Just Me and 'D'

So last week Steve was out of town (he had a training class in New York so after our vacation there I came home and he stayed for his class). I just have to say I don't know how you moms do it that have husbands that travel a lot. It is lonely and so hard to never have a break from the child! Thankfully, we survived without too many mishaps and we are so glad to have Steve back from his trip.

I went back to work yesterday, so the summer is officially over for me. It has been a great summer...we have enjoyed the sun and outdoors and I have had a great time spending lots of time with Davis. I had a long to-do list of things I wanted to accomplish during my time off and still had several of them left last week which was my last week off. Since Steve was gone I took advantage of the time and went crazy cleaning out the house. I think he was worried he'd come home and have no clothes left cause I would have cleaned out his closet! I did leave his closet alone, but I cleaned out our basement, made a toy room for Davis and cleaned out Davis' room. I love purging my house. It is the best feeling. I know where everything is and it is all organized and wonderful. Love it. I know, I'm a weirdo!

Carrie was here for our friend Erin's wedding this last weekend and it was great to see her. I didn't take one picture but maybe she will send me some of hers. We had a really fun get together on Saturday and Tepoe even came. It was great to have the old roomates together. Love those girls!

It was so fun to have girls night out with the girls from the ward on Friday night...thanks girls for a great dinner, great conversation and for Jen almost making me pee my pants because she is so funny. We have to do it more often because I love hanging out with you all!

My sister in law, Chelli is leaving to go back to Indiana on Friday. I have had such a fun time with the sisters-in law this summer and I am going to miss her immensely. We had a fun FHE last night and it is always just nice to be together.

Our Trip to New York!

I have to start this by saying that its going to be long...lots of pictures and I want to write down all the things that we did on our trip. Steve had a business trip to New York so I went out with him the week before for a little vacation. Davis stayed at my Mom and Dads (thanks so much to them for watching him!!) and we had such a good time. We learned some things that we would do differently next time we go (like stay in the city and NEVER go again in the summer...it was so hot it was miserable) but it was so nice to be able to just spend time together and see and do some fun things. Here is a run down on the trip...



We took the red-eye flight which I don't know that I would do again. We didn't sleep at all and by the time we got there were completely delirious! Thankfully our hotel let us check in early and we slept for a few hours. Our first adventure was to go see Shea Stadium were the Mets play (guess who's idea that was?). There was really nothing around the stadium and we hadn't eaten since 6am and by the time we got there it was about 3pm. The only place we could find to eat was called the 'Express' which was anything but fast, cool or good. It was probably the scariest place (as in dirty) I have ever eaten and keep in mind that I lived in Venezuela. It was about 100 degrees inside with a bunch of guys drinking. One of them asked me for my left-over french fries and then tried to dance with Steve. It was entertaining to say the least and so far neither of us have died from eating there. I was so hungry I would have eaten about anything, and I did. After all that, they wouldn't give us a tour or even let us see inside the stadium and it was really lame!

We also walked over to Flushing Meadows were they play the US Open (Tennis). It was a pretty nice park and even though we couldn't go inside the facility looked really nice. I loved this globe thing. We finally made it into the city and hung out in Bryant Park with our Jamba Juice (the only thing I wanted the whole time since it was so hot!). There was a huge yoga class going on right in the park with everyone walking by and watching which we thought was pretty funny and a little weird!

We went to the Today Show and saw Natasha Bettingfield in concert on the show. Can't see her in this picture? Well neither could we! We did get a little closer than this and she was actually pretty good. I was excited to see the Today show people since I watch it every morning!

Steve had to take a picture at the NBC studio since he is a proud employee of GE who owns NBC!

We waited in the line to get half price tickets to Broadway...we were close to the front of the line but unfortuately we got in line just in time to be in the sun and waited for 2 hours sweating our brains out! It was terrible and I am still amazed that we stuck it out. Because we stayed out by the airport, we weren't going to go back to our hotel before the show because it was a lot of travel time. After waiting in the line we decided that we couldn't sit next to people or really do anything with how sweaty and stinky we were so we made the trek back to the hotel, showered, and then back to the city. It was totally worth it...we saw Mary Poppins and it was amazing. I really wanted to see Grease and Steve wanted to see Phantom which I had already seen so we compromised on Mary Poppins and loved it. Broadway never disapoints!!

