Just Another Monday . . .

. . . in New York City. So this post is documenting LAST Monday. It was our last day in NY. We packed it nice and full. We started with Central Park. We again did not wake up early for a morning stroll through the park, but ended up starting through the park around 10am. We took the subway up to 86th Street and went in on the West side since we didn't think we had been to that section before. I'm pretty sure we hadn't because we happened upon this reservoir. It was so beautiful.
The trouble (or awesomeness, depending on how you look at it) with Central Park is that it's giant and it's very easy to get lost. This is great when you just want to wander, but we spent about half our time in the park looking for a bathroom. If you have ever looked for a bathroom in Manhattan you know it's practically impossible to find a public restroom when you need one. We thought we were set when we had wandered all the way over to the east side of the park and found the Met. Unfortunately the Met is closed on Mondays, as are most museums, we discovered. Finally, we decided to go back into the park and found a public restroom by the boathouse in front of the Conservatory where the model sailboats normally sail. There were no mini boats out when we were there though. Not sure why.

Here is a pretty bridge near the reservoir lake. I love the canopy of trees. It always amazes me how green Central Park is right there in the middle of the city.
The animals in Central Park are not shy. We saw tons of squirrels and birds would hop around inches away from us. I snapped this shot for Weston, but I think Ian looks cute and who doesn't love squirrels?
We walked all the way down to the bottom of Central park at 59th St. and 5th Ave. after stopping at another (cleaner) public restroom in the office building at the entrance to the zoo. I am detailing the bathroom locations for you in the off-chance that you will be in NYC looking for a bathroom and remember reading about where there was one.

At the bottom of the park we hopped the subway again and headed to Soho for some shopping. Ian wanted a cool new t-shirt, so we were hunting. We looked at tons of shops and passed by some awesome designer shops too. Ian ended up finding his shirt at a street fair booth. They had all these shirts to choose from then all these designs and they would make your shirt right there. He got a gray American Apparel shirt with a design of a white cassette tape. I love it. He does too. Success.

After some more window shopping we decided to grab some lunch. We busted out the trusty iphone and decided to try this little place we happened to be right by. It was not as good as I had hoped, but pretty cheap, so that was good. Also it had this awesome red wall with the restaurant name on it. I was disappointed that they did not, in fact, serve Mooncake.
After a little more Soho wandering we were tired and headed back to the hotel for a little rest before getting ready for the Stevies. It felt so good to lay down for a little bit. We got cleaned up and dressed in our fancy "business" attire for the American Business Awards (aka The Stevies). I did the best I could with my hair and makeup after being out in the city all day. Then I made the ultimate beauty sacrifice and put on 3 inch heels even though my feet were killing me from 3 days of essentially non-stop walking.

The awards were in the 6th floor Broadway Ballroom in our hotel. I still felt weird, like we weren't really adults that should be attending a fancy awards ceremony, but here's our ticket to prove it.
Here we are in the half empty ballroom during the earlier awards where they presented Ian's category. These were mostly the creative categories.
The ballroom was actually pretty impressive. This is the stage from our table. We were pretty much right in the middle of the room. There were 56 tables.
Ian's company's pieces earned two runner's up certificates and one actual Stevie Award for his Ore to More animation piece. Ian got up and gave a quick acceptance speech. He looked so handsome and successful up there. :)
After the earlier awards ceremony there was a cocktail reception. We went back up to the room for a little bit since the reception wasn't starting for about 20 more minutes. Also that statue was freaking heavy. We went back down and visited with some other people from the earlier awards and noshed on all the fun food. Finally it was time for the actual dinner. It was kind of a letdown. Not bad, but certainly not the best food I have ever eaten, and definitely not $375 worth. Oh well. We ate and then ditched out as soon as the rest of the awards were about to start. Here we are being a little silly at dinner.
We realized that we had forgotten to have our picture taken with the award, so we set up my phone's timer and took one of ourselves in our room with Ian's big award!
Even though we were pretty bushed we decided to go out since it was our last night in New York. We headed down to the Hudson River Park, which is basically a 50 foot wide strip of sidewalk and grass along the Western border of Manhattan, right by the river. We had to walk and walk and walk. It started raining and was really windy. We didn't even end up sitting at the end of the pier like we planned, so that was kind of a bust, but the skyline was still beautiful at night.

