New York Trip! Part 2

 Here are some more of our favorite pics...

Snake man on the Brooklyn Bridge

All of us (plus a random lady) on the Brooklyn Bridge :) 

The Lego Store!

Max and Marshall taking in the sites on Times Square

Grand Central Station

Playing The Big Piano in FAO Schwarz toy store (that piano costs a mere $250,000)

Minion! 

FAO Schwarz toy store was amazing!

Look what Grandpa bought me! Grant flew his new Iron Man all over Central Park that afternoon

Liza's new umbrella. She even gave Grandpa a tutorial on the useful parts of an umbrella. :)

I love this picture 

Max and Lisa looking glamorous on Fifth Avenue

The huge ferris wheel in Toys R Us, Times Square

Lego Hulk!

My cute Dad surprised me with this little elephant at the toy store. :)

Max and Mark

The Temple! Right there in the middle of NYC.

Hard Rock Cafe

The Statue of Liberty!

View of Manhattan from Staten Island

The kids were really excited to see the Statue of Liberty 

They got way into listening to the special kids' tour on their little "phones"

The 9/11 Memorial was beautiful and poignant

Cute Mom and Dad resting at the Memorial

Ready to ride the subway (several times every day!)

Passing time on the subway (playing Candy Crush)

Natural History Museum

And the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall in Philadelphia...

We loved our New York trip! Thanks, Nana and Grandpa and Marshall and Lisa and Max for partying with us!

New York Trip! Part 1

We had a fabulous week together as a little family, spending time in cool new places and getting to be with some of our far-away family. But before we met up with Nana and Grandpa and Marshall and Lisa and Max in New York, we stopped in New Milford, Connecticut to visit Dave and Tracie Bramhall and their four cute kids. We met the Bramhalls way back when we were both newlyweds in Draper, and they are still some of our favorite people. The long 9-hour drive to their house Sunday went amazingly smoothly (we only stopped once!). Monday morning Tracie took us to a beautiful place called Kent Falls so the kids could explore before we had to get back in the car to drive the almost 2 hours back to NYC.

Yes, we even found elephants near the park. :)

Tracie and Aimee

The boys

I love it when these two are best of friends

When we got to New York that afternoon, we checked into our hotel (which had an a less-than-scenic view of a graveyard across the street with, we were told, 220,000 Jewish graves--at least it was a quiet neighborhood!). Then Mark and I and our kids headed out to figure out the subway system and explore Times Square for the evening. 

Our awesome graveyard view from the hotel

Discovering Times Square!

Then, by Tuesday morning the fun had arrived. We packed as much as possible into every day with Nana and Grandpa and Marsh and Lisa and Max. Here's a quick list of what we did/saw in NYC together:

*Tuesday - Central Park, the Natural History Museum, lunch at Firehouse, Subway dinner at the hotel, get the kids and babysitter all situated, adults head off to see "Wicked" on Broadway (it was amazing!!!)

*Wednesday - Statue of Liberty tour, 9/11 Memorial, walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, dinner at Burger Heaven then shopping near Rockefeller Square: the Lego Store, H&M


*Thursday - breakfast with Stan and Shirley Kauffman at their apartment, the American Girl Store with Nana and Lisa and Liza and me, Fifth Avenue, FAO Schwartz toy store, Central Park, hotdogs and gyros and pretzels for lunch in the Park, Manhattan Temple, dinner at Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square

*Friday - say goodbye, pack up, Mark and the kids and I drove home through Philadelphia and stopped there long enough to see the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, then got home a little after midnight.

Here are some of our favorite pictures...

Marsh and Lisa on the way to see "Wicked"

Mark and Aimee

Mom and Dad 

At Gershwin Theatre

The crew after the show. It was so fun to be out on a big date with all these fun people!

Popsicles in Central Park

Chillin' in Central Park

Cute Max Boy

Max was for sure the star of the trip

Grant loved to chase pigeons and scare them with his Hulk yell  

I am having issues with getting the pictures up on this blogpost, so I'm going to post this one and then start another as Part 2 of our trip. Thanks for looking! 

Back-to-school pictures

I am too cheap to buy the school portrait packages, so I promised the kids we'd take our own back-to-school pictures. I am trying to learn how to do these things myself with my new camera. Taking these reminded me that I still have so much to learn! But I am pretty happy with how they turned out. At least I had good subjects, and we had a good time together. 

4th Grade

1st Grade

Preschool

New Beginnings

It seems strange that July--the middle of summer--would be a time for new beginnings. But for some reason, this July has been full of change and open doors of new opportunities. See for yourself...

It all started when we got back to NC after our trip to Utah. We needed to be together as a little family again. Out of the past 6 months, Mark and I (and the kids) have lived apart for 3 of them. So coming home to Mark and knowing that neither of us have any looming travels on the horizon felt really good. 

After a fun family outing to Cheesecake Factory

July 1st Mark started in his new position as chief resident. His days are full of administrative things he doesn't love so much (like emails, meetings, paperwork, teaching lectures, etc) as well as surgeries and eye exams and people interactions that he does love. He's enjoying working with the residents and faculty. The scariest thing for him as chief resident so far has been assisting/training the residents while they perform surgeries. He says it's one thing to do the surgery himself and a completely different experience to try to direct someone else while they do the surgery. Mark does work at the VA and the Eye Center, and once a week he is assigned to work at the state prison.  He has had a lot of stress and long days as chief resident, but so far so good. 

Kimball turned 9 years old and started 4th grade. Eliza started 1st grade and today is turning 6 years old. Poor Grant doesn't have a birthday this month and isn't starting his preschool yet, so he has felt kind of left out. (At least he got a new Avengers lunch box during one of our school-supply shopping trips.) Kimball and Eliza both lucked out and got really good teachers this year. Both kids seem happy and excited about the new school year.

First day of school!

Breakfast in bed for the birthday boy

For Kimball's birthday party, he asked to have two friends over for pizza and a movie.
We went to "Despicable Me 2." It was a super easy, fun party. 

Breakfast in bed for the birthday girl

Liza decided she wanted to decorate her own cake this year. She had me help her cut out two flower shapes and then she pretty much did the rest. Sometimes I'm not sure if she's 6 or 16. 

Our cute, spunky 6 year old

Kimball is in a summer basketball league, and Mark is the assistant coach for his team. We're not winning many games, but we're improving. :)

Devin and Kimball: serious body-boarders

This past weekend we got to drive up to Virginia Beach to spend a couple of days with the Driskills. Amazing scenery, awesome family, good times. I wish it was a new beginning of having family closer, but they've already gone back to far-away Minnesota. 

Cute Zach and Grant

Me and my awesome sister Andrea

The girls, Liza and Amanda

Fun night out on the beach all together
   

As for me, my first Sunday back from Utah I found out I was getting released from my primary chorister calling and getting 3 new callings instead. I am so sad to leave my job in the primary. I have loved teaching the kids and singing with them every week for 3 years now. But I guess I have to let someone else have a turn at the best calling in the church. So now I have to move on and turn into an adult. My new callings are ward chorister, ward choir director, and Relief Society teacher. Yikes. I am nervous about all 3 of them but willing to give it all a go. Another new beginning for me is having to make new friends again since so many of my friends have recently moved far away. Life was getting too comfortable, I guess, so I should have just expected the change to come. :)

So many new beginnings. So many new things to adjust to and enjoy. We are looking forward with faith and hope.