New Jersey Stinks!

What a weekend!!! First of all, I have a wonderful friend Katie, who had offered months ago to watch our girls so that Trav and I could have a weekend in New York. Who could ask for better friends?

Thursday, after Trav got home from work, we loaded the car and got on the road to NYC. Afte we had been on the road for a few hours I was getting tired and told Trav I was going to lay down for just a little bit. I layed down and I awoke to red and blue lights flashing behind us. Trav pulled over and while we were waiting, I grilled him, "Were you speeding?" "No." "Are you sure?" "Yes."

The cop came up to the passenger window which I'm fumbling to roll down. We forgot that we had window lock on, and I was scared the cop was going to think we were trying to hide something. When I finally got the window down and gave him Trav's license and registration, he informed us the reason for pulling us over............

"Sir, you were using the left lane to travel." He then went back to the car and wrote us a ticket for "failure to keep right." Did you know you could get a ticket for that? Neither did I. The cop said that emergency vehicles use the left lane for traveling. The ticket didn't have an amount, I've checked online to see how much and its not showing it up. Needless to say, we're going to contest it.

Anyway, we arrived in New York fine. The next day we went to dinner and a show with Katie & Noah. We went to a little restaurant that was tucked underground. It was a Mexican restaurant, and I had great food that took me back to my days as an exchange student. My favorite part of my meal was the elote callejero - its a corn cob on a stick and they put cheese and chili powder on it. Yummm, my mouth is watering now just thinking about it. Afterwards we headed off and saw Spam-a-Lot.


I can't go to NYC without having a Subway adventure. As Trav and I got back on the metro, we got on the train that was going to take us to the ferry. Well, we thought it was. We go about 4 stops and the voice on the overhead says, "this is the last stop." Crap, we still have about 10 stops to go. We switch metro lines, wait for a train, go to another place and wait for another train. When all was said and done, we started on the metro at about 11:00 and we finally ended up at the ferry at 12:15. It should have only been a 1/2 hour on the metro.

The next morning we got up bright and early and went to the Manhattan temple. It was wonderful! It was a wonderful way to start the day. Afterwards we got lunch in Times Square and then headed to our matinee of "The 39 Steps." Its based off an Alfred Hitchcock movie. It was really funny! Its a 4 person play. 2 of the guys play about 20 different characters, sometimes 2 of them in the same scene. I found it to be very, very funny.

Finally, we ended our NYC Getaway with dinner at Bobby Flay's Bar Americain. As Flander's would say, "It was scrum-diddely-umptious!" I had very tender pork chops with apple chutney and creamed corn. It was so good. I love the "fine dining experience."

We made it home by 8 (with no mishaps on the subway) and I think I was asleep on the couch by 10.

On Sunday we drove over to Queens to see some of my friend's parents that are serving a mission there. It was wonderful to see them again after 6 years. We left Queens around 3:30 and it took us almost 5 hours to make a 3 1/2 hour trip home. The girl from Wyoming in me keeps forgetting about east coast traffic.

I had such a great time this weekend. Katie and Noah are the best hosts. It was so comforting to know that we could leave our kids with them and that our girls were having fun. Lauren had such a wonderful time with Calvin. She's had a handful of friends move away this summer, so as we were pulling away from Katie's house she asked, "Mommy, is Calvin moving?" I was very happy to tell her, "No. We'll move before he does." I guess that isn't much consolation.

It was also very nice to spend some time alone with my honey. He such a wonderful man. When I presented the New York idea to him, I told him that I wanted to go and watch lots of Broadway shows - and he was okay with that. I LOVE THIS MAN!

Rachel's Birthday

For those who don't know, my girls were born on the same day 3 years apart. No, we didn't plan that one. So from now on we will always get lots of cake over the 4th of July holiday. We did Lauren's birthday on the 5th, we had cake and ice cream for Rachel on the 6th, and then on the 7th (their actually birthday - and Aunt Kimmy's) we just opened presents from Trav and I. We'll see what we do next year. I think it will take a little bit of effort to make it a special day for both girls.

I did a Ducky cake for Lauren's first birthday. Someone had the idea to make it different for Rachel would be to make it a different color. Hence the purple ducky. Now the candle in the mouth has some explaining.

When Trav was home on leave from Iraq back in May '05, we did a birthday party for Lauren so that he could be part of it. Trav and his buddy Chris came up with the idea of putting the candle in the mouth. As we were getting ready to like Rachel's cake, Trav said, "Come on, its tradition!" Anyway, here is Rachel's 1st Birthday cake. She needed some help to blow out the candle.

Here are the birthday girls. Oh, I forgot to mention that we lobbed off the head and that was Rachel's cake.

After she was done eating, the frosting was all picked off the side that was facing her. And she had a little bit of cake too. She must be my daughter!

We had some wonderful friends over that brought Rachel some presents. We are so blessed to have such thoughtful people in our lives.

