoke from the fire earlier in the day.

Don't let Maya's grin deceive you. When I asked her to take this photo she was convinced we were trying to have her fall down into the mine. She just wanted to get back in the car and get the picnic started. Andy was doing homework on the drive up and said, "Mom, can I take a break from this and enjoy the beautiful drive." The kid is like his parents and loves mountains and trees and nature in general.

Luke, wasn't quite sure what the point of the activity was, but was happy enough singing along to all the songs on the drive with his baby babbling. He's really into singing these days.

First Step!

As I was getting the kids ready for bed Luke sat by me on the floor and stood up by himself. It was funny because there was actually a moment where I knew he was going to try and take a step by himself, and he had never tried before. He's been standing and laughing for two weeks now, but he was standing for so long and got this look on his face that I knew what was about to happen. Then it did happen. He took a step, pivoting back towards me. He was so excited and then we got so excited that we scared him for just a second. After that he kept standing and laughing and saying, one two, one two and trying to do it again. He managed two more single steps before bedtime and loved every minute of it.

It was like the light bulb turned on and he just wanted to attack it until he did it. The same thing happened with learning to climb stairs. Many months ago he tried the stairs and fell down twice in one day and then forever after would scream if I set him down on the steps. He hated them. Then one day a couple weeks ago I think he just got sick of being left behind as Maya and Andy went up and down the stairs that he picked a day and just went at it until he got it. The first time he climbed up he screamed literally every step that he crawled up, took a break on the landing and laughed and clapped for himself and then proceeded so scream up every step until he made it to the top and cheered again. It took him two days to decide to go down the stairs but he wanted to do it all by himself until he did it. It's fun learning how he handles new challenges. He's a very determined baby.

San Diego Zoo

We had so much fun at the San Diego zoo but we don't have the photos to prove it because the camera needed another battery and it was left in the car. It was seriously hot I don't know how people come to the zoo in July here, we drank so much water I'm sure we caused a shortage. It was fun to see the giant exhibit for the polar bears and panda bears and extra nice that this huge zoo has three buses and a sky ride to make it less tiring to see it all. We were able to spend a decent amount of time at the park because it is so close to the airport, but we were grateful to have a change of clothes so we didn't have to fly home with the zoo on us. Although it was a nice weekend it was good to finally make it home and sleep in our own beds and Luke definitely was grateful to get back to his normal routine because his molars were working their way out, we're just lucky he's a good flyer or we would have not made it through this trip.

San Diego Temple

Andy wanted to take a picture of the temple and I think he did a pretty good job fitting it all in. When we first arrived at the grounds the sister missionaries wanted the kids to take a quiz about the temple and prophets but they were so squirmy they let the kids off the hook. After walking around the grounds in the heat for a while they were ready to sit in the shade with the sister missionaries and I was impressed that they aced the quiz.

I love the San Diego temple, it is so beautiful. I tried to talk Nate into getting married here years ago, but he wanted to be closer to home so all of our family would attend, crazy guy. It was nice to be able to talk to the kids about the importance of temples and to see Maya get excited about getting married in a white dress someday instead of in her little rainbow dress that she tries to wear every day of the week.

More Legoland

Maya loved being able to ride on the rides and she seemed to enjoy everything even though there weren't any "Princesses" running around. I think she loved having play time with her dad and being old enough to drive the cars. Luke was a trooper and held up pretty well despite the heat. The free fall ride was one of their favorites and since the line was short they kept riding it over and over. It was a nice fun day for the kids.

Legoland

We had heard that Legoland was a park for kids between three and eleven years old so we decided to try it out. Legos everywhere, it couldn't have been more exciting for the kids. Maya and Andy had both saved up their allowance and were so excited to choose souvenirs from the toy shops. The thought of buying a toy with their own money was just as exciting as all the cool displays and rides. Andy bought legos, legos and legos and Maya chose a pink fairy umbrella of course.

