Times Square

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

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!!

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.

Guest room.

Spencer's 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

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!

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.