Peaches, peaches

We went peach picking yesterday at Baugher's you pick farm. The above picture is my attempt at being a photographer. I had this great idea to go out and pick a whole bunch of peaches, come home and start canning them. Little did I know, they weren't 100% ripe so know they have to sit in some brown paper bags for a few days to ripen up. To top it off, they are cling pit ones instead of free pit, which means its going to be kind of difficult to can (or bottle as Trav says). I'm hoping to make some peach freezer jam. The tough thing is that I only have 10 days to go till we leave for WA. Hurry up and get ripe!

The peach picking man

Lauren loved picking the little ones

Rachel just sat, watched us, and perspired.

Questions

Katie had these questions on her blog, and I thought it was cute. I asked the questions to Lauren and these were her answers.

1. What is something mom always says to you? Be Patient.
2. What makes mom happy? Have a good day
3. What makes mom sad? that I hit Rachel
4. How does mom make you laugh? tickle me
5. What was mom like as a child? ride on your scooter
6. How old is mom? 16?
7. How tall is mom? Taller than daddy
8. What is mom's favorite thing to do? To go in the pool
9. What does mom do when you're not around? spank on my bum
10. What is mom really good at? swim on your back
11. What is mom not good at? swim at the big, big pool in the hot pool
12. What is mom's job? to do the dishes
13. What is mom's favorite food? Pizza
14. What makes you proud of mom? to play at the hot pool
15. What do you and mom do together? Play at the pool
16. How are you and mom the same? to be have blue eyes
17. How are you and mom different? to be changed, my eyes are green and your eyes are still blue.
18. How do you know mom loves you? to be patient

My conclusion from all these questions is: Lauren wants to go to the pool.

Tagged

I was tagged by my friend Janene (about a month ago) to post 10 pictures. Well, I'm going to take a twist on that. Lauren loves to take the camera and take pictures. Here are 10 of her pictures, Enjoy. BTW, I'm tagging Jaime and Katie. Oh wait, and Rob - just cause I know you won't do it, but I think it would be funny if you did.

Week o' Fun

If you can't tell I'm trying to catch up on some items I've been meaning to blog about. I've had a tough time making it to the computer to write.

A couple of weeks ago Trav's work had what was called an "O-Day" it stands for Organizational Day, but really its a field day. They had face painting, bounce houses, hot dogs & hamburgers, and much more. Trav ran in a relay race. He won his little stint of the race, but they came in second place. Lauren loved the fire truck and...

the cupcakes... she's just like her dad and shoves the last few bites into her mouth.

Rachel thought it was fun as well, though she stayed in her stroller almost the whole time. Such a sweet little baby.

The next day, Trav & I left for a marriage retreat sponsored by his unit. It was about 24 hours away from the girls. They put us up in a nice resort, we attended seminars, did a dinner cruise, and had a lovely room. Sadly enough, we didn't get much alone time - I was dieing to lay on the king-size bed, order room service and watch a movie on the HUGE flat screen that was in our room. Didn't happen, but we had an enjoyable time. Here is a picture of the dinner cruise from the Baltimore Inner Harbor.

Aviation Museum

Last week we went to the Aviation Museum in the D.C. area. I can't explain how much fun it was for me and the girls. They read stories to our group. All the kids got to play in this old plane and pretend to fly it. Rachel crawled around and loved playing with the signs.

They then did a craft with the group, and we were brought to the area where they can try on aviation clothing:

They also had different experiments that you can do with air flow, wind velocity, and a whole bunch of other stuff I didn't know about. Finally we went out to the push planes and had a picnic lunch. It was well worth the $5 it cost for all of us to go!

Lauren's 4th Birthday Party

This is Lauren's birthday invitation. We thought it would be funny to copy and paste her face on top of Barbie's body. Okay, let's be honest, I talked Lauren into it. I thought it was hilarious. My mom got a little worried when I was 13 because I found some photos from when I was 9 and cut out my face and pasted them on JC Penney catalog pictures - she thought I was have an identity crisis, but this isn't about me.

Lauren's request was a Barbie party. So we made these Barbie invitations and she had a Barbie cake. Other than that, there wasn't anything else to do with Barbies. Lauren loved helping me with the cake. I realized so many times when I decorating a cake I tell her not to touch anything because its not for her. I had the skirt baked and it was on the cooling rack. Lauren kept on touching it. Trav told her not to touch the cake and she said, "Daaadddd, remember, this is my cake." While I didn't appreciate the attitude, I thought it was kind of funny. When Lauren saw the cake she said, "Oh, my cake is sooooo beautiful!" I think she was a little sad when we ate it.

We did a slip 'n slide water party. We were really nervous, because it was forecasted to rain today. I said a little prayer this morning that it would be sunny. The sun came out at 1:45 and it didn't rain a drop during the party. My friend, who is Jewish, told me I was lucky that the weather cleared up. I admitted to her that I said a little prayer. She said, "I guess it pays off to be Mormon."

We had invited about 18 kids, but I was hoping with it being July 4th weekend that many people would be out of town. We had 15 kids show up... eeeeekkk! It was worth all the running around to see this face:

She had such a good time with all of her friends. All I can say is that I'm glad the next party isn't for a couple of years!

Oh, my friend Abby, her husband came up with this idea for the bag that held Lauren's birthday present. One word: AWESOME!