who gets this chance?

Supermodel

2012-01-27T07:00:00.000-05:00

Seeing as how we have only one niece on my side of the family, we always try to do fun things with her. She is a fashionista, so I thought we should have a photo shoot. She was timid about it at first, but then totally got into it. Okay so maybe not that timid, because this was her first pose!

A natural!

Her American Girl doll.

This was the fun shot.

Along with this one. Perfect timing. :)

Such a beautiful niece I have!! :)

A niece who is growing up too fast too.

Thanks M for letting me practice taking pictures, you are perfect!!!

Faces

2012-01-25T07:00:00.000-05:00

Remember how I told you a couple of posts ago that D and I played a game in which I would turn my camera screen around and he would make faces at it? Well, here were the results! It happened three different times, and it was the same every time. I loved it!

Cousins!!! and wrestling

2012-01-23T07:00:00.000-05:00

Now, what do you ask is the cousins favorite thing to do while all together??

This:

Yes, wrestling!!! Even our one and only girl gets in on the action! This was a new way to wrestle with someone on the back of someone else, but they love it! It's strange, because they don't get hurt, too often, and just love to wrestle around with each other.

Everyone getting the oldest cousin, W.

There was one night where all the adults were going to a wedding reception, and the kids stayed home with some babysitters, and we had to tell them over and over again "No wrestling tonight." We even had to tell the babysitters, because I'm pretty sure they would have snuck it in somehow.

Taking a break, and what is that look W??

Did you notice that one of the bigger cousins is not in on the action??

He was busy playing MarioKart on the DS. :)

Ya-ya and D

2012-01-19T07:00:00.000-05:00

As we got to know D, we started to try and get him to say our names. My name and my sister's name always seemed to come out as "Ya-ya". So we are not sure which one of us is really "ya-ya" or if we both are, but it was still cute.

After we took family pictures one day, we drove home and I was surprised by a graduation party from my family. See, back in November I finally graduated with my Bachelor's Degree!!!! I was completely shocked that they did this for me, and felt completely loved. Anyway, so that is how and why D has those noise blower things, it was from the party.

So after we ate and celebrated, D sat down on the kitchen floor and Ya-ya sat right with him.

He started to share the noise blowers with Ya-ya.

They blew and blew, although hers was the only one making noise, but D would make the noise that should have come out.

"Listen to me, Ya-ya!"

I love how he is almost studying how she is blowing it to make the noise, like trying to figure out the secret to it all.

Together they make music!

As they were playing together, D kept getting closer and closer and finally he was right up close to Ya-ya.

Still making noise, uh, music.

"Aunt Ya-ya, let me help you."

"There you go!"

Cute boy!!!

Then I turned the screen around on my camera so he could see himself. He likes to do that.

And we took pictures of him and Ya-ya blowing away.

Such a cute smile!

While D and I were sitting on the stairs, we took pictures of Ya-ya.

And mom and dad.

And then everyone taking down the decorations.

As you can see D was the man of the hour, and as you can tell with the pictures there are no other kids in them...wonder where they were?? Playing upstairs and wanting us to leave them alone.

I do have to say though, thank you to my family for making a big deal out of my graduation. I was so excited to be done, and to be able to actually celebrate it was fabulous!! And because I did it all online, there was a ceremony in Iowa, but I was not going to go there by myself and walk, so I decided against walking to get my degree, BUT this totally made up for it. Can you believe that my parents now have three kids all with their Bachelor's Degree?!?! Well, and one daughter with a Master's...but let's face it, she was always the smartest one (also, Happy Birthday Liza!!).

Being with Family...PRICEless

2012-01-18T10:49:00.001-05:00

This Christmas we headed south to be with my family, wait, not just my mom and dad, but my WHOLE family!!!! We were SOOO excited! For two weeks before I made sure no one got sick, so Tyler could not run outside in the cold, and we all were washing hands like crazy, getting lots of rest, because I really didn't want anyone to be sick over the vacation. We had a blast while with the family. I mean, really, that's the whole reason we are happy is because of our families, so we were filled to the max with happiness.

To start things off, the night we got there we had our friends came over to have a little mini Christmas with them. Seeing Alexis and her mom was so great, I love these ladies, and was so happy to be able to see them, and chat with them.

Alexis and I are super The Office fans, and so I had the opportunity to go and see the people who play Meredith and Oscar on the show here in NYC. They were signing reams of Dunder Mifflin paper, and so I had them sign it for her, since she couldn't be there. I got the picture with them and she got their autographs. :) Anyway, so she was super excited about that, and that I got her a Dundie Award. Yes, an actual Dundie Award to go on her desk at work. It was hilarious and great fun!

It was the first time a lot of us got to play with this little guy, because we hadn't been out west to see them, and they had not be out east to see us until this Christmas. (It had been almost 3 years since we've all been together!) So we had great fun playing with Mr. D. :) He was so funny and great. I have a video of him that I put together of a fun little game with did with the camera.

Can't get enough of this cute little smile!!!

Grandpa couldn't help seeing more of it either, so he started to blow raspberries on his tummy.

So while Alexis and her mom, Beverly, were there, we visited and then they were about to leave. Well, we were getting their coats, and D thought it was time to go so he put on Beverly's vest and was ready to go with them. It was dang cute. Here is Beverly and D bonding.

Let me tell you something, having all of these cousins together was a BLAST! I'm not sure, wait, no, I know that I didn't see Spencer for most of the week we were there. It was crazy!!! I felt like he was always playing, and he had someone to play with all the time. He loved the time he had with his cousins and wishes he could live right next to them all.

My brother's kids. So cute! Also the DS's were a big hit.

So, one of the traditions of my family is to put as many puzzles together as we can while we are all together over Christmas. Every Christmas that I can remember growing up we were putting all the puzzles we had together, and we would get a new one every year. This was a hard one that Seth wanted to challenge us with, and we did it!!! We are intense puzzle-put-togetherers, really, we can actually strategize about how to put the puzzles together. "Okay you have this part, I have this part, you'll do this part. I found this piece for you, do you need anymore?" Seriously, these are some of the conversations. :)

But it is fun and we love visiting while we put the puzzles together, and joking on each other. Fun times!

2012- Happy New Year!

2012-01-06T16:17:00.000-05:00

Since it's the beginning of the year, and I'm sure you will be seeing some of our resolutions on here soon, I thought I would share this video that I got from a blog I read. It really hit me hard, that with just this one thing so many thing in your life can be better. Watch the video...yes I know it's almost 10 minutes long, but it's very informative and done in a fun way. Enjoy!!!

Our Year in Review...2011

2011-12-21T17:00:00.000-05:00

Happy Holidays to everyone!!! We love this time of year, and are so excited to be celebrating it with lots of our family this year. Hopefully Santa will be able to give us all that we really want this year too.

Since I did send out Christmas cards this year, I decided I would do a video of the things we have done this year, which in fact did not want to load onto this blog post....so, I will just put the pictures up with captions. I know it's a lot of pictures but not much reading. :) Which looking back over it, we did a lot and loved every minute of it!! Enjoy!

First though...please press play on the music to enjoy the pictures more. Thanks! :)

Started 2011 in Zimbabwe

Took Tyler's parents to Vic Falls

Saw Victoria Falls.

Rode elephants

Able to pet a cheetah.

Saw beautiful sights.

Got to pet a lion.

and hold one too!

Leopard Rock, in Zimbabwe.

Tyler being a giraffe whisperer.

Spencer lost more teeth!

Saw penguins in South Africa.

Went to Cape Point, South Africa.

On top of Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa.

Saw Nelson Mandela's cell.

Lake near Harare, Zimbabwe.

Spencer made so many best friends in Zim.
This is one of his favorite friends from church.

Spencer graduated 1st Grade!

We packed up and moved.

I said a tearful goodbye to wonderful friends.

Bye Africa!

Hello New York!

But first we had to visit...cousins!!!

and friends!!!

and another cousin!

and family in Utah!!

and more cousins!!!

and Grandmas!!

Spencer celebrated his 7th birthday!

Finally moved to New York City...

...and started to explore.

And got lots of visitors.

All my best friends came to visit!! There are a few missing though.

The boys love to explore the island, especially the food.

Going to Lady Liberty.

First snowfall (for us in 3 years!).

Central Park in the Fall.

Watching the balloons get blown up for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

At the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade!

The boys ice skating at Wollman Rick.

Finding the good candy stores.

Loving all the visitors we've had!!!

Merry Christmas to all of you from our family!!
We love you!!

Fun, fun, and more fun!!! Can you handle it?

2011-12-16T07:00:00.000-05:00

So Saturday we decided to go to a holiday bazaar in Columbus Circle and then to Central Park and walk around and go to the ice skating rink. The boys loved running around in the leaves and climbing up on the rocks.

Spencer running.

Loving this look of pure joy on Wyatt's face.

The boys decided to have a race....with Tyler. This is them starting.

Tyler and Wyatt were in the lead and jumped off the rock first. But the thing is that they were suppose to turn to the right to go back to the finish line, except it was a little slippery and Tyler had too much momentum to turn to the right. Liza and Heath were laughing so hard thinking Tyler was going to totally wipe out and fall on his face, but he luckily got all caught up with his top half and did not fall, but alas did not go to where he was suppose to go. Afterwards he told us he couldn't turn to go to the right, so he just kept going forward. We got into a fit of giggles over that one.