The night ended on a good note with some delicious dessert at Ruby Tuesday in Times Square, where we sat by the window and talked and talked until way too late. Finally we bid New York farewell and went up to our room to pack and catch a few hours of sleep before our early plane home.

We ended up accidentally getting to the airport an hour earlier than we needed to because we thought our plane left at 5:45, but it wasn't actually scheduled until 6:45. Oops. Oh well. Then we sat on tarmac in the plane for an entire hour. Blah. Eventually we did leave and made it home safe and sound and only about half an hour later than planned. The kids were happy to see us and they liked the presents we brought for them. THANKS again to my mom for staying with the kids while we were gone even though she had a sinus infection AND an ear infection.

I am so glad that we decided to go on this trip to NY. It was so much fun and so great to spend some time just with Ian. I loved every minute and look forward already to our next trip back.

Happy NYC Father's Day

The plan was to wake up bright and early for a morning walk through Central Park. Like I said, though, I slept like a baby and don't even remember hearing the alarm. Oh well, it's vacation. We ended up just barely getting ready in time to get to the American Airlines Theater box office in time for it to open. We got our $21.50 general rush tickets to see The Philanthropist and then grabbed some delish breakfast at Pax.

Sunday was our big shopping day. We started at the base of Central Park at 5th Avenue where the new Apple store is. Ian already had his new iphone, but wanted to check out the store. It was really cool. Not as big as we were expecting. The store part is all underground. The only thing above ground is this big glass cube with spiral stairs leading down to the store. Here's Ian in the cube atrium.
Right next door is the toy mecca FAO Schwartz. We had a lot of fun here actually. It wasn't all that crowded and we browsed all the toys looking for presents for the kids. We ended up with a new bath toy holder, a spinning light toy for Davin, and an adorable Melissa & Doug pirate puppet for Weston. This is me with one of the soldiers at the entrance to the store.
They had tons of huge toys including this giant Chewbacca made of Lego's. The other impressive Lego display was a collection of life size Harry Potter characters, including Hagrid! I love that Ian looks like such a little boy in this picture. :)
We wandered down 5th Avenue and passed all the fun stores, like Tiffany's. We also saw St. Patrick's cathedral. I love all the hustle and bustle of New York, and 5th Avenue is always busy.
We walked down 5th all the way to Rockefeller Center. It was overcast, but not raining on Sunday, which was great. I eventually even took off my sweater.
If you watch 30 Rock, then you recognize this shot. We enjoyed some people watching in the plaza. By the time we finished checking out the Nintendo store it was time to make our way back to the theater for our play.
We didn't end up getting to see a musical this trip, but instead saw a play. It was pretty funny and starred Matthew Broderick. He was great. We really enjoyed it. The performance was in this restored theater and it was so beautiful. It had this gorgeous rotunda that I took some pictures of, but they didn't do it justice. Here we are during intermission in our seats.
We wanted to go shop at the MoMA store, so after the play we got slightly lost trying to get to there. Oops. I loved all the cool things at the museum store and the design store across the street. Here is a picture Ian took of the wall o' clocks.
Ian picked out an Indian restaurant for dinner that night. It was tiny, but the decor was awesome and the food was amazing. I especially loved the light fixtures you can see behind Ian. I'm pretty sure the entire place could only seat 14 people. Tops. We ordered the Chicken Tikka Masala. I had never had it before, but I really enjoyed it. It was almost sweet. Tadka was a hit. Happy Father's Day Ian!
After dinner we were pretty worn out, so we headed back to the hotel for a rest. This is us trying to take a discrete, non-touristy picture of ourselves on the subway.
That awesome king sized bed was calling my name, but I just vegged for a little bit. We decided we needed some dessert, so Ian busted out the trusty (and incredibly handy on this trip) iphone to search nearby, highly rated, French restaurants. We ended up going to this quaint little French place called Le Rivage just a couple blocks from the hotel for some creme brulee. Yummy. Great way to end our Father's Day New York style.

NEW YORK CITY!

Warning: the following several posts are not for the faint of heart. They will be detailed and picture overloaded simply because this is my record of our trip. Feel free to skim.
Disclaimer: we did not bring a camera, so all the pictures are from our phones. You can tell the ones from Ian's brand new iphone because they are clearer than ones from my phone.

