NYC!

Adam had never been to New York City before and has been dying to go for years now. He was talking to his mom one day and she mentioned that her and his dad have been wanting to go too, so we decided to all go together.
Adam and I flew out to NYC on the red eye Wednesday night. Neither of us slept a wink. We got to the airport at 5:30 am and had time to kill til we were supposed to meet up at his parent's airport hotel they were at for the night. Once we met up with them, we shared a taxi into the city. We stayed at The Manhattan on Times Square.  We spent the day walking around the city: Rockefeller Center, Times Square, Radio City Music Hall, Magnolia Bakery, and lots of shopping.

That night we met up with a rep that Adam and his dad have known through Mr. Mac for many many years. Every time he comes to town he takes us out for a "dining experience"! And boy, it's quite the experience. He's a typical New Yorker: loud, opinionated, and demanding, but also very very nice and generous. He's always told us that if we ever come to New York, he'll show us what real good food is. He picked us up that night and took us to a little place in Queens called Elias Corner for Fish. You would never think it was an amazing restaurant just looking at it. And when you walk in, you kind of feel like it's run by the Mafia. They don't speak English barely at all and there are NO MENUS! But Jimmy and the owner have known each other for many many years, so Jimmy told the guy a long list of what to make for us and minutes later it started arriving at our table. I think we ended up with a total of 13 appetizers. Then Jimmy took Karon with her back into the kitchen and let see all the options for the main course. A while later, the waitress brought out a huge whole cooked fish on a tray. It was some sort of trout, which I normally would not like, but it was amazing. Everything we ate there was unbelievable good. 

It was fun actually having the hotel in Times Square because every evening after dinner we would usually just walk the streets in Times Square and do some people-watching. There's just something so fun and exciting about being in New York, and it's such a nice change from quiet Utah. 

Friday we spent the day at Ground Zero, shopping, going to Battery Park, 5th Avenue, Little Italy (where we ate a delicious lunch), China Town, Canal Street, Wall Street, and more. Adam and I saw the new memorial at Ground Zero, so beautiful and sad. That night we took the subway to the Bronx and went to a Yankees game. We had great seats and the weather was perfect.

Saturday we took a carriage ride through Central Park, which was probably my favorite part of the trip. We did some more shopping and sight seeing, then went to dinner that night at Ruth's Chris.

Sunday morning we went to church at the chapel that's inside the Temple. We walked through Central Park, and then ate lunch at our favorite pizza and salad place. Adam and I went over to China Town again that afternoon and ate some authentic Chinese food that Adam said tasted EXACTLY like what he ate while he lived in Hong Kong. That night we saw "Newsies" and loved it. The Winn's neighbor's son was in it, so it was fun to see someone we knew up on stage. Afterwards, we headed over to Serendipity for some dinner and frozen hot chocolate.

Monday morning our perfect weather ended and it was rainy all day. We did a little more shopping and went to Grand Central Station, then went to lunch at Shake Shack. Sooooo good. That evening we headed to the airport and after two hours in delays, finally got in the air.

Many many thanks to my mom and dad and Meghan Bodily for watching our kids while we were gone!

Easter

We had a fun, busy Easter weekend.  The Saturday before Easter we went to our annual neighborhood Easter egg hunt. 

That night we went to my parent's house for a hunt and dinner. 

On Easter morning, the kids hunted for their baskets and then filled them with all the eggs and candy they could find. Then they dressed in their cute Easter clothes and we went to church.

  That afternoon we had dinner and Easter egg hunts at the Winn's.  After the cousins had their hunt, we had our second annual adult hunt.  Picture a bunch of adults in their 20's and 30's frantically searching the basement of the Winn's house in search of money filled eggs.  It was so fun.

We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in the neighbor's backyard, letting the kids play on the swingset and the boys battle in out on the basketball court.



Adam challenged Brandon to a game of HORSE.  Brandon beat him in the first game, but Adam came back and won the second game. 



Brandon prentending to be angry that Adam beat him at HORSE



Steve and Cookie playing a little ball

Girls Weekend

Adam is always telling me I need to plan a weekend trip with my girlfriends and just get away.  I don't know why I don't take him up on his offer more often!  A couple weekends ago, I went to St. George for the weekend with a few of my neighborhood friends.  We stayed at my in-laws home and just enjoyed our child-free time together! 
We drove down Thursday night and then headed to Las Vegas the next morning.  Well, we tried to anyway.  We had some car issues that delayed us a couple hours, but we made it there before long.  We shopped for a while at the outlets, and then walked around on the strip.  We ate dinner at a really good Mexican restaurant at the Mandalay Bay.  We wanted to see a show, and decided to see the Cirque du Soleil Chris Angel show would be a good combination of the cool Cirque acrobatics that everyone loves and some amazing magic tricks.  WRONG! There was ZERO acrobatics in the show, or anything that resembled Cirque du Soleil at all.  I've watched Chris Angel perform on tv before and had been very impressed, but his magic show was just ok in person.  After the show we had a couple scary experiences trying to get home, but we finally made it back to our St. George home.  The next day, we slept in, then went to an antique store and a couple other stores.  We went and got pedicures (not very good ones...) and then saw The Lucky One.  That night we just ate dinner at home and played games and laughed and laughed.
What a fun fun trip, I love my friends so much!

Here we are waiting and waiting at the car repair place

Outlet shopping

The Venetian

Jean Leggings!  Love it!

Time to go home!

Spring Break: Salt Lake

Adam couldn't take any time off during the kids' spring break, so we decided it'd be fun just to do an overnighter in Salt Lake.  We stayed at a hotel downtown and spent our first night at the hotel's pool.  The kid were in heaven, especially Ethan, who spent the whole night doing cannonball after cannonball.  Luckily we were the only ones at the pool!

The next morning we went to the pool again (more cannonballs!) and then got ready and headed over to City Creek. We did a little shopping and ate lunch, then walked across the street to Temple Square. The flowers there were gorgeous! Overall, a fun, but short trip.

Spring Break: Zoo!

Last month during spring break, we went to the Hogle Zoo with my mom. The highlight of the trip for Austin was the giraffes. They are his favorite animals (other than great white sharks) so he was so excited to see them. They were out walking around, eating, and just being cute. We went inside the giraffe house after watching them outside and found a trainer working with one of them. It was cool to watch all the tricks she was teaching him.

The highlight of the zoo for Kylee was the carousal. That girl looooovvvveeesss carousals, so she was in heaven.

The highlight of the zoo for Ethan was probably the reptile house. He spent a good portion of our day at the zoo being a bit whiney. We went to the reptile house last and instantly he was in a good mood. He wanted to see every single reptile and know every fact about them. He kept saying to me, "Mom this is so interesting!"

Since the reptile house was the last place we visited, the kids were exhausted by then. So exhausted that Kylee thought it'd be a good idea to lay down on the disgusting floor there to rest. If you've been to this zoo and know how horribly the reptile house smells you'd understand why I was so disgusted to see her lay down there. (Not too disgusted to let her lay there an extra few seconds while I snapped a picture, apparently!)