Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Our Year in Review...2011

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!!

Friday, December 16, 2011

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

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!