October 2012

Time to do a quick re-cap of our trip to the New England area:
David and I have been wanting to go out to New England in the Fall for several years.  David served a mission in New Hampshire/Vermont/New York area so he has seen the beautiful fall foliage.  I needed this experience for myself. Fall is my favorite time of year and here in Arizona, the leaves on our trees just don't change color very much if at all.  Southwest Airlines had an incredible sale during the summer and we were able to get flight tickets for about half of the usual price.

So bright and early Tuesday October 16th morning (4am), David and I headed to the airport.  We left Easton in the care of my mom as we knew we couldn't site see all the places we wanted to if we had him with us.

Around 2p.m. Our plane landed in Baltimore Maryland. Immediately I was entranced by how many trees there were and all the colors! The weather was a beautiful 60 degrees. We got our tiny Ford Fiesta rental car and headed to Washington D.C. We paid 20$ for about 2 hours worth of parking. Crazy! In D.C. we saw the White House (which was much smaller than we thought it would be), the WW2 Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Memorial, Washington Monument and Reflecting Pool.

 

Enjoying the beautiful fall foliage in the park surrounding the D.C. Memorials

 Lincoln Memorial

 View from the Lincoln Memorial looking toward the Washington Monument

 Pretty picture of the "White House"

Of course we have to show proof we were there!

 Vietnam Memorial-David finding another "David"

 David standing in front of the US Deparment of Treasury

That night, we stayed in a hotel in Baltimore Maryland and it was a little odd.  Our room, although nice and grandiose was next the the elevator shaft so all night we could hear the elevator moving up and down and dinging when the door opened.  Because of the way the building was situated on the street, I always felt the hotel was leaning-it kind of felt like the "tower of terror" to me lol.

The next day, we went site-seeing in Philadelphia.  We saw several historic sites including Independence Hall where the fouding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence.  While in that very room, we could actually"feel" something...not sure how to describe it.  We knew how important the events were that took place in that room. 

The actual "Liberty Bell"-just like in the movie "National Treasure"! As we were site-seeing in Philly, I just kept thinking about that movie.

 David in front of Independence Hall

 Standing in "Washington's Rose Garden" which literally consisted of about three small rose bushes.  Such a joke!

Tomb of the Unknown soldier.  The flame right next to me is continuously burning.

For lunch, we stopped in this really small cafe and had a Philly cheesesteak.  You can't go to Philly and not have a cheesesteak!

Lastly, we spent two days running around Manhatten. It's a good thing we got to see almost everything we wanted to see in our first day in Manhatten because the second day it was raining the whole time.   We saw the 9/11 Memorial (so powerful!) and the new World Trade Center towers being built, Statue of Liberty, Time Square, Mary Poppins on Broadway (so amazing), Central Park, and ate at an Olive Garden in Time Square.

 Standing in the middle of Central Park-such a nice place of refuge from the craziness of the city

 Standing next to one of the Subway lines with two of the four new World Trade Centers that are being built in the background.

 Rockefeller Center-the ice skating rink that I have seen on T.V.!

 The church where many of the 9/11 victims are buried.  Many of the families waited at this church to wait for news of their loved ones who were in one of the world trade centers.  The world trade centers were just across the street from this church.

9/11 Memorial-I read the names surrounding the reflecting pools and saw one that said something like "Donna Hughes and unborn child".  This wrenched my heart thinking what this mother, who was expecting a child, went through on that terrible day.

 We learned that we never ever want to live out East if we can help it.  If David gets into a PA school out there, we will make do.  But driving there is so stressful and crazy!!  And people were so not helpful!  We paid so much money in tolls, especially in New Jersey, as well as parking garages and public transportation.  We took a few wrong train lines getting to and from Manhatten but in the end we made our way to where we should have been.  What an adventure :) All in all, our trip was amazing.  We saw so many historical sites and places where significant events took place many years ago.  We stood on many grounds where people died-and it was so crazy to think of the lives of all those people. 

Now onto planning the next vacation-hopefully somewhere much more relaxing!

Halloween 2012

This year, Easton and I courageously braved 4-yes FOUR trunk or treats.  My mother-in-law invited us to her trunk or treat the Saturday before Halloween.  I invited my mom and brother out as well.  My little brother wanted to get candy and no candy was being passed out so after eating and visitng with my in-lawes, we hopped in our cars and went to my wards' trunk or treat.  As usual, the people in my ward decked out their cars with lights and all sorts of amazing decorations.  Two days later, my mom invited me and Easton to her stakes' trunk or treat where we ate chili again (for the third time) and gained more candy while trunk or treating.  By the time Halloween hit on Wednesday I decided I couldn't handle one more bowl of Chili.  So right after work, I donned my witches hat and Halloween colored clothes and headed to Chipotle where I bought TWO chipotle burritos for 4 dollars total (normally each burrito is 6$ a piece but if you wore a costume that evening, Chipotle gave you a nice discount).  After Chipotle, Easton and I went to my brother's ward's trunk or treat which was really fun.  They had lots of games boothes, popcorn, cotton candy, a small petting zoo, and an area filled with snakes and all kind of bugs that a man in his ward collected.  It was pretty fascinating to see some critters that I had never heard of!  After the trunk or treat, my family went to several houses and did some trick or treating with the little ones.  Easton scored his mom and dad a decent amount of candy which we will gladly enjoy over the next several weeks.

