Our Trip to the Big Apple

We had so much fun in NYC! We won an auction Eric's first year for 2 tickets to see Hairspray on Broadway NY. We decided to make it a family trip since we missed out on so much this summer since Eric was gone for so long. One of our friends moved to NYC after graduating last May, so we stayed with them and they watched the girls while we attempted our try at New York City. Saddly though the highlight of our Hairspray experience was the Olympic Gold Medal gymnast Nastia Liuken and her family that sat three rows in front of us! But I salvaged the Broadway Experience when I got to see... Drum Roll Please!.................... Wicked!!!!!!! We put 5 names (Me, Mike, Larisa, Eric, and Kallyn!) into the "hat" for the lottery and Larisa's name was drawn!!! So Larisa and I got to see "Wicked" on Broadway! Oh my gosh it is SUCH a great musical!! It has me convinced I need to read the book!

Unfortunatley we forgot the memory card for our camera, so we took a few pictures with Larisa's camera when she was with us. So here's what we have:

First day we went to Ground Zero where they are building the 9-11 memorial. This is just around the corner and down the street from Mike and Larisa's place. How cool is that? As you can tell from this next picture there was a LOT of security everywhere since many of the Gov. celebs (ie. senators, pres. candidates, etc) were "paying their respects" . How often do you see a proud gathering of police officers?

These two pics above and below are in front of the church where aparently the treasure was found underneath in the movie "National Treasure".

On the steps where Gearge Washington took the oath as the first US President.

Wall Street. I'm not exactly sure what this building is, but I see it on the news like everyday!

At the tip of Manhattan, just down the street from the Parson's apt.

Batterie Park, near the Parsons place. From this park you can see the Statue of Liberty and you can watch the ferry's come and go.

Time Square.

It was raining all day and we had to manuever the stroller while holding the umbrella.

Oh so fun!

Central Park with the city behind us.

I think if you look closely you can see the

Rockerfeller Center where Mike works, but honestly

I have no idea which building it is.

In Central park.

It made me want to break out in song and dance!

Outside of the GIANT FAO Schwarz toy store.

We got to play on the GIANT piano from the movie "Big".

This toy soldier got the girls to sing the itsy bitsy spider!

So cute!

Our Crew! Kallyn, Me holding Allison, Eric,

Mike, Adam, and Paige in the stroller.

Larisa was taking the picture.

Oh I'm so bummed!!!

I just visited one of the LDS music sites (free music downloads) I used to frequent (back when I played the piano regularly) and I found that he started charging $ to download the sheet music! I feel so let down! I understand that it's tough to be a musician these days, but I fell in love with this sight because the composer believed that by offering his music to the public for free he was sharing his testimony with the world. His music is still quite cheap, but I feel like he's stooped to the worldly ways of some other LDS composers that charge an arm and a leg for their music. He at least gives you the permission to make as many copies of the music as you want, but still, I'm so sad that he feels like he has to rely on money to show his status in the music world/industry!

All I can say is way to go Sally DeFord and Craig Petrie for hanging in there and sorry Aaron for giving up so fast! I may stop by again when I am no longer in the poor student phase of life. For all those music friends of mine, if you haven't happened upon them yet, here are the websites for free LDS sheet music:
Sally DeFord
Craig Petrie

Word is spilling out...

If everything goes well we'll be adding another little one to our family in March! Maybe a little leprechaun? Kallyn is hoping for a brother because there isn't a brother in our family yet, but she'll still love to have another sister because sisters are fun. I think that Eric and I mirror her feelings as well!
It's been a super fun first trimester (as fun as they can get!) but I'm looking forward to an appetite and getting a noticeable bump soon!

Red vs. White at Fenway Park

We got to go to Fenway Park!!!!!! It was super so much fun! A sad night for Eric b/c the Red Sox won. They were playing the White Sox, so Eric was cheering for their home run hitter Ken Griffey, Jr. one of his favorite baseball players.
It was "Mormon Night" for us. There is someone in one of the Mass. wards that purchases a block of seats as soon as the tickets go on sale and he redistributes them throughout the New England wards so that on this night you sit with a crowd of family friendly mormons instead of drunk sports fans with fowl mouths. It was quite an experience! I have NEVER seen such a crowded stadium-ever! I guess Fenway sells out for every game. But there were people EVERYWHERE!!!!! And the subway rush after the game overheated so many of the trains that we got kicked off ours and had to wait through 4 more trains going out of service in the same spot! It was quite the wait for a train that was runing decently to come by and pick us up! More like let us squish into the doors barely letting them close. But it was a very memorable evening for us. Kallyn asked why the trains and stations weren't as nice as the DC trains. We decided that it's because all the senators and congress members have to depend on the metro in DC so they have to be clean and nice!


Come on Eric! SMILE!!! It's Baseball!!


Much better!

The Andersons joined us at the game too. Eric and I got to enjoy nearly the entire game kid free!!!! And the behaved so well, too!! Thanks Dave and Miranda for humoring the girls!

Sweet Kallyn. Had to get proof she was actually in Fenway Park. The scoreboard behind her says it all!

I brought coloring books, crayons, paper, stickers, and toys for the girls. It didn't even last through the first inning. Dave and Miranda got there and the girls were so excited to sit with them that they forgot they were bored!

Little Bug rocking out the innings!

Our "Harry Potter" family portrait. There was another spectator that offered to take our picture and I forgot to change the settings back from taking Allisons video clip. So our family picture together at Fenway looks like a one of the moving photos from the Harry Potter movies.

BIG BUG!!!!! (Not to be confused with my "Bug")

My friend found this bug on the front of our house. I thought that we left all the "BIG" bugs out west! I did a little research and actually found how interesting this bug really is! and absolutley harmless. I inherited my intrigue of nerdiness from my dad, so this post is for him. Although I am sure he already knows about this unique special bug!

Found this online here:

"Although the ovipositor of the giant ichneumon wasps is quite long, don't let it intimidate you -- these wasps do not have poison glands like other stinging Hymenoptera and they are not inclined to stab you with it either. What they can do with their ovipositor is pretty amazing however. The females of these wasps wander over the surfaces of logs and tree trunks tapping the surface with their antennae. When a female wasp senses that there is a host larva inside the wood, she starts to drill down to it with her ovipositor. To do so, she must first lift the abdomen high into the air until the tip of the ovipositor touches the bark surface of the wood. Her drilling organ moves in a circular motion, supported by two slender guides that separate from the ovipositor and form an expanding loop as the ovipositor penetrates deeper into the solid wood. When the ovipositor is fully inserted into the wood it touches a host larva and she then lays an egg through a narrow gap in the ovipositor. After the egg hatches, the young ichneumon wasp larva feeds on the horntail larva and then pupates in the wood. The adult ichneumon wasps must chew a tunnel to the outside in order to emerge. Adult males are attracted to the sound of wood being chewed, and sometimes a group of several males will gather around the source of the sound waiting to see if the emerging insect is a female ichneumon wasp. If it turns out to be another male, or a woodboring beetle, the male wasps loose interest and fly away. If an adult female emerges, one of the males quickly mates with her before she has a chance to fly away. (Of course the male wasps are easy to recognize because they have smaller abdomens than the females and lack the long ovipositor!) "

Picture of a GIANT ICHNEUMON ovipositing (laying her egg in the wood)