Spencer kinda lagged behind, but still had fun.

Had to take some cute pictures of him in the park with this great lighting.

Love my blue-eyed boy.

Spencer in Central Park with the Time Warner buildings behind him.

He's so strong.

We then made our way over to the ice skating rink. It was quite expensive so all of the boys went skating while Liza and I watched and laughed so hard. (my poor Spencer).

I love seeing Heath be so happy!!!!

Tyler and Spencer getting out on the ice. Spencer had never been ice skating before.

Starting their way around the wall. Spencer had no problem going around others that were hooked onto the wall. He would just hug around them and keep going. It was a bit funny. He even held on to all of these cute girls when they were taking a picture at the wall. They just looked at him and kept smiling.

Wyatt definitely got the hang of it all after one loop around closer to the wall.

Keep going Spencer. Tyler was so awesome at helping Spencer and going ice skating with him.

Ugh! GORGEOUS!!!!!

Off the wall!!!!

Uh-oh! hold on Spencer! Don't keep looking for me, pay attention to your feet.

Whoops! you okay?

Yep! All smiles! :)

Oh-no, about to do the splits!

Hold on tight to him Tyler. Liza and I both thought Spencer's arms would hurt the next day after all of the picking up Tyler and Heath did with Spencer on the ice. Fortunately they did not hurt one bit.

Meeting up with the cousin.

Spencer then went out with Uncle Heath.

Liza and I loved watching Spencer ice skate, it was just like his long legs were baby giraffe legs trying to stand up and were so wobbly!! It was so cute and sad at the same time. He just kept falling. At one point when Heath and him came back around to almost the exit, Spencer fell THREE times, one right after another while Heath was trying to pick him up. Liza and I were in fits of laughter over that one. It was so funny!!!!

After ice skating we were ready to go to the Candy Bar, Dylan's Candy Bar to be exact. Dylan is actually Ralph Lauren's daughter, who owns the place. It had so much candy it was crazy...crazy good! They even had some oldie candies that you usually can only find in one place, like Idaho Spuds!

Here's Spencer and Wyatt with the giant gumball dispenser.

On our way home their last night on the subway...we were a bit tired.

These two love each other so much! What a great cousin Spencer has!

Thanks Liza, Heath and Wyatt for coming to visit us, we loved having you here and hope you come back again soon!

Visitors- 6

2011-12-14T07:00:00.000-05:00

Our last visitors of the year were my sister and her family. It was so much fun to have them come visit us here, and do all the fun activities with them. They were here for only a short time so we quickly started doing things with them. So as soon as Spencer was out of school on Thursday we headed out the door to go to Macy's and show them Holiday Lane, which is this magical place on Macy's 9th floor to all things with Christmas.

After spending some time there, and buying some ornaments we headed over to see if Santa was in so we could have the boys tell him what they wanted for Christmas. Surprisingly there was NO LINE?!!? It was awesome.

Here are the boys during the walk through a wonderland before seeing Santa.

Here he is!!! Spencer was telling him what he wanted while Wyatt waited.

Now it was Wyatt's turn to tell the big man what he wanted.

After that we headed over to Times Square so they could see it at night. They loved it!

I love this picture of them enjoying all the sights. :)

The next day we headed over to the Today show, which all three of them were seen on TV!!! Along with my hand waving in the background. :) We got tickets to go to the Top of the Rock and also take the NBC Studio Tours, which was a very smart move, especially if you love NBC shows (which I do!). Before doing the tour we went and looked around the NBC store, and I found this AWESOME shirt!!! Love The Office!

We could not take any pictures while on the tour, but it was really cool, no celeb sightings though.

Afterwards we looked over at the ice skating rink and saw they were shooting a commercial, show, or something? There was a choir there along with lots of cameras and directors and other people.

Here we were waiting for the tour, and saw a familiar face in the wreath! :) haha! Wyatt and I were having some fun.

View from Top of the Rock. BREATH-TAKING! This would be Central Park.

Other side of the island from Top of the Rock. That's the Empire State Building.

We walked up Fifth Avenue to go look at all the window displays, and walked through St. Paul's Cathedral. It was breath-taking too!

Loved the stain-glassed windows.

Walked by The Trump Tower and went inside to see the lobby, remember the wreath from the last post?

Tall Trump Tower.

Finally made it to FAO Schwarz!!!! Look at those smiles!!

That night we went to the Rockettes Christmas Spectacular! This is the lobby of Radio City Music Hall. Fancy.

A top view of the lovely chandelier.

After Radio City Music Hall we decided to head over to Juniors'. This place is known for it's INCREDIBLE cheesecakes. We heard about it from one of our other visitors (Thanks Deric and Stephanie!!). It wasn't too far away so we walked to it, and tried to figure out what to eat.

Wyatt had spaghetti and meatballs, and look at the size of that meatball!!!! He had three of those, you definitely get a lot for what you pay for at this place. It was really good too.

All you gotta do is ask Heath how his Chicken Pot Pie was. This this was as big as that plate and at least an inch and a half high! He wasn't sure if he would be able to eat it all, but then tasted it and was floored! I think they would come back to just eat at Juniors' again. We took two slices of cheesecake home, and Liza devoured those, and loved them. So NYC tip: go to Juniors'.

While taking pictures Spencer wanted me to get a picture of him drinking through two straws. :) Funny kid.

That was just a day and a half with Liza and fam. The next post will show you everything else we did.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

2011-12-12T07:00:00.000-05:00

...everywhere we go!!!!

It's Christmastime in New York City, and we are loving it!!! Everything is all dressed up, every restaurant, every store front, every street it seems. So we had to get our tree up as soon as our guests left after Thanksgiving.

Here's Tyler getting it all set up.

The finished tree!!! and Spencer, and Spongebob. :)

Beautiful tree!!!

Here is one of Macy's store windows. Their store takes up almost a whole block, so on one side of the block they have these puppets in the windows that move, then on another side they have the story of Yes, Virginia, which Spencer loved.

Even the water fountains are all dressed up for Christmas!!!

A drummer over near Rockefeller Center.

A HUGE wreath and bow at Trump Tower. Pretty much every building has a huge wreath inside their lobbies, even the residential apartment buildings. It's so fun to walk by and see the Christmas trees, wreaths, lights and menorahs for Hanukkah.

And here she is!!! The Rockefeller Christmas Tree!!! It is HUGE, this picture doesn't even make it look that big, but it is beautiful and gorgeous and big.

Bergdorf Goodman with wreaths in most of the windows! There is also a huge snowflake hanging in the middle of the street here too. You can see the lower part of it right above the E 57th St. sign.

A closer look.

I also wanted to show you this video, but for some reason I cannot get the movie off of my iPhone to put on here. So I will just tell you the story. We were walking around Rockefeller Center when we saw up on the side of the Saks Fifth Avenue store this video countdown put up on the side of the building! We wondered what it could be counting down to, so we waited...for 6 minutes, and watched the countdown. While waiting we were worried that it would be for nothing, and it was all a little joke. But alas, the countdown was done and it was a not a joke. There was a little show of pipes going every which way and windows opening where the buildings windows were, and snow falling on the side of the building. Kind of like a movie being shown up onto the wall of the building, but the video windows fitting right where the real windows were. It was pretty awesome, and it had music with it. It lasted for about 2 minutes, then went right back to a 13 minute countdown.

See!!!! This is what New York City has for Christmas!!! Such fun things!! If you can ever come up here during Christmas, please come!! It's a most wonderful, fabulous time of year up here (as is pretty much every other time here).

One day in Central Park...

2011-12-08T07:00:00.000-05:00

One Saturday we decided to go out to Central Park and walk around. We stumbled across this:

The New York City Marathon set up!!!! EVERYONE was already out running, but it was just them doing some last runs I guess before the marathon.

It was pretty cool though.

The walking around in Central Park in the fall was BEAUTIFUL!!!!

Look at these trees! I loved it!

And of course, we had to go to the carousel, so Spencer had to get a ride in. He was excited, even if he doesn't look like it in this picture.

Waving to us as he zooms by, we did not realize how fast this carousel went. It was great though, because it was moving faster than regular carousels, and the ride was long, so perfect combo.

We then found Heckscher Playground. It's a pretty awesome playground, even with a rock to climb all over, perfect for little boys (and their dads....okay and their moms too).

Random photo: saw this outside our window one day, because these workers have been working on this building for a while, but I know that when my mom was here, and she saw any worker near the edge of a building she was nervous for them. So I had to put this up to show my mom how close to the edge this worker was!!! Crazy, right?!?!

Visitors- 4

2011-12-06T07:00:00.000-05:00

Before our visitors we had during Thanksgiving we had some other family members come to stay with us! Deric, Stephanie and cutie little E, their son. :) We had never met him before, and he's almost 2!!! So we were just a bit excited to see him, and see if he liked us....I think he did. :)

Such a sweet boy!

