Utah Trip - Part 2

My family had a reunion in Island Park and it was a blast!

We had everyone go into Yellowstone National Park one day and it was fun. Spencer loved being with his cousins and we loved seeing the beauty of the park. During our first visit in we saw elk, bison, and even some black bears! But only through my dad's scope that he had, thankfully he had it! 

Here the boys are waiting for Old Faithful to erupt.

Spencer and Old Faithful at the beginning of her erupting.

At a stopping point we saw a bison up on the hill. I love this picture because the way Preston is looking, it's like he's looking right at the bison, but he really was not. 

We stayed at a beautiful place in Island Park, Bill's Island. It was so cool. 

This was our view out back!!!

Isn't it gorgeous! Steps down to the lake, that you could swim in and fish in and play in, which we did all of those things. Even rented a skidoo and the kids had a BLAST!!!

The sunset.

It was so calming and pretty and the best weather. 

On our last day there Tyler and I wanted to go back into the park to see if we could see more bears or something. So we dragged our boys out of bed at 6:30 or 7 in the morning. It takes a little while to get to the park, so by the time we were there, this is what they looked like. Completely asleep. 

They missed a bison that was super close to us!

 Also another one that just walked right out into the road when we were driving. I stopped, but it was pretty nerve-racking to have a bison so big walking by your car. This doesn't look like it was close, but it really was.

After we looked around for more animals, that we didn't get to see...bummer, we stopped at a place in the park for some ice cream. It was yummy!

Utah Trip - Part 1

In July we planned a big trip out to Utah. 1- to do a family reunion with my family and 2- to see most of Tyler's family. It was perfect! One place and we get to share time with both families. 

We spent some time with Tyler's family first, and went and found the "Up" house!!!! Preston would love it, since he loves that movie. 

Playing in grandma and grandpa's backyard was lots of fun. Preston loved the bubble machine and would try to pop them all. 

He loved the swings too. Look at that smile!

On July 4th we headed up to Lewiston, Utah. My grandparents live there and we usually spend every July 4th with them. We do the flag raising with the Pledge of Allegiance, fireman's breakfast, parade, and then fun all afternoon with family.  Here's Preston waiting for the parade to start...it was a little warm.

This is most of my extended family!!! We definitely had a big crowd there. It was great!

All the cousins waiting for the parade. 

Once we got our candy at the parade we headed back to my Uncle's house. Luckily my grandma could come and visit with us all for a little while. It was so wonderful to see her, I love her so much. 

Preston fell in love while we were at my uncle's house....with the cows!!!! 

 He got a kick out of them trying to lick him.

And they did lick him...lots!!!! 

Miss O being all patriotic! And getting ready for the fireworks we were about to set off. 

Miss M having fun making stuff. 

We were not sure how Preston would like the fireworks but he loved them!! 

 He thought they were really cool, until we got to the big huge ones. Then he and I headed inside and watched from there. 

Next day my whole family was off to Island Park for a week of fun!!!! 

End of June

I have not done a great job of keeping up with the blog this year, but I am determined to get it all caught up before the new year...so I have three weeks to get the last half the year done. Get ready for some blog posts, y'all!

The end of June came the conclusion of another baseball season. Here is Spencer getting his trophy from his coaches and his teammates all around. He had fun being on the Phillies.

Also at the end of June we got some great crepe batter from our friend Katherine. She does a crepe stand at the Falls Church Farmers Market...if you are nearby....GO!! Saturday mornings, getting a big ol' crepe that tastes DELICIOUS, it's the best thing you could do!! It's called Kate's Crepes. You can find her on Facebook. For reals, so yummy. 

Last Day of School 2014

This was Spencer on his first day of 4th grade!

This is Spencer on his last day of 4th grade...am I the only one who thinks he looks so much older in this picture?!?!?

On this last day it happened to be Friday the 13th!! Which Spencer loved because we love Friday the 13ths and we have monkey bread on those days!!!!! So for dinner that night he got the Special Plate AND monkey bread, he was loving it!

This is Spencer and his teacher, Mrs. McInnis. She was the best!!! He learned a lot and loved being in her class. 

At the end of the school year his teacher hands out awards to the kids based on what they do really well with in class, and Spencer, the boy who JUST moved to Virginia 9 months before, got Historian of the Year?!?! I was happy for him, he started to really love history here and learns the facts really fast. He's so smart! 

Now we are onto 5th grade....much harder and more responsibility.

Grandparents come to visit!