 

Me dressed as a witch with Easton the "jack o lantern"

 My brother and his family

 At the petting zoo, checking out the chickens

 Seeing Easton's cousins pet the snake

 All the grandkids with their uncle Kyle (my brother)

 Trick or Treating in the neighborhood

 Cousin love:   Easton reached over the give his cousin Dallin a hug.  After awhile, Easton still wouldn't let go and it made Dallin a little upset.

Easton turns 1!

I can't believe it has already been one year since the birth of Easton.  Thinking back to all those sleepless night, postpartum blues, and nursing my little guy...it seems like so long ago.  Easton has brought so much joy to our lives.  I like to call him my little "ham" because he is hilarious!  He laughs so hard at the most random things-which of course makes us want to laugh hard ourselves. 

 

For his first birthday party, we decided to do the "Very Hungry Caterpillar" theme after Eric Carle's book.  We made seven days of feasting on different foods and a caterpillar cupcake/cake to top it off. 

 

I realized that the letters "O-N-E" are in Easton's name so I took his name letters off his wall to have him post for a picture. Happy birthday little guy! 

 Now that he is ONE, he is old enough to ride the lawn mower with Grandpa Bunzell-and boy does he LOVE it!

 

July

On July 5th, my sister Stacey was able to commander more Diamondbacks tickets and so the whole family got to watch one more game for the season.  I love the atmosphere at professional baseball games!

 

 

We spent July 25-30th vacationing in Utah and Idaho.  Easton was very sick most of the trip and had a fever for four out of the six days we were there.  On our way up, we briefly stopped in Vegas for lunch and found this creepy "Hello Kitty" on the strip.  Let's just say Easton was NOT a fan.  This was the first time that David had been to Vegas.  I promised him we'd go up another time to actually spend time to browse around and maybe try the slot machines ;)

 

David and I didn't get much sleep, especially the first two nights where we stayed at a KOA cabin in Utah.  I was grateful we had mattresses and a little "home" to stay in rather than a tent!  For breakfast one morning we made pancakes and bacon and my sister in law shared some of her eggs with us-YUM!  Some of the pancake mix spilled and Easton enjoyed "finger painting" in the tasty batter.

On Thursday the 26th of July, my family all went ziplining down Provo Canyon.  So much fun!  I was terrified at first because I am not a huge fan anymore of dropping at a rapid rate (I used to love roller coasters, but I have found that they don't agree with my very well these days!).  Although I flew down the ziplines, I felt very secure in my harness.  I am definitely looking forward to finding a new location to go ziplining-I hear there is a place in Colorado that is amazing.

 

 

On the trip, we also got to meet my sister Heather's first boyfriend.  He is also attending BYU. Later, our family enjoyed a picnic and fun evening at Bridal Veil falls.  The water was FREEZING and I had to borrow my sister in laws sandals to walk in the water up to the falls area where we took this picture.  It didn't help that the rocks were razor sharp. 

Friday we spent at Lagoon Amusement park and David's cousin Ben and his wife Megan were super sweet to watch Easton part of the day so that we could go on some rides together.  Saturday we spent at my mom's family reunion.  The Idaho Falls fire department/bagpipe brigade performed for us since our family is of Scottish descent.

Saturday evening we enjoyed visiting David's cousin Suzanne and her kids.  We went to the Splash Park in Rexburg for a short period and decided the water was too cold!  It was so fun to catch up with Suzanne.  We definitely miss the Rexburg cousins!

Sunday morning, we were fortunate to have David's cousin Kate (who also lives in Rexburg) take our pictures for us.  David and I stayed up until midnight chatting with Suzanne the night before and Kate was  at a wedding taking pictures until slightly after midnight.  We had to wake up around 4:30 (before sunrise) to take pictures, so we were all super tired.  Bless Kate for even being willing to take our pictures with having such little sleep!  Here are some pictures Kate took for us.

Sunday we spent driving home and visiting the Rexburg, Idaho Falls, and Salt Lake Temples.  We walked around Temple Square and took a tour of the Beehive House where Brigham Young used to live.  So fascinating seeing the way people lived in the 1800's.

 Sunday morning, (backtracking), David and I were sleeping and he woke asking what the buzzing noise in our cabin was.  I looked at my phone thinking it was vibrating, but it wasn't.  I pulled my fleece sleeping bag over my head, telling him it was nothing and tried to go back to sleep.  Well I started hearing the buzzing noise and it was right by my head.  By then, I had to go to the restroom and I figured I would just go shower. When we started packing our things up, David was like "I wonder what the buzzing noise was".  So he checked my fleece sleeping bag, and said "Oh my gosh, it's a live wasp".  I thank my lucky stars that neither of us were stung.  I think originally, the wasp was by David's head and eventually the thing made it's way into my sleeping bag-YIKES!

 Late Sunday afternoon, we arrived in Kanab and stopped for a delicious lunch at a smalle cafe called "The Three Bears". It was a small family owned cafe.  We stopped to take Easton's picture on top of the three bears pole.  We enjoyed a gigantic ice cream rocky road/mint chocolate chip ice cream cone from the cafe while we continued our journey home.

 All in all we had a great trip and got to enjoy the beauty that Utah, Idaho, and Northern Arizona holds with its vast farmlands and lush forests.  It got into the upper 90's everyday but cooled off at night.  We were happy to get home.