Spencer and E got along great, and they soon learned to sit on top of the Lincoln Logs tin...it was perfect sitting for him.

Ummm...adorable, right?!?!

Okay so, I guess I should tell you that E really only loved "Uncle". He called for Uncle numerously every day!!! He would say my name every now and again, and he still liked me, and liked Spencer too, but Uncle was his favorite. The only one he would cuddle with too.

This Uncle is so lucky.

Spencer and E sharing snacks.

Love this smile!

He had a genius plan of putting the plastic tub on his head, and then pushing his face against it, it cracked me up!!

While Deric and Stephanie were here, we were able to head over to Brooklyn and try some great pizza. Grimaldi's!!! Now, you know a place in NYC is great because there is a line, or it's filled up with people. This line is ALWAYS long at Grimaldi's, we waited for 55 minutes before being seated. Was it worth it? Some of us say yes, others say a different kind of pizza is better. To each their own.

Here's our cute company! (with Manhattan in the background, that building to the right of them, that is halfway built is the new World Trade Center)

Stephanie is having a baby!!! So we took some pictures of her with her small belly. She's so beautiful.

Cute mom and dad hands that made hearts.

They were having a party in Utah after they left our place to find out what gender the baby was. This was part of a cute little movie she put together.

Spencer loving on his cousin.

And of course, Uncle getting the kisses.

Had to take a picture of my boy's beautiful blue eyes. :)

Since we were in Brooklyn I decided to take some pictures of the sights. It was fun (and a little cold) to be over there! Here's part of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Downtown Manhattan skyline.

Statue of Liberty with a sunset.

Another one with the ferry in front.

Loving these sunsets here!

The East River and downtown Manhattan.

Thanks so much Deric, Stephanie and E for coming to stay with us!!! We had lots of fun with you, and were glad you got us out to some more restaurants that we are eating at more now. You guys are so great, and we hope you get a chance to come back and visit sometime.

Visitors-5 and Thanksgiving Dinner

2011-11-29T07:00:00.000-05:00

Yes I know that I'm skipping our 4th visitors, but our 5th visitors were here during Thanksgiving and I wanted to post about that before it was too late. We had Tyler's brother and family come visit us for Thanksgiving and it was so fun!!! Spencer loves his cousins when they come to visit and they all had so much fun playing together, and I'm pretty sure they were all so sad to say good-bye to each other today. It was kinda cute how much they hugged each other.

We did some of the same visitor things with them, and ate at some great places too. It was fun to have them here to do things and play games with at night.

So you are wondering how my turkey turned out?? Here's a video to show you our yummy dinner, and the fun we had going to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. YES!!! We went to it and it was actually really fun, even though it was quite crowded. We did the showing of the balloons and blowing them up the night before also. That was REALLY crowded so I don't think we'll do that one again. Hope you enjoy our video and that your Thanksgiving was filled with good food, and good company.

Broadway- 4

2011-11-28T07:00:00.000-05:00

While Tyler's parents were here we went to another play, Mary Poppins. This was the best play we, as a family, have seen yet! It was just so happy, fun, and energetic! Spencer loved this one more than The Lion King, but I think that was mostly for the dancing and fun songs. If you have the chance of seeing this play DO!!! GO!!! RUN to this play!!! It's fantastic!

One of my most favorite songs and dances from the play was this one:

How they can remember all of those letters and how to make them is amazing to me! I love it!

My rating: 5 stars! (out of 5)

For reals, go see this play!!!

Broadway- 3

2011-11-26T07:00:00.000-05:00

While my parents were here we went to The Lion King on broadway, and wow, what a show! We heard that we should get an aisle seat, especially since we were taking Spencer with us, and it was well worth it. This was Spencer's first play, and he was a bit apprehensive about it because he didn't know what to expect, after the first five minutes he leaned over to me and whispered "Mom, I think I'm going to love this!"It was so cute, and he really did love it. What a great time we had.

The show was incredible, the way they had the costumes look like all the animals. It was beautiful, and they moved so gracefully. We all know the story, and so it was surprising or anything, but it was still great!

My rating: 4 stars (out of 5)

Happy Thanksgiving!!

2011-11-24T07:00:00.000-05:00

HAPPY THANKSGIVING from US!!!

The things we are most thankful for this day is our family. How blessed we are to have each other and truly love being with each other and having a ton of fun whenever we are together. This year has been a busy one with the move, but we are so thankful also that we have the opportunity to travel around the world so much, and live in AMAZING places. This leads us to being thankful for a job that the husband loves, which in turn makes me love it, and then Spencer loves it too.

Today is going to be a great day because we also have family visiting us, making our first Thanksgiving meal, and going to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in the actual street!!! It should be fun, and I'll update when we get back.

I have to say also that this is the first Thanksgiving meal that I've had to prepare, and I feel very proud to say I got the turkey all ready, and this is what I'm picturing what it will be like tomorrow:

...except we are not Grandparents. :)

Hopefully this will not happen: a burnt turkey. I think we'll be okay though. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Broadway- 2

2011-11-23T07:00:00.000-05:00

While my friends were all out here, we decided to go to a play. We found one that was affordable off Broadway called STOMP! It was super fun and a little funny, which I was not expecting. It was loud too, I recommend taking some headache meds BEFORE going. It was great though.

Here are some videos of some of the fun skits I liked:

This first one doesn't show how it looked on stage with the lights flickering and making it look like the people were moving side to side. It was really cool, but this one is still fun.

This one is just funny. We laughed pretty hard, the skit is a little different but still the same.

My rating: 4 stars (out of 5)

Broadway- 1

2011-11-22T07:00:00.000-05:00

Our first Broadway play we saw while in New York City was How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, and it was FANTASTIC!!! It was during our apartment hunting trip where Tyler and I were able to see this great play. To make it even better, Daniel Radcliffe was the lead!!!!! He was incredible too! It was just a great play, and I really enjoyed it. Daniel leaves this December, so that's sad, but I'm really glad I was able to see him play this part. The thing that surprised me most was that he is a great comedian! He did so well with this part, and after seeing him being so dramatic in Harry Potter, it was fun to see him be funny.

Here is a preview of part of the play that was shown at the Tony Awards. The stamina he has to have to sing and dance so much is incredible! I was in awe of all of these actors. Enjoy!!!

My Rating: 5 stars (out of 5!)

Yes, it is THAT good.

The things you see...

2011-11-11T07:00:00.000-05:00

The sights you can see here in New York City are quite...unusual? different? unique?

Anyway...we were on one of those bus tours, and I looked over on the sidewalk, and saw this sight:

Yes. That is a dog in a stroller. That she is walking. I guess because dogs don't walk? Plus, look at the concern on her face. Anyway, just a bit strange to me, but perhaps not so strange here.

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow....

2011-11-10T07:00:00.000-05:00

Saturday October 29th we got quite the surprise that we were not expecting....SNOW!!!!!

It was crazy to be getting snow in the first place, because we've been in Africa for four years with warm weather all year round and have loved it! Secondly it was weird because it was OCTOBER!

But alas, mother nature made us get used to winter really fast. Here is some video (I think if it works).

This is a baseball field (that is also used for soccer and football practices) right outside our window. Usually it's green, but it turned white with 1-2 inches of snow.

And what did we do during that day???

Snuggled and played video games/read books/and watched movies.

I think I'm going to like winter.

Visitors-3

2011-11-09T07:00:00.000-05:00

First: sorry the pictures are a bit grainy, I took them with my phone.

Okay, so our next visitors were Tyler's parents and youngest sister. They were here only a short time and so we were excited to show them around town. One of the exciting things we did was go see the Statue of Liberty!

Here's Tyler and Spencer all excited on the rocky boat ride over.

Spencer with Lady Liberty.

Spencer and his aunt with Lady Liberty!

It was a pretty perfect day to go there, and she was amazing to see.

Close up.

Interesting fact: She has chains broken at her feet!!! Most people do not know that because we can't see down by her feet. I love this photo too because it makes her look like she is in motion.

Beautiful copper green.

This is the original torch, they had to replace it because this one started getting cracks.

Manhattan skyline and Lady Liberty's shadow.

It was pretty cool to be able to get this picture of the shadow of the Statue of Liberty.

Love our flag waving in the wind.

Here is Spencer and his aunt watching one of their favorite shows to watch together Avatar: The Last Airbender. They are so cute together and definitely look alike with long legs and arms.

It was wonderful to have our family here with us and to show them lots of things we love about the city already, even though we might have made them walk a bit too much. Legs were hurting at least one morning while they were here, but luckily we could handle it. Thanks again for coming!!!

Field Trip to...Central Park!

2011-11-08T07:00:00.000-05:00

Spencer's school is pretty cool, and he is experiencing things we would never dream of while going to school in Harare, Zimbabwe and now New York City. The field trips are definitely a bit more exciting than what I had growing up. I volunteered to go and help out with the field trips and this one was when they were going to Central Park!

Here's Spencer at Sheep Meadow. The class was drawing what they saw...which was a lot of grass.

And a tree. This tree was just kinda out there by itself, but it's beautiful.

Here is The Mall. The leaves were just beginning to change colors, but as you can see it's quite a busy place with all kinds of sellers and musicians.

