Getting There

We are back! The series of trips has come to an end and we are home for the next little while. It feels nice to sleep in our own beds and get settled back into our summer routine: morning errands, Davin nap, lunch, play in the pool, afternoon movie (during which Weston usually falls asleep), dinner. We shake things up occasionally, but that's the general summer plan.

Anyway, I am going to have to do a couple different posts from our Oregon trip. I'll start with getting there and Aly and Ryan's wedding.

We flew to OR last Thursday evening. It's quite the processional to get us to the airport since we don't have enough room in our car for an extra person. We have to have 2 volunteer/coerced friends follow us to the airport in their car and then have one of them drive our car back home after we unload at the airport. The flight went well. It was delayed about 20 minutes, but not too terrible. We made some airport friends and that helped keep the boys happy. They are such little hams. Davin is such a wiggle worm and I was worried about keeping him happy on the flight, but once we turned on Toy Story 2 on the laptop he was good to go.

This was before we could turn on the laptop. Davin also was interested in raising and lowering the shade.
Snuggled up watching the movie.
Best 3 year old traveler of all time. Seriously. This kid is such an easy traveler. He asked me about the airport rules several times before we left and he stayed in his seat with his seat belt on. He even fell asleep in the middle of the movie.
We didn't get to Jim and Denny's house until about 8ish pm and then we ate some Subway and visited with the family that was already there. By the time we got the kids to bed it was 9:30 (10:30 Utah time). The little dears woke up at 5:30am, so it was a looong day for them. Ian and I left for the temple early for the sealing. Luckily Aunt Teri and Uncle Mike watched the kids, got them all dressed and ready to go, and drove them to the temple to meet us when we got out. Here we are just before heading out to the temple. Ian wasn't wearing his tux yet.
Weston fell asleep in the car on the way to the temple, so he wasn't very smiley. He was excited to see Papa though.
The officially married Mr. and Mrs. Wecker! They were just so cute and happy. It was really a special experience to be in the temple with them and all of Ian's family.
After the happy couple came out of the temple and we all grabbed our flowers and snapped a couple pics, the whole crew went down to the reflection pool for more photos. It was a really hot day, especially for Oregon. Here's Weston walking on the temple grounds with Grandma Denny. This is probably the happiest picture we have of him. He refused to smile for most of the professional pictures. Although to be fair, it was hot and we were trying to smile in the really bright sunshine. The boys looked pretty adorable in their little yellow ties that Grandma made for them.
Aly and Ryan with all of their nieces and nephews. Aly is holding the boys' newest cousin, baby Ivy. She was the most cooperative one in this photo. I love Davin's weird face here.
Aly had the cutest shoes ever! They were white converse with blue trim and embroidered in blue on the side they said Mrs. Wecker. Super cute. Eli is helping her re-tie them during a photo break.
After taking all the pics we caravanned to the restaurant where the luncheon was and all got a much needed break from the sun and a good meal. Between the luncheon and the reception we had a couple hours. Unfortunately Davin slept the whole way home and didn't want a nap when we got there, so he was less than pleasant (to put it nicely) at the reception.

I don't have any pics from the reception yet because I didn't even bring my camera, but when I gather some from the family members who had their cameras I will post them. The reception turned out beautiful. They had various sizes of white lanterns hung for light, pretty glass bowls with flowers floating in them for centerpieces, and a really fun photo corner for the guests. They served salads, fruit, chocolate dipped strawberries, and double mint brownies. I would for sure say it was a success! Davin was very ready to go to bed, so I took the boys home a little early and put them to bed. It was a long, busy day, but I was so glad that we were able to be there for Aly and Ryan's wedding.

Up Next: 4th of July and another fishing trip!

Olson Family Reunion

This last weekend we went to the 2009 Olson Family Reunion. We have a reunion every 3 years with all of my dad's side of the family. It is always at a different place and always a blast. This year we were lucky because the reunion was at the Rockin R Ranch and was only a 3 1/2 hour drive from us. We loved having the reunion here. There was tons to do, the food and activities were all included in the price, and we got to spend 3 awesome days with our awesome family.