We loved the miniature cities made completely from Legos. It was fun to see our old home New York city made up completely of Legos.

Most of the park's rides are made for the younger set so it was fun for our shorty pants kids to finally be tall enough to ride the rides!

Weekend Vacation

Since I haven't finished writing about our last family vacation in January I would write about our quick weekend getaway before I forget. Nate had a regional dental meeting in San Diego last weekend so we decided to take the whole family along. We spent Friday on the beach and swimming at the hotel, Saturday we explored Legoland and Sunday we visited the San Diego Temple and the San Diego Zoo. It was a nice warm weekend.

We slept late on Friday because our plane Thursday night was delayed and we didn't make it to the hotel until 3 a.m. Not one of the kids slept a wink on the plane or on the drive to the hotel, they were so exhausted when they finally hit the sheets. By the time we got up and had breakfast it was time for Luke's nap so Nate and Luke napped in the hotel while Andy, Maya and I built a sand castle. After lunch Nate had to go to his meeting so the rest of us hit the hotel pool and hot tub. Our hotel is in the picture to the left behind Maya, the pool was nicer than the beach because the glass wall blocked the wind. Our beach day happened to be the coolest of our 3 day trip wouldn't you know it!

Perfection is a Process

I serve as the primary secretary in my ward and on Thursday we had a Stake Training meeting that was wonderful. My favorite thought of the night came from the Stake President's counselor. We had learned so much that evening and had been asked to do so much more that he was started speaking about the fact that as we act upon the promptings from the Holy Ghost our abilities to recognize the spirit and receive more inspiration would increase. He spoke about the common issue in our church of feeling inadequate because everyone is trying so hard to be perfect in every area of life. He reminded us that in Matthew chapter 5 verse 48 Christ told us to follow the example of our Heavenly Father and be perfect, it isn't until the account in the Book of Mormon in 3 Nephi chapter 12 verse 48 when Christ is visiting the Americas after His death that he adds that He is also perfect. It wasn't until He had completed his earthly mission that He claimed perfection. Becoming perfect is a process, something that we work on over a lifetime. I liked that thought.

Aaugh!

March was full of fun things but so incredibly busy. Now that we've slowed down I'm sick. I'll never get caught up!

Tuesday Tell All: What Not to Wear

We all have those pictures from the past that we wished we didn't. The ones that make us think "what were we thinking when we got dressed that morning"?

Trends are fun at the time, but can later come back to haunt us. Think overalls, high-waisted jeans and pegged pants.

This week's assignment is to pick an item from your wardrobe that you love now, but think in five years will fall into that category (or already does).

I’m a casual jeans and t-shirt kind of gal, I don’t have too many of the trendy clothes because I don’t go shopping enough to stay on top of the new fads. However, my sin is in the opposite direction, I love comfy clothes. When I lived in New York I always hoped I would get pulled off the streets by one of those make-over shows. I’m surprised my neighbors there didn’t turn me in.

At least 5 years ago my sister gave me some old workout pants of hers because I said I didn’t have anything to wear to the gym. Those pants have been my favorite clothes ever since. I wear them to the gym, the grocery store, dropping off kids at school, errands, just about anywhere. I need more pride. I can wear them through all nine months of pregnancy they are so stretched out. A few years ago a friend’s husband asked me sincerely if I had any other pants! Little did he know there are two in this set, gray and black. (In my defense we were packing to move that week and I didn’t see the point in packing and cleaning in real clothes.) As part of my being more organized for the year, sadly, I have been getting dressed in real clothes on a regular basis now. I can’t think of any time in the past few months when I have worn them anywhere besides the gym. Plus I have some new workout pants that aren’t missing the waist tie, don’t slip down on the treadmill, aren’t shredded at the feet and probably would not be comfy if I were pregnant. I should be haunted now by my love for these pants, but I can’t wait for it to be time for everyone to give up on their new year’s resolutions so I can be reunited with my old friends.