Lastly we went to Bethesda Fountain, which they had to draw also.

They have been going around Manhattan to different parks for 5 weeks now, one field trip every week, to see how different parks are structured. So while at these parks they have had to notice that the playgrounds are in certain areas, that there are trash bins, and restrooms, and lots of trees and grass. After looking at Central Park, High Line Park and others they are going to make a 3D layout of a park they created. I can't wait to see what they make in the end.

Now, were your field trips ever this cool?!?!

Visitors-2

2011-11-07T14:02:00.000-05:00

So, one Thursday night Tyler came home from work and we all ate dinner together as a family. I was really tired so I decided to get my pj's on, so I could just enjoy our Thursday night TV line up. Tyler then told me that he saw we had a package downstairs so he was going down to get it. So he left to go get this "package" and then knocked on the door to get back in. I went to open it for him, and realized there was no package in his hands, as I'm about to ask him where this "package" was, I see a stroller coming around the corner to our door. At first, I'm like "oh great! he saw someone downstairs and let them come up and I'm in my pj's!" Then I saw the girl pushing the stroller:

Yep! It was this girl right here! I looked at her and then thought "She looks really familiar" and she just smiled at me, then I realized who it was. That's Laura!!!!! One of my very best friends from when I was growing up in Virginia!! Then another person came after her, Mickelle! then Emily! and then Sarah!!!!!

I was SHOCKED! in AWE! and FLABBERGASTED!

I have to let you know that these girls are so important to me, and growing up. We helped each other a lot during our teenage years, and had fun the whole time. We have an incredibly close bond with each other. For the past 16 or 17 years we have been best friends, after that long you know you can trust these girls. I love them so much and was so touched that they came to visit.

Back to the story, I wasn't sure what to do, then they all let me in on the secret. Tyler had planned a girlie weekend for me and to have all the girls come to NYC!!! I was shocked, and just smiled and teared up that they were all there. It was so wonderful to have friends around me, and to know I had a whole weekend with them. They had been planning this for around 8 months too. My husband is so great and wonderful to have done this for me, and I don't know quite what I can do for him now.

I also was a bit overwhelmed, because I had not cleaned the sheets from when my parents had been there just three days before, nor had I gotten to the towels being washed. Remember we had just gotten our stuff and so I was unpacking boxes first.

Anyway....onto the weekend! We had a fun-filled weekend that was excellent and put on here with lots of pictures, so get ready.

Here we all are, oh and did I mention I had another friend Mary with her 5 week old baby come and see us too!?!?!? I have THE best friends out of anyone. :)

Mickelle, Sarah, me, Mary and C, Emily with baby in belly, and Laura with B.

Do we look a little tired? Most nights we stayed up till 2AM talking!

Sarah relaxing while we watched movies one day.

Me relaxing while we watched movies.

Now this little boy I think we fell in love with, and when I say we I mean me, Tyler and Spencer. We loved playing with him and Spencer was so tender with him when he would try to wrestle with him. It was dang cute!

This is B getting stuck. I told his mom not to get him out until I got a picture. He kept going after these rolled up pictures we had that were behind all of these other pictures.

The first night we were there. We were so happy to be all together.

One of our friends couldn't make it so we Skyped with her, and so I took a picture with Andrea so it would look like she was there. :)

One of the nights we decided to go to STOMP so Tyler could watch B and we could have a girls night out. We had a blast, even with walking 2 miles home. For some reason cabbies hate driving to where we live, so we enjoyed the lovely New York night air and had a pleasant walk home.

Aren't we so happy?!?

Another day we took the free Staten Island Ferry so we could see the skyline and also get a better view of the Statue of Liberty. It was a fun ride.

We also went to Times Square and walked around there, then went to lunch at Hard Rock Cafe.

Here's Emily and Mickelle looking over the dessert menu.

Us on the subway.

We were also able to go to the 9/11 Memorial.

This is the new World Trade Center going up.

A map of the memorial area.

It's an incredibly peaceful, and beautifully done memorial area. I encourage everyone to go and then to the Visitor's Center afterwards.

This is the Survivor Tree. Go HERE for the story. Amazing!

On their last day there one of my friends, Laura, wanted to go to the Today show. So I decided to go with her. She knew exactly what time we should be there, and we got straight over there, and waited for like 10 minutes before Matt, Anne and Savannah came out to do some news.

Here's Matt!!!! He was shorter than I thought and also very skinny.

They actually did the news RIGHT IN FRONT OF US!!!! We were so excited and told Laura's husband in Utah to watch the show and see if he could see us over in the corner of the TV, and guess what?!!? He did! He said he saw us for a little bit. How fun!

We were able to shake Savannah's hand and then watch them go around and talk to people. It was quite fun.

I have to thank Tyler and all the girls for coming. It was a great weekend even if I felt a little overwhelmed with not having the house ready. But it was so fun, and wonderful. Thanks also to the girls for taking pictures and most of these were from their cameras, so thank you!

Visitors-1

2011-11-06T12:55:00.000-05:00

Our first visitors were my parents. It was great to have them come up and visit us and then also help me unpack some of our boxes. Mom's help out a lot when you have just moved. And I really appreciate their help.

We did a lot while they were here, and I hardly took any pictures. I've noticed I'm really bad about taking my camera out when visitors are here, so I will try to do better.

One stop was at FAO Schwarz. While there we found out that you can make your own muppet! No Spencer did not make one, but held up an example of what you can do.

We also went to the area with the Big Piano! Spencer had a blast playing on it.

Then we went over to the LEGO area, and took a picture with the Statue of Liberty. That's my parents and Spencer.

There were some girls that even played the song from Big the movie on the Big Piano, and they did a great job! I have video of it, but doesn't seem to want to load, so I'll try that again later.

Moving in...

2011-11-05T10:56:00.000-04:00

As we started the moving in process, which was a bit more difficult this time, we took our first Saturday here to enjoy a Mets game!!! We have decided to be Mets fans because David Wright used to go to Hickory High School, which of course is where I went. It was fun to go out to the ballpark and eat and enjoy the great day. It was a bit warm so we left, thinking the Mets would not win in the last two innings, but they did!!! O-well, next year we'll go to some more games.

That is David Wright on third base.

One great thing about having a great view of the River is seeing all the cruise ships go by every weekend. I love watching them! Here is what they look like.

We were here for the 10th anniversary of 9/11, and since we were nearby at the new WTC that night, I decided to take a picture of it. It's the middle building.

This was one of the two huge boxes we got with our UAB stuff, and then we got our big shipment of stuff the same day!!! Luckily we had these big boxes to put all the extra filling that were in the boxes. I'm happy to say that the last of the boxes left last Saturday!! YAY!!

I can't get enough of this view! I love it!

Toy fun!

2011-11-04T10:41:00.002-04:00

Before school started and while Tyler was already going to work, Spencer and I had some free days to go explore. This day we went to the Toys R Us store in Times Square. Now, THIS is quite the toy store!!!!! It has, if I remember right, 4 or 5 floors of toys, with a ferris wheel inside the building! It was pretty incredible, so helpful New York City tip: go visit the Toys R Us in Times Square!!

We wandered around for quite a while, but were quite surprised when we came upon this huge fella.

Spencer was a bit scared of him. Mostly because the T-Rex would move a little bit and roar. There was a ramp right next to the T-Rex up to more toys, and Spencer really wanted to go up and see them, so he went to the far side of the ramp and ran up to pass the T-Rex when he "wasn't looking". It was quite cute.

Then we found Spencer's favorite part of the store. The candy lane filled with treats!

Do you see how big this Rice Krispies treat is?!!? Look at those 5 lb. Reese's cups, and the huge Tootsie Roll pops!!! Not good for people who love candy, like Spencer and I do. I resisted though, although I believe we still walked out with some of the real Willy Wonka candy. And yes in that yellow package down at the bottom is a huge Sugar Daddy. It was as big as a piece of paper and thick too.

We found the Candy King!!!! The whole area was decorated like the game Candy Lane. It was pretty cool.

Then we found the superhero area, and had to try on the SpiderMan mask. :)

I gave into Spencer and we rode on the Ferris Wheel. He loved it, and each of the little cars that carried you around and around was decorated as different characters. We got the Mr. Potato Head one.

I love this look of happiness!!!!

Churches

2011-10-29T19:06:00.002-04:00

There are many churches on the island of Manhattan, and there are some that are beautiful and pretty famous.

Here is Trinity Church, right almost in the heart of downtown, and one of the only churches on Manhattan that has a cemetery.

They all look so different, but you can definitely tell they are churches and so pretty.

If I remember correctly this would be Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

Such beautiful carvings, and sculptures.

I can't keep all the churches straight, but I just wanted to show you some that we've seen.

I wish I could have remembered which churches were which, but there were so many. I just love showing off how beautiful they are, and the ornate doors they have.

Brooklyn

2011-10-28T11:35:00.000-04:00

We were able to ride on the Gray Line Bus Tour and go over to Brooklyn one evening. It was great to see another borough of New York City.

Here we are on a bridge going to Brooklyn and seeing the downtown Manhattan area and the Brooklyn Bridge.

