Visitors-3

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!

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

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

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...

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!

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!!!!