New york New York ( fall break part 2)

Going to New York City was kind of like a dream come true to me. Especially seeing the Statue of Liberty for the first time. When I was 12 my family planned a trip across the whole country... camping at each stop. It took a Year for us to plan the trip and then 3 weeks to carry it out. Each person in our family of 7 got to pick a site to visit beside the basic church history sites we were initially planning ( Nauvoo, Palmyra etc) the places on the list were the Football hall of fame, Mount Rushmore, Adam-ondi-omen and I chose Lady Liberty! A few months before our big trip was September 11th and the Statue of Liberty and almost everything in NYC would be closed when our trip happened. sooo.. flash forward 12 years later. I finally got to stare up at the Statue of Liberty.. it was a great moment that I can't describe.. mostly because I had waited so long and mostly because know I feel like I understand a little bit more or what she should or was built to represent.. and my feelings about liberty and this country will be saved for a different post. Thank you Fern and Allen for taking us to the Island and everyone for a great trip! 

 all the different parks in central park were amazing! like this hippo play ground max loved riding the hippos!

 Just a little relaxing in the middle of the city.. kind of ironic huh?

 This was max boys animal of choice to look at in the museum of natural history

 He loves the world! or he just found the only "ba!" in new york city he could play with!

 ( please mom can i take it home!)

 The whole time in New York complete strangers would look at me and tell me the boy needs to wear shoes. I wish I had given them his shoes and told them to try. The little boy could not keep his shoes on for longer than 5 minutes, he even learned how to unvelcro his shoes to take them off with his hands if he couldn't kick them off.

 typical jumping picture... but really you wouldn't believe all of the funny poses all the europeans would make. they would stand in this stop for literally 20 minutes taking the same picture 50 times in 50 slightly slightly different poses. sometimes we immitated them..

 THE WHOLE DARLING WONDERFUL GROUP + lady liberty!

fall break part 1

2 weeks ago now it was fall break for Marshall and we headed off to new york.

The trip started with an awesome drive with our friends Ernie and Chauntelle to STL since we happened to be flying in an out of there at all the same times. We started the trip off at the Renaissance hotel ( the cheapest hotel we could find on priceline and also the fanciest) We were so happy to meet up with Marshalls Mom there and stayed up playing games and visiting. The next morning Max loved making faces and playing with Nana on the flight to New York. 

We Landed in Rochester and I finally got to meet Marshalls famous Uncle Dallas ( who he was named after) and Aunt Sandy. We drove to Palmyra where we had the best time in the temple with Dallas and exploring the historic sites. 

It rained the whole time we were there but i loved it because it reminded me of the time that i came as a little girl when it rained the whole time and i had some of the most wonderful experiences of my life.

Sorry that the quality of photos from palmyra isn't the best - it was rough weather to work with and.. i think Marshalls eyes might be closed in one picture.. can you find it? oops!

On sunday we spent the day relaxing and visiting with everyone- it really was one of the most relaxing sundays ever! and stayed up late playing games of course!

The next day we went to an amazing apple cider making orchard.. I don't exactly know what it was called, all I know is it was the cutest little place and it had samples galore! You just walked around the whole store and could sample everything, apple bread, apple butter, apply syrup, apple salsa, apple dip with 20 different types of apples ( don't worry I tried them all) and then outside they had all sorts of cute things for max to play on! 

Ok i'll stop talking and let you enjoy the pictures. but- it was an incredible trip to up state new york and absolutely BEAUTIFUL! Thank you Everyone for making it possible and perfect. I loved you already New York. 

Here is a little sneak preview into my next post of New York City.. This picture might be one of my favorite memories of the trip. Grant- who never stops making you smile ran all around central park with so much energy up the giant rocks so he could sit up top and read his 'maps' and spiderman paper ( a brochure about the broadway play) he always knew where they were the whole trip and any spare moment he had he was looking over it. One time he invited me to go sit with him and he even gave me a map to look at like it was the coolest thing we could possibly be doing that whole day. And I loved it. Oh to see the world through the eyes of a four year old boy. Thanks grant for making the trip awesome!