When we got to Brooklyn this was a green area and playground that was right under the bridge.

I thought this area on the rooftop was cool with the furniture and sofa. Fun place to sit out at nights during in the summer.

The Brooklyn Bridge!

Tyler and my dad were also able to go walk on the Brooklyn Bridge one day too.

This was in Brooklyn at one of the best pizza places, Grimaldi's. Yes, do you see the long line??? THAT'S how good it supposedly is! I've heard that it's usually a 2 to 3 hour wait. We haven't eaten there yet, but will have to try it sometime.

Downtown Manhattan.

Another view of downtown.

We don't get over to Brooklyn much, but we'll have to go see their parks and pizza soon.

Times Square

2011-10-27T13:20:00.000-04:00

We have been down to Times Square a few times by now, and it's a great place...if you are a tourist. :) We have learned as other New Yorkers have already known, it is a crowded place where we just do not like to be. I do however, think everyone should visit there whenever they come to NYC and see it at night too. It's crazy busy, but fun fun fun!

Here's the New Year's Eve ball!!!

The M&M store....they have some yummy stuff in there for sure.

And this is the tkts booth, where you can get cheaper Broadway tickets. The catch? You have to stand in line for hours to get a good cheap ticket, but sometimes you get a REALLY great deal.

This was during a weekday, usually weekends it's more than twice this crowded.

Good Morning America!

The Hershey's store!! This was a yummy place too. 5 lb. Hershey bars? yes please!

More of Times Square advertising.

Lastly, Times Square at night. So bright that it looks like daytime.

Times Square is a very fun place though, I've enjoyed it every time we go. Lots of eating places, lots of plays are right around there, and lots of lights!

Natural History Museum

2011-10-19T16:11:00.002-04:00

When we moved here to NYC, we had a week in a hotel before we could move into our apartment and before Spencer had school, but Tyler still had to go to work. So, Spencer and I went exploring a bit. He really wanted to go see the Natural History Museum, mostly because of the movie Night at the Museum. He wanted to see the T-Rex and Dum-Dum. Off we went to the museum to see what we could see!

We saw some pretty cool masks. This is Spencer being like one of them with his tongue out.

We also found this HUGE piece of a tree trunk!!! It was so massive, and I do not remember how old it was, but it was old.

We found Dum-Dum!!!!!! Spencer was VERY excited to have found him, and we did not give him any gum-gum.

Finally we found the T-Rex, up on the top floor (not at the entrance). Spencer was excited, and then he was done with the museum.

New York! New York!!

2011-10-15T17:04:00.007-04:00

If you do not know by now, we did make it to New York City, our new home! :) We are excited to learn more about the city, since this is the first time Tyler and I have been here, so we are exploring lots, Tyler more than I.

The Empire State Building we saw this while on one of our bus tours.

I know this post is a bit late, but moving in takes a lot of energy, especially when you have no furniture, and school starts the same day you move in, OH and you have furniture delivered two weeks after we moved in, and two sets of visitors since then, and lastly, I've started my last class before I graduate! So we've been a bit busy. But we have LOVED having people come and share our excitement about our new home.

Which brings me to our apartment, and what it looks like. This is what it looked like the first weekend we were there, because the day we moved in we had no couch or chair or bed, just an air mattress for us and a blanket for Spencer to sleep on.

Our bedroom.

Our bathroom.

Looking from our bathroom out to the living room with our closets on the sides.

Kitchen. (Which we do have a fantastic view of the new World Trade Tower being built.)

Living room.

Foyer, front door.

Living room.

Half bath.

Spencer's bathroom.

Guest room.

Spencer's room.

The view from our living room! Nice, right? I LOVE that I get to still see beautiful sunsets every night here. Also the Hudson River, I LOVE LOVE LOVE being by water. It's calming to me I guess. Helps me daydream a bit too. ;)

The next few posts I will be catching up with all that we have done while here for just a month, which I think we've done really well with seeing a lot of the city already. YAY! Still tons more to see. Our thoughts about the city so far?

Tyler: I like how much stuff there is to do. It's alive! There are so many great places to eat.

Becca: This city really truly NEVER sleeps (because I can hear the cars still going by at every hour of the night), and there is always something Free to do here.

Spencer: It's good. I like how much food there is here.

As you can see Tyler and Spencer think a lot alike. Food is mostly on their minds, and Spencer thinks it's grand that we can have Chinese food delivered right to our door. Crazy, right?

Also in the future posts you will see more stuff in our apartment, and once everything is decorated I'll show you updated pictures of each room. ;)

All About Spencer

2011-09-20T16:19:00.004-04:00

While home this summer Spencer had a birthday!!! He was excited to spend it with his cousin, aunt, and Grandma and Poppa. I asked him this year, as I do every year, what he wanted his birthday cake to look like. He thought and thought and thought, and decided he wanted a skateboard cake. Seemed easy enough, so I agreed.

We celebrated by going bowling with the whole family. It was quite fun and Spencer was loving it, I believe he did quite well in the scoring too. After eating at the bowling alley and bowling and playing arcade games with Wyatt we went back to my parents house to have cake.

Here is the masterpiece I could make. I found a website where they used doughnuts and Twizzlers for the wheels. And Spencer wanted the design of flames on the skateboard. Turned out okay I guess?

Spencer opened his presents that night too, and he got his first iTunes gift card?!!? I think he's spent it all on App games. I can't believe he already uses these.

Grandma and Poppa got him a Pillow Pet!!! He did not know what these were until we were in the States and saw a commercial for them, and once he saw it all he talked about was getting a pillow pet. He loves it.

Seeing how the pillow pet feels.

Happy Birthday Spencer!!

We love you!!!

Also about a week and a half later Spencer had his first day of school. It was the same day we were moving into the bare apartment we got. So we were still in the hotel that morning, so here is his first day of 2nd grade picture in the hotel room.

He is getting so much older, and I'm not sure I'm a fan of it, but he is so dang cute. :)

Summer Recap 2011--take 3!

2011-09-19T14:04:00.010-04:00

After our trips in the east and getting Tyler up in DC, we came back down to my parents house and got ready for our trip to NYC to find an apartment, after those ten days were done we came back to the parents house for a week, and then got packed up again to go to Utah to see the other side of our family!!

When we go to Utah, probably the number one priority besides seeing family is playing games with the family. WE LOVE IT!!! I really mean it, I would say we play on average at least two or three board games or card games a day. The board games we play are not just easy games either, they are 2-3 hour games too. Oh we love it!!! :)

This little fellow is one of our nephews. He was such a happy boy. I had a difficult time this summer with all of the nieces and nephews because they are ALL of my favorites!!! I just couldn't get enough of the smiles and giggles they had. We all miss them greatly and did not like leaving them.

Such a sweet innocent face!

Here is our other nephew and his sister so our niece. They were snuggling, and it was so cute! They were both smiling the whole time.

Cute little nieces' feet. I can't get enough of baby feet.

Here's Carter!!! He is such a crazy, fun, silly little boy!

Okay remember how we saw Dawson last summer right after he was born?? This was him last summer, so this is what I remember him being.

Well, this is him this summer?!?!?!!

Crazy how much he changed over a year, right? He's still such a cute stinker. :)

He was unsure of Tyler, me and Spencer because he doesn't remember us. Once he got used to us he started showing off some of his tricks. He would go sit on the edge of the fireplace, then we would say "Ready, set, go!"

Then he would get up and just throw himself onto the floor, sometimes he would take a step or two, but mostly he threw himself onto the ground. It was hilarious because he just kept doing it!

Going to my brother's house was so great! The kids there are so awesome, and Spencer has a cousin who is just four months younger than him, and like ALL the same things! Here they are hanging out in Austin's room. Whenever we went over there Austin would say hello to all of us, then they would just disappear into Austin's room, and then we didn't see them until we left. Good buddies these two.

This is princess McKaylee, and she has grown up so much into a beautiful little lady. She has quite the fashion sense, and is a great dancer!

While there, my brother had to go coach a soccer team, actually Austin's soccer team, so we tagged along. Here is Dawson watching daddy coach.

And Austin listening to Seth's coaching. Seth was a great coach to watch, he got the kids moving, as well as himself, and had them all giggling and having fun while learning about soccer.

I turned around at one point and Dawson had gone after a pink soccer ball that was to the side of the field, and he got just close enough to put his big toe on it, I thought it was quite a cute little thing.

Austin the star soccer player!!! Woot! Woot!!

While in Utah we also went and visited my Grandma Rigby. She is a wonderful lady who I look up to quite a bit. We miss living in Utah so we could see her more often and chat with her about basketball and all that is going on. She's a pretty awesome and beautiful lady.

Summer Recap 2011--take 2!

2011-09-18T18:42:00.007-04:00

As I said this summer was very busy for us. Before Tyler joined us in the States Spencer and I were able to go and visit some family.

We got back into the States at the end of June and we went to my parents place for a week then headed up to Kentucky to see our nieces' baptism, she had just turned 8 earlier and waited for Spencer to be there with her. Spencer and her get along so great together, so it was wonderful for him to be there for her special day and to get ready for his own baptism next year. So we stayed there for a quick weekend trip, and went back to VA to celebrate the 4th of July!!