Top 10 Things We LOVED About Family Reunion
(in no particular order)
1. Road Trippin'
The boys were really good for our drives even though they didn't nap nearly as much as I was hoping. We caravaned down with my mom and Mel, so it was fun to stop at the DQ with them in Scipio. The Magnadoodle was a lifesaver, and Ian and I enjoyed some time to talk while we drove through wide open spaces.
2. Cousin Time & Campfire
It's always a blast for me to get together with my cousins, and now there is a new generation of cousins that get to play together. Weston misses his cousins most of the time, so getting to run around with them for 3 whole days was heaven. I loved that he had playmates to entertain him.
The first night we were all there we had a big campfire. Weston was so exhausted, but made it through most of the singing. He loved the 3 Chartreuse Buzzards song. He also requested I Am A Child of God. It's his favorite song that he knows all the words to. I could hardly sing because I kept tearing up. There's something special about being with all the family and knowing we get to be together forever.
3. Horses
The Ranch coordinated trail rides every day for anyone in our group who wanted to go. Ian and I went the first day we were there. The kids got to have horse rides every day too. Weston was a big fan of riding the horses.
4. Archery
The Ranch also has a large archery field. Weston really wanted to try it out and they let him! He actually did pretty well too. He even got an arrow or two into the hay beneath the targets.
5. Stairs
Ok, so the stairs weren't my favorite thing, but they for sure topped Davin's list, so I thought I would include them in our family's top 10. He constantly was going for the stairs. Unfortunately he isn't skilled at getting back down, so my entire family were constantly having to watch him or pull him down and try to distract him.
6. The Playground
The kids, especially Weston, had so much fun on the playground. It was perfect. I am so grateful that the Ranch had it. After spending the majority of his time on it, I decided Weston really really needs a swing set with a slide. One of these days . . .
7. Fishing at Otter Creek Reservoir
My parents got all the big grandkids their very own fishing poles and nets so they could all go fishing. It was quite the excursion. No fish were caught, but I considered the trip a success. Davin loved filling the bags on the side of stroller with rocks, and Weston had fun reeling in his empty hook and retrieving more marshmallows for bait. Weston and Lizzie were fascinated with the worms and wanted to hold them. We even allowed them to bring them back to the ranch. We had a little incident on our way back though. Davin got the marshmallow bait bag open and chowed down on them! The bag says "not for human consumption" but he didn't seem to have any side effects. Whew!
8. Hiking
Ian and Auntie Jules took Weston on the hike Saturday morning. I stayed behind with Dav. He was quite the trooper, but I'm not sure he would have made it without his trusty poking stick.
9. Canoeing & Tubing
Yes, I am cheating and combining these two because they are both water activities. Ian took Weston canoeing in the little pond at the Ranch. He thought it was great. I got eaten by mosquitoes taking the pictures. Ian and I left the kids behind and went tubing down the river with my parents, Joy and Jim, and my cousins Jeff & Kim. It was so much fun. So quiet. The weather was perfect, and we all just laughed and had fun. I wore my arm muscles out from paddling to avoid rocks, logs, and bushes, but it was totally worth it.
10. Poker
I realize this doesn't sound like the most wholesome family reunion activity, but it was a ton of fun. We didn't gamble anything, just played for fun. I had never played, so it was cool to learn. The cousins stayed up way too late eating snacks and playing Texas Hold'em and cracking each other up. We almost got kicked out the second night because we were being too loud. That night wasn't as fun because we had to be so quiet. Thanks cousin Mike for teaching us amateurs! The last hand of the last night determined our 2009 Olson Family Reunion Poker Champion. And the winner was . . . Ian! Congrats babe! :)
Needless to say we had a grand ole time. We also had a good time at the rodeo, which I didn't mention because I have no pictures of it, but it was cool (if you want to see pics from the rodeo check out my sister's blog HERE). After the actual rodeo Weston got to ride a sheep. Pretty fun. We got home Sunday afternoon and have had a few days of relaxation and sleeping in our own beds, but tomorrow afternoon we jet off to Oregon for Aly and Ryan's wedding, so no rest for us just yet.

Quick addition: If you are family or are interested, Davin had his 15 month check up last week. I was SO hoping he was going to have pulled back up onto the charts in his weight, but alas, he was still under. He is still growing though. My little peanut weighs only 19lbs. 9oz and is 29 1/2 inches tall (10th%). His head is holding strong in the 45th percentile. We did discover he had an ear infection, so I was grateful that we had that appointment right before we left for family reunion and were able to have him on antibiotics while we were there instead of feeling miserable. I still have my fingers crossed that by his next appointment (2 years) he will be back up on the charts and walking. :)

A Peek into Vérité - Repost (Originally Posted Aug 08)

I am re-posting this since we have been talking so much about this video as of late.

As you may have noticed from Shan's posts this week, I've been working super late all week. Well my big project is done (or so I think). Its a video for Kennecott Copper. They will use it in their educational programs for schools and such. I led the project, which has been in the works since March. There were 4 of us on the production side concepting / storyboarding / animating and editing. We had a lot of fun working on it, despite the hurried time-line in the end.


So if you've ever asked yourself, what does Ian do on a Daily Basis: this is not the answer.... normally we don't get to do stuff that is this cool. We hope this will score us some more jobs like it.

http://creative.verite.com/oretomore

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