We just got back from our trip to NYC. We had an absolute blast. It was so fun to just be together in the city without the kids and get to feel like kids again ourselves. We haven't ever left the kids for this long, so it was both exciting and a tiny bit sad. This post will be all about our first 24 hours of vacation. We took the red-eye on Friday night. It really wasn't as miserable as I had imagined it would be. We were very tired and didn't sleep more than a couple hours, but the flight went pretty quick and I watched "Catch Me If You Can" on the plane.

We arrived at about 6am NY time and grabbed a cab into the city. The driver was seriously crazy. He drove so fast and nutty. I was somewhat grateful for this since I was really looking forward to a bed. Here we are happy to have arrived. (There was no way this picture was going to come out clear with the way that man was driving)
We checked into our hotel and promptly crashed in the bed for about 3ish hours. It was great. We got going at 11am. The hotel had a really cool bank of glass elevators that went around this cylinder so that they were on the outside. This is me all fresh, somewhat rested, and showered in the glass elevator. (Ian enjoyed pretending to be Superman on the way up . . . when we were alone)
First thing we did was head straight for the Wicked lottery near our hotel. We didn't win. Bummer. Here's Ian just outside the lottery.
We trekked a bit to have lunch at Gray's Papaya. Definitely better hot dogs than your average street cart. Cheaper too. Mmm. (I have a weird look on my face because Ian was taking forever to get the picture)
Oh, also it was raining . . . hard. All morning. It was kind of annoying. We decided to do one of the things we never got around to when we lived there. We went to the American Museum of Natural History. It is a "suggested donation" so opted to pay $5 each and spend an hour or so there. It was really much cooler than we thought. This is the main entrance atrium with some dinosaur bones.
We took a sitting/bathroom break and had fun playing with the camera.
In the Hall of Marine Life there were all these individual display windows of different animals (not alive). These were the sea turtles. We thought Weston would want to see them. It was pretty dark in there though, so it was hard to get a good picture with the phone camera.
After wandering the museum and stumbling on a few really cool exhibits we exited into this really cool tunnel.
It was still raining, so we skipped the park and instead planned on going to the giant Borders at Union Square. Well we took the subway down there and discovered the Borders wasn't there anymore. There was a farmer's market going on though, so we wandered through that and checked in with the kids, then we shopped a bit. Finally it was time to find a place to eat. We ended up eating right in Union Square at the Heartland Brewery. It was pretty yum and we were starving. We hopped the subway back up to midtown and hit the evening show Wicked lottery, but again didn't win. :(

It was really OK since we had tickets to go see an improv comedy show at the Upright Citizens Brigade. It was a pretty cool old theater put together with ancient, poky-springed theater seats. The comedy was funny too and fairly clean (for NY). It was a short, fun show.
It had finally stopped raining, so we decided to wander Times Square a little bit on our way back to the hotel. As usual Times Square was packed, but the cool thing was that the city had blocked off a couple sections of street and just put out a bunch of lawn chairs for people to just sit in and people watch or whatever. It was random and fun.
We were pretty tired, so we ended the night with some yummy take-out chocolate caramel cakes from Junior's Bakery. Our hotel room was pretty tiny, in keeping with every space in Manhattan, but we had a king size bed that was incredibly comfy, a big TV, and light blocking curtains. I slept like a baby.

More to come on Day 2 of our big city vacation.

And We're Off

Little Destructo

That is Davin's new nickname. Even Weston called him that the other day when he started crawling into the bathroom while I was combing Weston's hair. "Uh oh, Mom, here comes little Destructo." I thought that was hilarious. He is just in the stage of pulling everything off the shelves, out of the bins, etc. He also is still not walking. Honestly it doesn't bother me if he doesn't walk until later, but seriously the kid has completely destroyed every pair of pants that fits him. Today at Les Schwab he finished off his last good pair of pants. Sigh.