The 4th of July is a big deal in my family, and an even bigger deal if we do it out in Lewiston, Utah. We love this holiday! Unfortunately we were not able to go to Utah, but stayed in VA to do it up big with my parents, and my sister and her family. My brother earlier in the day had sent a picture of all of the food he was eating in Utah when he was celebrating out there, so I had to send a picture back of our spread that we had...pretty yummy, right??

I even painted my toenails for the 4th of July. This is pretty much unheard of, because I do not paint my nails very often. I do not see the need for painted nails. Anyway, I did it so I had to take a picture of it so others could see I actually did a bright red for the 4th of July!

After our celebration of the 4th, we hung out at my parents for another week, then went on down to Alabama to visit one of my friends from growing up in VA, Emily. Her family lives down there now, and I hadn't seen her in a long time, so I asked if I could come crash at her place for a little while. Being the bestest friend ever she said yes. :)

This is Spencer with Emily's kids. The best thing about this trip was that all the kids played nicely with each other!!!!!!!! I know everyone's mouth dropped opened, didn't they?? But, really, sometimes it's hard to find other kids that will just play nicely with each other. I could not believe there was almost no fighting at all, it was awesome. It gave Emily and I lots of time to talk, eat, and reminisce with each other.

Cute Emily and her boy!! He was so great and fun. He has the CUTEST dimples!!!!

The little princess of the bunch, and the snuggler. She would always just scooch up into me if I was sitting on the couch. I adored it!

And this is her oldest, and the one Spencer just loved playing with. She is just four months younger than Spencer, so they were perfect to play together, plus she was tough, and would play sporty games with him. :)

And THIS little girl, sigh, this little lady stole my heart by the time I left. Mollie dog was my best friend while I was there and did not leave my side whenever I sat down on the couch. She would just look up at me, then snuggle right into my leg. Emily said, that anybody who is not a dog lover, Mollie will find and make them one. Well, I am not a dog hater, but dogs are not usually my thing, nor Spencer's, but we did GREAT with Mollie dog. She made me want to take her home with me. :)

Thanks so much to Dannon and Jenelle, and Emily for letting us crash at your houses this summer and being great host/hostess and letting us have an awesome time with you guys!!!!

Hello Again!

2011-09-15T11:37:00.016-04:00

You know there is a saying that "Absence makes the heart grow fonder" and I'm hoping that is the case for us. Sorry there has not been a posting on here for the past 3 months!!! YIKES!

We have been busy.

Wait, no that doesn't describe it well.

We have moved from Zimbabwe, been on a plane every week during the summer (no lie), gone to Kentucky, Alabama, DC, Utah and Virginia, found an apartment to live in in NYC, lived in a hotel for a week before moving into the apartment and finally moving into the apartment with no furniture. Yes, there, much better description of our summer. :)

Well, let's get the recap started!!

As you all know by now, there are a few places we like to hit up as soon as we have landed in America.

First off we go here:

Then we stop here (everyday):

Then we have these for breakfast:

Look at that happy faced boy!!! :)

The next thing we always do when we get back to the states is go watch Wyatt play some baseball!!!

We missed his regular season, but here he is on the All-Star team trying to win the Districts Championship.

How did they do?? Well, this is us on our way to the State Championships!!! YEP! His team won District!!!

Hello Little League State Championships!

We love going to support Wyatt playing baseball, but this trip was H-O-T-T! Everyday we were there it was around 110 degrees heat index. We were hot, but made do. Even Liza's best friend Alexis came to watch a game with us! She is the best and is like a sister (and one who could pull off being our sister) to our family.

This is Liza in game mode. She is usually the scorer and keeps tracks of pitches at all the games for the team. She gets stressed about how well they would do, and so we didn't talk to her much during the game. :)

Wyatt's feet. :) I loved watching all the different stances the boys had while getting ready to hit the ball.

Unfortunately, they lost all their games. It was hot, and for some reason some heads were not in the game. Wyatt took it alright, and even played a bit with Spencer. Oh and by the way, Spencer idolizes this guy right here. He loves him to death, and for good reason, Wyatt is an awesome young man!

Leaving...but not quite yet.

2011-06-23T08:02:00.002-04:00

Turns out that the night before you leave on a trans-atlantic flight that you should not eat a big meal that could mess with your stomach. Which is what happened with us, well to Spencer. The poor little boy got sick in the middle of the night and just couldn't stop "being sick" all night. We were leaving the next day at noon, and were not sure yet if he would be over the stomach bug or not, so we waited. He had stopped throwing up, but still had not had much sleep, and looked very much like this picture. (so sad, right?)

He had gone for 3 hours without any type of being sick, so we headed to the airport to see if things would just be able to work out. I mean, we had a 17 hour flight during the night, so at least he could sleep through all of that right? Well we start getting all luggage and us out of the car, and Spencer starts saying his arms and legs hurt and he starts crying which in turn makes him throw up in the parking lot of the airport.

Yep to the right of this picture that is where we were. Luckily it was mostly water, so it wasn't gross. But he did that, Tyler and I looked at each other and said, yep we are not going today. So I repacked the car, Tyler went inside to change our tickets and we started our way back home. Before all of this I was so nervous about flying, and felt so bad for Spencer to have to travel for 29 hours while being sick. He just wanted to sleep and lay down. I was a mess also because I was so sad to be leaving everyone here.

We said good-bye to our flight and went back home and Spencer just headed straight to his bed and laid down to watch some Avatar the Last Airbender.

The blessing out of all of this is?? First, I'm really happy that we didn't try to travel while he was sick, it would have been miserable for me and him. Secondly, I feel that I'm more ready to leave when we do now. It gave us a little extra time with Tyler, and to just be ready to leave. I really didn't feel ready to leave when we were going to. So, now, we have had a night of 12 hours of sleep, and Spencer is slowing getting better. At least he is eating some bread!!! I hope he feels 100% for our next trip, so we can finally get our summer in the States underway. He can't wait either now.

It seems as though Zimbabwe had one more adventure for us to go through before we left...now I think we're done. :)

Farewell Zimbabwe

2011-06-20T09:27:00.014-04:00

Spencer and I will be leaving Zimbabwe this week, and we are going to miss it!! Spencer has already informed me that he will be coming back to Zimbabwe when he is a grown-up and that it's okay with his wife to come. I don't think he realizes how much he will miss Zim, but I know he will tons, as will I. It's different leaving here than it was with Congo. In Congo we had made friends but the place we were living in was not fun at all. Here it's been beautiful weather, wonderful people, no wars going on, and many more wonderful friends to be had. Our highlights of Zim are as follows:

-Our beautiful home, that had it's many struggles, but still we feel like it was home.

-Spencer's first day of Kindergarten.

-Spencer's first day of 1st grade.

-Spencer calling himself an African boy because he would walk outside in his bare feet all the time.

-Tyler learning and enjoying golf, and also getting Spencer into it.

-The many thunderstorms during the rainy season, I won't miss the lightening, but the pitter patter of rain helps you get to sleep sometimes.

-Seeing amazing wild animals up close.

-Having once in a lifetime experiences.

-Seeing one of the seven wonders of the world-Victoria Falls.

-Riding elephants and bonding with them.

-Going on safaris.

-The A-MAZ-ING sunsets. I will forever miss the African sun.

-Having the opportunity to share where we live with family.

-Again another once in a lifetime experience- petting a cheetah.

-Holding lions at the Lion and Cheetah Park.

-The beautiful landscape of Zimbabwe (Leopard Rock).

-Visiting other parts of Africa- Cape Town, South Africa.

Here are some pictures of our house all packed and ready to go.

-We will definitely miss our wonderful staff!!

This is Bridget with her two daughters, Blessing and Mary.

And here is Cosmas with his wife Beauty and daughter Ashley.

We will also miss the many friends we have made here, in which I don't think I got enough pictures of them! So here are a few of our friends.

Erica cutting her yummy, delicious homemade carrot cake.

Kate showing off her belly....she's having a girl!!!

Some of our wonderful Young Women.

Tyler and Spencer with some of our great young men.

My canasta playing girls!!!! I will miss the Nield family and their own families so much, and also the Lane family (which I kinda include with the Nields).

We have had so many great experiences here, and have loved our two year stay in Zimbabwe. Hopefully we will be back to visit again, and be able to enjoy more time with our African roots. I think this time it is also a bit harder because we are not only saying good-bye to a great place to live but to the whole country of Africa which we have come to love so much. We will always have Zimbabwe in our hearts.

My Completed Goals

2011-06-16T09:21:00.007-04:00

I, Becca, made goals for while I was here in Zimbabwe, instead of for the year. I did have ten goals at the beginning of my time here in Zimbabwe, BUT because I didn't realize how much time my schooling was going to take I knew I would not be able to accomplish them all. So I narrowed it down to five, and since I'm moving away from Zimbabwe in 6 days I thought I would tell you what I have done.

1- Graduate College with my Bachelor's Degree (it's set for Dec. 19th)

-This will happen November 14th! It moved up because I took two classes at one time, and was very stressful. BUT so far I've completed my college courses will all A's! Yep I'm a straight A student.