My parents came to visit us while Spencer was still playing baseball, so they were excited to be able to see him play! Preston was (and kinda still is) in the phase of not wanting to watch and just wander...and eat and play in dirt. 

Also I love these monkey toes!!!! 

Girls Trip part 2

The next day of our girls weekend we explored and walked a lot and of course ate a lot! 

We started off the day by having breakfast at Tiffany's! haha. We just walked by it while we went to get breakfast, but kinda the same thing. After breakfast we headed over to Good Morning America. We weren't sure if anyone good was going to be there or not so we wandered around and watched them through the window, then lo and behold who do we see....Nicholas Cage?!!?!? Score! I love him in National Treasure, a favorite in our family. Anyway, we kept watching him and waiting to see which door he'd go out of, and one of us got REALLY close to him and yelled out I love you! I don't know where the picture is of that, but I did have one. So that was our celebrity sighting.

After seeing Nicholas, we went explored Times Square, shopped a bit too. Next it was making our way up to FAO Schwartz by 5th Avenue. Got to FAO and shopped some more, we did have little people at home missing us and hoping to get treats! This shopping and walking made us hungry so we stopped by Sarabeth's...oh so yummy. Here we are enjoying our lunch. I had the velvety creamy tomato soup and grilled cheese, it was to die for! In fact I have since spent a ton of money on a double boiler so I could make this fabulous soup...first try not exactly it, but hopefully the next one will be!

While we are on the subject of food...this was our dinner, yes OUR. I had to share with a friend because we couldn't eat it all, but we did eat the rest of it together. The mac and cheese at Max Brenner's was so yummy too!!! Also that Drink Me cup has my salted caramel milkshake in it...oh yes be jealous. 

During that day we also walked a lot around Central Park, it was beautiful weather, so perfect for people watching and enjoying the park. 

The last day we were there we had enough time when we woke up to do one thing, so we went to the library!!!! So exciting yes? Well this library is pretty cool, so it WAS exciting.

Katherine and Heather discussing something important.

The design and decor of the whole library was awesome. I love it.

There was a children's area too, kind of like a museum, so we went through that. Here is the original Winnie the Pooh and gang!

Back to Katherine and Heather discussing things....wonder what was so funny? 

Fortunately we are a bunch of funny girls, so we did a lot of photo bombing while others wanted to remember themselves being at certain places.

Our last meal had to be some New York pizza, and luckily there was some right next to the hotel!!! It was yummy, and we were sad to have to leave the fun city. 

A great picture of us together in Central Park. 

We had such a fun time we are hoping we can all get back together to have another girls weekend. See one of the girls, Sarah, was moving away from us, we hate that she had to leave us, but were glad to get this trip in beforehand. It was a great weekend to be away from everything and just eat and talk and walk and eat some more. 

Here we all are at our last dinner together. We miss you Sarah!!!!

Girls Night Out...turned into Girls Weekend in NYC!

So about a year ago I met some lovely ladies here in town, and we wanted to go out to eat, so we did. While eating we were talking about where we have lived and places we wanted to visit, dream destinations kind of thing. Well it did come up that I had just moved from New York City and I missed it dearly and wanted to go back so bad. Turns out the other girls wanted to go too....so we kinda just decided to do a Girls Weekend up there a few months later!!!!! It was spontaneous and amazing. 

I drove, because it was cheaper AND our hotel we found had valet parking which wasn't too pricey for every day, we were there for two full days. Here we are on our way up to New York!!! Surprisingly it didn't take too long, just 4-5 hours away...depending on traffic.

We made it back to the city!!!! I was so excited to be there and so scared to drive in Manhattan!!! AAHHHH!!! I did get honked at a couple of times, but I made it, whew.

As soon as we got to the hotel we dropped our stuff and went out to explore! First stop was to the 9/11 Memorial, it was beautiful as always, and incredible to see. 

Since we were in my neck of the woods, I told the girls they HAD to eat at Shake Shack, not because I wouldn't eat anywhere else...which is true, but because it's the best!!! Here we are in front of our old Shake Shack!!! It was yummy, but they changed the fries to straight ones, not cool. Those were okay.  

Since then though I've heard they changed the fries back to the crinkly fries. Now I need to go back to have those! 

After eating we rushed back to around Times Square and got see Wicked!!!!! It was the first time I had ever seen it and it was incredible!!! I loved it. 

After that we were so tired, it was 11pm, and we had left home at 8am that morning, that we went back to the hotel and straight to sleep.