We have been having rain almost every day for the last 3 weeks. Yes, I said three weeks! Every day Weston asks if we can get out the little pool, but it is seriously just too cold for that. I am not complaining about the more Spring-like weather though because our house doesn't have air conditioning and it will get hot eventually, so in the meantime I am trying to enjoy the cool air. It is pretty amazing that it's mid June and I haven't even gotten out the fans yet, much less run the window unit air conditioner. Today it is cloudy and rainy and only 65 degrees. We got fresh blueberries in our produce box this week, so we decided to bake some muffins. I had never made muffins from scratch. Can we just say YUM? I made these To Die for Muffins. They really are amazing. I am eating a warm one from the oven as I type. They also made my house smell delicious!
Since this post is pretty random anyway, here are a couple other tidbits. This pic is from our Father's Day celebration last Saturday. Ian was trying out his new tripod and Davin thought it was a great toy. I loved Dav's crazy bedhead that morning. The boys both got short summer haircuts this week, so no more crazy hair. Kinda sad.
Also, last Saturday we spent the evening with our friends, the Burton's. Dawnie really wanted to try out this recipe for Playdough Cookies. It was so fun. We used cake decorator food coloring, so they were really bright. They were also really good and slightly addicting. We decided next time the recipe would need to be doubled since there were none left by the end of the night. Dawnie actually ended up making another batch on Sunday. :)
Lest you think that all I do is bake treats . . . I have also been pretty busy getting things done and cleaned in preparation for our slew of upcoming trips. We leave for NYC on Friday night. When we get home we have less than 48 hours before we leave for the Olson Family Reunion at the Rockin R Ranch in Southern Utah. Once home from that we have 4 days before we fly to Portland for Aly and Ryan's wedding. Phew! The good news is that I think I am mostly ready (except laundry and packing). I cannot wait to see my mom tomorrow night! Busy times, but definitely fun times!

Silly Hubby

This weekend we are celebrating Father's Day since we will be in NY on the actual holiday. This morning Ian woke up to eggs, bacon, hash browns, and presents! We had a fun morning. He likes all his gifts too, even the non-list sanctioned one. Post baths and showers we went to the mall to look at new phones. I am so excited to finally get a new phone. I'm thinking this one. Ian will hopefully be getting the new iphone. No trip to Fashion Place mall would be complete without a stop at See's and the play area, so we hit up those too.

Also, by popular demand, some photos of my new hair. The pics don't quite do it justice. I really do love it. The bangs are a little shorter than I like, but they grow so fast that I'm not concerned. Ian enjoyed adding the comic touch to my photobooth pics.

A Quickie Visit

Mel and Brad came to stay with us on Wednesday night this week! It was a short notice, quick trip for them. They decided to drive down and attend their friend's wedding, but came a little early to hang out with us. I made Mel's requested Chicken Mex Casserole and we ate without the menfolk. Brad went to Alex's bachelor party and Ian ended up working all night. He did come home for a couple hours later in the evening for a sandwich and a shower, but then he went back and didn't come home. Poor guy was TIRED on Thursday.
Anyway, it was so much fun to get some good sister time in. I miss my Mel! We caught her up on our new fav show, "Better Off Ted," and talked and ate cookies. Melanie was kind enough to tell Weston about how I used to play Sumo with her and Jules, so naturally she taught Weston and he didn't want it to ever end. She definitely is currently "Favorite Auntie."
The next morning the Curnow's headed off to the wedding and I hung with the kids. They came back and visited for a little bit longer and off they went back to Idaho. Sad. Luckily we will see them again in just a couple weeks when we go to the family reunion.
In other New York news, I thought I would be clear that there will be no children on this trip. We had planned to leave them with a friend, but then when I was talking to my mom about the trip she willingly volunteered to fly up and stay with them. So Grandma B will be on grandkids duty while Ian and I go on our trip. Thanks for giving her up for Father's Day Dad! :) Also I am way excited that we are going to stay at the Marriott Marquis. It should be nice. We will work on planning out a loose itinerary this weekend while we celebrate Father's Day for Ian.

Finally I am so happy to report that I got my hair done last night and it looks great! I always go to the same girl, but sometimes I still don't love it as much. I got blond highlights put in, a couple inches chopped off, and my bangs re-cut. It actually ended up being cheaper than I thought too. I suspect that Debbie just charged me less because she is awesome and nice. Either way I am very happy with it.