2- Exercise!!

- Did this for a time, but here at the end I gave up. I do hope to keep doing this not only for my health but to lose weight. Walking around New York should help, right?

3- Put a book together of all of my favorite photographs I've taken here, so then it can be our coffee table book.

-I have all the pictures picked out, but every time I try to put them into the book on the website the internet can't handle it. So, as soon as I'm back in the States the book will be made. Narrowing down the pictures though was the hardest part.

4- Finish reading the Book of Mormon

-DONE!!! I had started reading at the very beginning of being here, but didn't really do it regularly. In March though I challenged one of the young women in our ward to reading it with me and see who would finish first. I finished it but that is because her family is starting over again, but she was at the end so she would have. Love the feeling I got for finishing this wonderful book.

5- Read all of my new books I've gotten so I can be caught up before moving to New York.

-HAHA! Yeah, this was not going to happen. With all of the textbooks that I had to read, I was not in the mood to keep reading other things, plus I had around 35 books to read from January to now. But this way I have lots more books to read while in New York once I'm done with school!

I feel that even though I didn't complete everything I wanted to, I did a fairly good job. Life changes and things go differently than planned all the time, but at least I had some goals to get these things done.

First Grade Graduation

2011-06-02T09:44:00.009-04:00

Today was Spencer's graduation from first grade!!! He still has a week of school left, but they celebrated early so they could get everyone there.

All smiles at the beginning , he was so ready!

Congratulations Spencer!! That is his teacher Mrs. Ferguson.

Looking at his class picture that was in his little recognition paper.

Spencer and two other of his classmates are moving away, so they did a little good-bye thing for them. They had each of their best friends stand and say something about them and tell them good-bye. One of Spencer's best friends is Olle, and so he stood up and said that he hopes Spencer has fun in America and good-bye. This was them hugging it out. SO CUTE!

Then the first grade kids rocked it out with the guitars they made and songs about bones (their last unit was about the human body). They were all rocking out!

After everything the kids got to drink juice boxes, the parents got to visit, and so did the kids. Spencer with some of his friends.

This is Ms. Rust who was the classroom aide. She is leaving also because she is getting married.

Mrs. Ferguson, Spencer's GREAT first grade teacher. She always looked out for Spencer and knew when to be firm with him in the things he did. She is an awesome teacher.

YAY for Spencer finishing first grade! But wait....then that means...we have a second grader now!!! oh boy! :)

New York Here We Come

2011-05-30T09:41:00.002-04:00

We are leaving Zimbabwe in just two months (Becca and Spencer leave 23 June, I leave 23 July) and hope to be in New York City by the end of August. We don't know where in Manhattan we will be living at, but we plan on getting a three bedroom apartment so we have room for all the people who say they will come visit us. We already have several people who have started making plans to visit us in the first few months. So if anyone planned on visiting us September through December of this year they better let us know of their plans because the dates are filling up.

To help those who have already plans and those who are looking for a time to come, below is a list of the annual festivals between September and December. Now this list does not include all festivals, nor does it cover all the activities that are available during this time, especially during the Christmas season where there is a festival or something Christmasy to do every day of the week.

SEPTEMBER

-Atlantic Antic: One Sunday in early fall, there is a one and a half mile street fair in Brooklyn. Majority of booths are hosted by local business. Lots of great local food, books, jewelery, boutiques, live music, martial arts demonstration, bouncy castle and pony rides. (Held in September or Early October) www.alanticave.org

-Brazil Day festival: First Sunday in September New York City celebrates Brazil’s independence. Held in Midtown. Sixth Avenue is lined with stages, stalls, and bandstands. One of the most colorful and lively of the city’s street fairs. Footballers, dancers, and Brazilian restaurants.

-Brooklyn Book Festival: Large book festival www.visitbrooklyn.org/BookFestival/festival.html

-Queens Farm Museum: 47-acre farm with corn maze in late summer-early fall. County Fair in September. I am sure we will be taking Spencer to the corn maze several times as mazes are his favorite thing. www.queensfarm.org

-Fashion Week: Editors, models, stylists and celebrities all dolled up in the season’s best. Held in September and February near Bryant Park. September is the better time to go as the weather is better.

-Feast at San Genmaro: New York’s oldest and biggest street festival. 11-day festival in Little Italy. Live concerts, several parades, religious processions and the International Cannoli Eating Championships . www.sangennaro.org

-New York Century Ride: Bike ride through New York with five routes for different skill levels. Goes through as many as four of the five boroughs. www.nyccentury.org

-New York Film Festival: September-October. www.filmlinc.com

-Plant Pigment Week: Held at Wave Hill, garden walks, demonstrations, and other activities. www.wavehill.org

-Washington Square Art Show: Two weekends in September, the streets around Washington Square Park are lined with booths, where artists display their works, many of which are for sale. www.washingtonsquareoutdoorartexhibit.org

-West Indian-American Day Parade: first Monday in September. The city’s biggest parade. A four-day celebration of West Indian and Caribbean culture. Elaborate floats and masquerade performers, listen to steel drums and calypso music and gorge on food from all different parts of the Caribbean. www.wiadca.org

OCTOBER

-Blessing of the Animals: St Johns Cathedral. Pet owners are encouraged to bring their pets inside the church for a blessing www.stjohndivine.org

-Dachtober Festival: First Saturday in October, festival for dogs.

-Ice Skating Rockefeller Center (through april): Iconic New York activity, however the lines can be very long during the early evening hours and on weekends, also you will not see me out on the ice, as Becca can attest to, I can not skate.

-Open House New York: view normally private buildings. www.ohny.org

-Village Halloween Parade: For the more adventurous of our friends and family. This is the nation’s largest and most famous Halloween celebration. Anyone is allowed to march in the parade as long as they have a costume. www.halloween-nyc.com

NOVEMBER

-Chocolate Show: Held at the Metropolitan Pavillon. Chocolate Show is four days of seeing, smelling and tasting chocolate from all over the world. Tons of free samples (Early November) www.chocolateshow.com

-Christmas Tree at Rockefeller Center: Tree is up from late November through New Years and is lit from 5:30 am to 11:30 p.m. www.rockefellercenter.com

-Christmas Windows: An old New York tradition where each store has its own look. Start downtown with Macy’s then go down 34^th Street before moving over to Fifth Avenue hitting Lord and Taylor, all the way up to Saks, then proceed to Bergdorf Goodman, and then end at Barneys on Madison Avenue. (Unveiled in November, but stays up until just after New Years.)

-Union Square Holiday Market: Just after Thanksgiving the lower plaza in front of Union Square turns into a holiday bazaar with dozens of craftspeople and artists hawking their wares. Carved wooden boxes, jewelry, scarves. (Late November through Christmas)

-Skating at Lasker Rink: Located at the north end of Central Park (November-March). www.wollmanskatingrink.com

-Margatet Mead Film and Video Festival: Held at the American Museum of Natural History, this annual festival is the premier venue for new documentary films in the U.S. Screenings are $10 each. www.amnh.org

-New York City Marathon: This race attracts tens of thousands of runners as well as millions of spectators. 100,000 athletes from around the world vie for 35,000 spots that are selected by lottery. The marathon goes through all five boroughs of New York and finishes in Central Park. (First Sunday in November) www.ingnycmarathon.org

DECEMBER

-Park Avenue Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony: On the first Sunday in December, a ceremony is held on Park Avenue for the lighting of the trees that line 2.5 miles off the avenues mall. There are carols and choir performances, followed by a moment of silence before all of the trees are simultaneously illuminated. (First Sunday in December) www.brickchurch.org

-Jivamukti New Years Celebration: This popular yoga center holds a free annual New Year’s Eve celebration, where they observe mauna, the yogi practice of silence. From 9:00 pm to midnight they open the studio to silent individual practice and meditation. www.jivamuktiyoga.com

-Central Park Midnight Run: Start the New Year off on the right foot with this annual four mile run through Central Park. Included in the event is a dance party, costume show for the runners and a fireworks display at midnight. To participate in the race costs $30 – 40. www.nyrr.org

-Steam Whistle at Pratt on New Years Eve: Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute maintains of the worlds largest collection of steam whistles and a power plant and steam engine to blow them. On New Years Eve, nearly 2,000 whistles of all shapes and sizes are brought into the quadrangle and at midnight they start the new year with a blast. www.pratt.edu

-New Years's Eve in Time Square: No explanation needed, but be ready for massive crowds.

Recently

2011-05-19T09:40:00.004-04:00

The dry season is upon us and so our fruit trees are blossoming!! We found out this year that we have a guava tree and a banana tree! Also an avocado tree! It's a huge tree, and we really didn't realize all that it would produce. Here's a picture of just the tip top of the tree and all the avocados on it.

Now times that by 20 and you might have an idea of how many avocados we really have, it's crazy! Tyler has been enjoying the avocados very much with his dinners.

And here are some pictures of us recently. We took these for our moms Mother's Day cards.

I LOVE this picture of these two handsome boys! They are great!!