Times Square is just wild. That's the only word I can think of to describe it. Not my favorite place.

Apparently they are working on bulding a memorial in ground zero so there wasn't much to see as they are doing construction. It was more open last time I was there. I was amazed by how good everything around it looks. It is so crazy to think what happened there. What a sad part of US history.

We took the Staten Island Ferry to see the statue of Liberty. We sat by this really nice guy who gave Steve the map master (he got pretty good at getting us around on the Subway and such with his trusty map-it was truly impressive) some directions and tips on good places to eat. He was one of the few friendly people that we came across. I couldn't believe how unfriendly the people were.

One of my favorite places was Little Italy. We ate at a great restaurant and it was such a fun atmosphere.

We took a long walk on the Brooklyn Bridge at the end of the day and I thought my legs might fall off after all the walking, but it was beautiful and worth the walk.

We went to the temple to go to church at the temple there but unfortunately the chapel was under renovation so it was closed. Lucky for us some other members showed up too and we took a taxi to another chapel in Manhattan. It is always fun to go to church somewhere different.

Gotta love the ESPN store. Sports heaven, what more could a man want?

Sorry for the lengthiness...we had a great trip but it is nice to be home in my clean, air conditioned house and to be back with Davis!

The Larsen Family Cabin

We spent this last weekend at the Larsen Family Cabin and we had such a good time. Historically the cabin has not been my favorite place to go (last time I went I was pregnant and there is only an outhouse, the road to get there is really rough, it was really hot and there were a lot of bugs)...however this trip was much better and I really enjoyed it. The cabin is sort of by Richfield and they have a lot of land up on the mountain so you don't see anyone else the entire time you are there. It is absolutely beautiful and was so fun to spend time together. We went hiking, played lots of cards, played baseball, badmitton and horseshoes and just had a really great time hanging out together. Davis loved the freedom of being able to fun around wherever he wanted and to just play in the dirt! Thanks for a great weekend, Larsens! We love you and love spending time with you!

Summer Time Catch up!

We have been having such a fun summer and it seems like I haven't had a spare moment to blog about it so I am going to do some catch up in this post. I have been working one day a week doing summer school and the rest of the days we have been playing as hard as we can in between doing some projects/clean out around the house.

Swimming and Fun in the Sun

One of Davis' favorite things to do is play in his little pool in the back yard. He will go down the slide into the pool thousands of times without getting bored! Its nice to find something that will occupy him! We have been going to the Kearns Fitness Center Pool with friends and cousins, but it is big and crowded and although fun, I think he prefers the back yard!

The Fourth of July

I can't believe this is the only picture I took the whole weekend of the fourth...sometimes I just forget! (Davis wouldn't stay in the picture so I had to sit with him in it). Anyway, we had a great weekend at the Black Family (Steve's mom's family) reunion. Davis had a great time playing with all the cousins, we had and outdoor movie, a great picnic, and we opted to go sleep at Grandma's house instead of camp out in Great-Grandma's back yard (we slept great, in beds!). We also had a BBQ with my parents the evening of the fourth. So nice to spend the weekend with our family and celebrate our country, our freedom and all the blessings we enjoy that come from it.

Ward Activity

I am the ward activity chair in our ward and I barely survived our summer activity. It is a big job, and I was so glad when it was over and glad that I can have a month off or so before I have to think about the next one. The activity went really well and I think everyone had a good time (at least I hope so!). The bounce house was Davis' favorite part!

Lovin Music!

Davis is in love with our ipods! We were 'swimming' in the back yard on Saturday a couple of weeks ago when Steve was home and Davis discovered what those head phones are all about. Now he always wants to listen to our ipods! He was being fussy in the car the other day and I let him listen to my ipod and he was good and listened for like 20 minutes!

Grandma's Birthday

We had a picnic for Grandma Wright's birthday and Davis was loving the attention and love from his grandparents!