Return Trip

Every year about this time I get all nostalgic about our summer in New York. Summer of 2005 Ian and I packed up our suitcases, locked up our apartment in Provo, and flew off to New York City for 3 1/2 months. Ian worked full time doing an internship for an ad agency called Geppetto Group. I opted not to try to find a job for such a short period of time and just enjoy the city. Turned out to be a good decision because just 2 weeks after getting settled in our tiny sublet apartment in midtown we found out I was pregnant with Weston. It was great to not have to drag myself off to a job every day when I was dealing with morning sickness and exhaustion.

(In front of our apartment building on 36th Street and 10th Ave.)

We hosted family and friends during our stay and enjoyed seeing all the sights with them. While we were on our own we got to explore the less touristy parts of Manhattan, like the laundromat and the "grocery store" (there are no real grocery stores there, they are all tiny and ridiculously overpriced which explains the thousands of restaurants in NYC). We spent the 4th of July that summer playing cards in Central Park and watching fireworks over the Hudson River.

(Being touristy in Central Park)

It was swelteringly hot and humid, but we managed with our window unit air conditioner in the apartment. We entered tons of Broadway show lotteries and ended up seeing 6 plays that summer. We also helped friends, family, and family of friends have extra entries to win lotteries to shows we had already seen. I went to the ginormous, beautiful library. I shopped at H&M and Macy's. We became pros at getting around the city using public transportation. We wandered endlessly and got lost occasionally.

(On top of the Empire State Building)

Yesterday Ian found out that the Kennecott project that he worked on awhile back won an award. That award is being presented in NYC on June 22nd and we are going to be there to accept it! I am so excited to go back to NY. I am very much NOT a spontaneous person, so trying to decide to go on this trip on such short notice was kind of stressful, but now that we are committed I am SO excited. I'm glad it's next week. We just couldn't pass up an opportunity to return to the city that never sleeps for such a small fraction of the cost of a non-work sponsored trip. Manhattan, here we come!

Because We Sing

Just a couple hours after the previous Spiderman picture was taken Weston conked out on the floor while watching Toy Story 2 with Davin. I totally thought he was awake and was talking to him and then he didn't answer and I realized he was asleep. I wish I could sleep anywhere like that.
As I have mentioned Ian has been rehearsing for a concert in the Tabernacle with a men's choir. They are called Because We Sing. The concert was Saturday night. I went and met up with my Aunt Barbara and Uncle Terry, who came down from Ogden to see the show. It was more than fabulous! Seriously amazing and all pulled together in only 10 rehearsals. You can't really see Ian in this shot, but seriously, he was performing in the Tabernacle. How cool is that? He is on the left side 1/3 of the way up on the side near the organ pipes.
Here we are after the show. A couple in our ward babysat the kids for us and we went out to dinner after the concert. Besides being pretty tired it was a nice date. I am so proud of Ian too. That was a lot of music to learn. Now I am excited for it to be my turn to do the women's choir in the Fall.

Oh the Joys

The joys of having a wide open future to be and do whatever you want.

We went and played at our friends, the Miller's, house yesterday. The last time we were there Weston discovered their well-loved Spiderman costume and has asked about it several times since then. Yesterday we ended up borrowing it until Halloween. If it lasts that long. Weston pretty much doesn't want to take it off. The other day at lunch Weston was asking about daddies and why they all have jobs. He then told me the following (quoted as accurately as possible):
"When I get big I'll have a job and go to work. I'll get a wife and I'll marry it. Then me and my wife will go to the hospital and get a baby. If it's a girl, then we will bring it home and we can babysit it. If it's a boy, then we can call it Davin James or something."

I would be more than pleased with that future for my son. Being Spiderman is a good future too, I guess.

The joys of play time and laughter.

Yesterday evening we all ended up playing on our bed for awhile. I love these cute boys.
Weston was playing peekaboo from the closet, which made Davin crack up with his big belly laugh. It was adorable.
Like all good play sessions it ended in tears, but this is such a sweet photo. I love it.
The joys of a good deal.

I have been scouring the ksl ads, as you know, for a swing set or playground toy for the kids. I found this one this morning for $10. It's a little small for Weston, but perfect for Davin and Weston actually thinks it's pretty darn cool too.
After hosing it off, we spent some good play time outside. Davin can climb up it, but needs a little hand going down the slide. He'll get the hang of it quick. He's much more my adventurer child.
Oh the joys of motherhood and childhood.