V & A Waterfront

2011-05-18T07:31:00.015-04:00

One of the best things in Cape Town was going over to the Victoria & Albert Waterfront everyday. It was where you got on the ferry to Robben Island, where a HUGE shopping mall is, where lots of food, and lots of fun are to be had. Also that was where we were able to have some Haagen Dazs ice cream EVERY DAY. It was soo yummy!

Speaking of ice cream here was a statue we walked by while going to the waterfront. Interesting we thought.

This is the clock tower right by the Robben Island ferry and museum.

The swinging bridge that takes you over to some malls.

Tyler on the bridge with the bay behind him.

I also saw many yachts while we were there, but this was the one I was hoping to have one day. Do you see the red carpet you walk on to get on the boat?!?

One of the shopping areas with the ferris wheel in the back.

Alfred Mall, I loved how all the buildings looked around there.

Saw this in one of the windows of the shop...was thinking about getting a feathery dress, looks perfect!

The shopping there was crazy great! We didn't buy much, but every time we saw a bookstore all three of us would just turn and go straight into it. We spent a lot of time in the many bookstores within the big mall there. They also had upscale stores like Louis Vuitton and Burberry (which I HAD to go into!).

We saw this statue on the way to the Aquarium (with Table Mountain in the background), it is made from Coca-Cola plastic bins!!! Pretty awesome...obviously he thinks he's number 1!

Here are some statues of very important people in Noble Square.

From left to right: Albert Luthuli, Desmond Tutu, FW de Klerk, and Nelson Mandela

A close up of Nelson Mandela's statue.

We had a fabulous time in Cape Town, South Africa and would encourage EVERYONE to visit there at least once. It's beautiful, relaxing, so much history, with good food and great shopping.

Prison at Robben Island

2011-05-17T04:54:00.015-04:00

After we did the island tour we went and met our guide for the prison on Robben Island. The tour guides for just the prison part are all ex-prisoners that used to be there!!! What a perspective to get while walking around. Sadly, I didn't get any pictures of the outside of the prison, but these will do.

Inside one of the big prisoner holding rooms, this would house about 60 men. They would sleep on the floor and have just 2 or 3 blankets they could use.

Here is the man that gave us our tour. He was in the prison for political reasons.

An example of the ID card for each prisoner.

Their meals. It is divided into two diets, B and C. They were different for different prisoners and what their crimes were politically.

Walking through the outside part of the prison.

In a prison cell. Spencer doesn't seem happy to be in there at all.

Each prison cell had information about one of the prisoners that stayed there. We went into the first one and it was the one where the guy who's prison card we saw.

Information about him, and what he went through.

The small shelf in the cell.

Hallway to go and see Nelson Mandela's cell.

This is where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned. And that was all he had in the cell. The red bucket was the bathroom.

Not much, but what a great leader that came from this spot!

The outside courtyard area. This is where they would do exercises but also work on things like chipping away at stone.

It was interesting to see what the prison looked like and all that those men who were trying to change the political climate in South Africa had to go through.

Robben Island

2011-05-16T07:41:00.018-04:00

Another tourist thing to do in Cape Town is to take the ferry out to Robben Island. Robben Island was once where a prison was held for political prisoners. There is also a small village on the island. People still live out there, but the prison is not used. One of their most famous prisoners was Nelson Mandela and current South African president Jacob Zuma.

After we got off the boat this was the entrance to the island.

Here is a photograph of what it looked like with the prisoners coming into the island. They were given very little when they got here. Just shorts and shirt, and they all had to have their heads shaved.

This island was also a place for those with leprosy, starting in 1845, to be quarantined. This is the cemetery of those who died of leprosy.

This was the limestone pit where prisoners came to dig. Many of them years later were diagnosed with diseases because they had inhaled so much limestone dust. It was huge and for them to just have picks and small shovels to dig all of this was crazy!

This pile of rocks was started by Nelson Mandela. One day he just laid a stone in the middle of the pit, and through the years other prisoners also went and put stones there.

They also dug out this cave where they would have some talks about things, you can barely see them but they even build out some benches inside.

The church on the island has been there for a long time.

It is also one that is famous because a lot of people come to it on Valentine's Day to get married. Our tour guide told us this past Feb. 14th there were 12 weddings!!!!

Here is the school K-12 on the island.

At the edge looking out over the bay.

The island has had much destruction and I found what seems to be a chimney on the beach.

The lighthouse.

A rotting whale, and let me tell you that smell will never go away for me. P.U.!

This is a gun that was build during WWII. They wanted to protect Cape Town if anything happened down there, well turns out they didn't use it. Mostly because they didn't finish building it until AFTER the war was over. :) Our tour guide said it was in proper African timeframe...which is true.

More on the prisoners of Robben Island next.

Table Mountain

2011-05-15T09:32:00.019-04:00

One of the tourist spots for Cape Town, besides the city itself is Table Mountain, and you pretty much can't miss it once you get into Cape Town. Why is it called Table Mountain?? Well, look for yourself.

It looks like a table.

We drove up there, not to the very top but about half way up to be able to ride to the top. You can also hike up to the top but it looked steep and rough and I didn't want to carry 50 lb. Spencer halfway up, nor have Tyler do that.

Once we drove up to the place to get tickets to ride the gondola, this is the view we saw. All of Cape Town.

This was looking up from the get on point for the gondolas. It was a looonnnggg way up, but the ride itself took only 5 minutes.

A bit of a closer look.

When we got on the floor started to spin, so everyone could see all views. It was pretty cool. This was the hiking trail to go up, we saw two people on that trail and they looked tired.

A look back over Cape Town while going up the gondola.

More to the right.

See that first stripe in front of the rocks, that is the road that we parked on, and the building is on the left by the wires. A long way down!

We were even up above the clouds. It was soo pretty, and a little hard to breathe.

Remember what I was saying about perspective? Here is Spencer's head for some.

A little critter that was up on the rocks, we actually saw a lot of them.

Spencer didn't want to get near the edge, so he posed on the rocks.

Beautiful flower up on the mountain. I need to write down the names of all of these things when I take the picture, but I always forget. It was pretty big too.

Spencer and I looking out over the Atlantic Ocean. Is that my parents house I see WAAAYYY over on the other side?? :) just kidding!!! It would be a FAR ways off, since if we did see anything it would be South America, but you can't see it.

Here is what the top of Table Mountain looks like.

Cape Town from the very top of Table Mountain, you could see everything. If you look on the left side of the picture, on the right of that small hill, you see a circle. Got it? That is a stadium that was used for the World Cup.

I saw this guy sitting over there by his lonesome, so I took a picture. Not exactly how I wanted it to turn out, but it makes you see what a small piece of the earth we are.

Here is Lions Head mountain. Looks more like a lion's head when you are down in the city.

Cape of Good Hope

2011-05-07T14:28:00.009-04:00

After going to the top of Cape Point, we decided to drive over to Cape of Good Hope. It was just as beautiful.

I loved watching the waves crash into the rocks.

The Cape of Good Hope.

More splashes!

You can tell how windy it was with this wave.

This was on our drive back home. This beach was gorgeous!

When we got back to the hotel we saw these people walking back and forth with these bright umbrellas. Looking around more and we found out that they were filming something!!

The actors just kept walking back and forth across the crosswalk. Also the water truck kept watering down the sidewalk and road behind them, since it was a pretty sunny day. :) It was pretty cool to watch, and a little boring too. ;) Another cool thing, those big thick white lines on the crosswalk...not really there. They put them down just for this filming!

Cape Point

2011-05-06T09:02:00.015-04:00

The day after we arrived in Cape Town, we decided to take a road trip down to Cape Point. It's ONE of the most southern parts of Africa. I'm pretty positive I could see Antarctica....just kidding!!! :) But Cape Point is where the Atlantic Ocean and Indian Ocean meet. It was GORGEOUS there! Here are some of our pictures from that day.

Driving down to Cape Point.

Once we were in the Park area we had an ostrich out in the middle of the road!!! There were a lot of ostriches around.

At the bottom of Cape Point. Beautiful, huh?

See that lighthouse up there?? Yeah, me neither, but it's there and that's where we were headed! You could either walk up there, or right a gondola type thing.

We chose the gondola. :)

Up at the lighthouse.

They had a post right in the middle of the area in front of the lighthouse and New York was on there! So we HAD to take a picture. New York is our next post, can you believe it's 12,541 KM away?!?!

Also, you can't tell in this picture but it was SOOOO WINDY up there. I had to lean forward to try to get the pictures I took so I wouldn't be blown back. Spencer was actually really scared to do this because he was afraid his flip-flops would be swept away or that he would!

At the top looking down. You see that road coming along the hill, that first part where it gets big is where we were parked. umm...yeah it was a long way up!

A little private beach near Cape Point.

The meeting place of the two oceans.

Sorry the guys head is in the way, but sometimes you need some perspective about how big and far away things are, he was my perspective. And the white caps out there...no idea what they were?? Perhaps the meeting spot?

What a beautiful world we live in.

Once we had fun up at the lighthouse looking around and were tired of being pushed by the wind we went down to the gift shop and we found this beauty!

I had to take a picture for my father-in-law Todd, he loves these boat models. Wish we could have gotten it for you Todd, but there was no way we were going to get that thing back to the States all in one piece!!