Fair Time!!

I have found myself posting a little off date this week. I guess I am trying to take in the last week of no routine and lots of fun! This summer has been the fastest one yet. Caleb and Aubrie start school again on Tuesday and Bryn will start the week after. So since this was the last full week of summer, Mitch took the week off to be with the kids before the rush of routine and activites hits our home. We have done lots of fun things, we went to the fair last Monday night and had such a fun time together!

The girls loved the pigs! Bryn and Carly were both giggling over how stinky and snorty they were.

Brynley wanted to ride the ponies and loved every minute of it. I'm telling you this girl loves animals.

After we ate dinner, we ran into our dear friends the Bartley's and decided to head over to the carnival together and the kids took in some rides together and had fun having a buddy to hang out with.

Daddy's girl #2

Cotton Candy= One happy girl

The Big Apple!!

The post everyone has been waiting for, including me. I knew it would take me some time to get this together so here it is...finally.

The view from our room. My dad and Mary got us an awesome room at the Marriot Marquis for my bday present. It was so cool there! Perfect location, right on Times Square by everything. Thank you!

Day One...We left on Monday July 25th but with all the traveling it takes to get there, the time change, a delayed flight from Chicago and a crazy ride in a taxi at 1am, this day was shot. So we went to bed and woke up refreshed to take on the city on tuesday. We went on a walk through central park and found our way to the Natural History Museum. It was amazing! So much to look at and as we were leaving this sweet girl asked to take our picture and so here is one of us together. A very rare thing on a trip with just two people. One of us usually always had to take the picture or we have a lot of us together but with one of us holding the camera:)

Tuesday night we had tickets to a show at Radio City Music Hall called Zarkana. It is a cirque de soleil show and was amazing! Both of us really enjoyed it. Radio City was really beautiful inside and had the most comfortable seats.

Wednesday was my berfday. The big 3-0! I woke up and we went and had a yummy danish and milk because I could and went to the Harry Potter Exhibit and the Pompeii Exhibit. Both were awesome and I was so happy to see the HP one cuz you know we are all crazy for Harry in our house. I was sad that our kids didnt get to see it. Maybe someday it will come close to us and we can take them.

After the exhibits, we were hungry and so we went around the corner and saw Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. SO we ate there and I had the best shrimp salad ever. Yum.

After lunch we had tickets to Phantom of the Opera!! Yay a dream come true for me. It was awesome and I loved every minute of it. Mitch however fell asleep. Yeah, annoying. Also embarassing.

After Phantom Mitch wanted to go to Chinatown and Little Italy so we rode the subway down and I dont have any pictures of anything there because, well I could have lived my whole life without going there! It was so dirty and very questionable characters were everywhere! So lame. Thats all I have to say about that.

Mitch made up for taking me to China, with a nice horsedrawn carriage ride through Central Park during sunset. Much better!

This is where John Lennon lived and was shot:( Yoko still lives there.

The famous Plaza Hotel

 Our carriage driver was stupid and didnt know how to take pictures, can u tell??

After the carriage ride, we ate some yummy pizza and salad at a small pizza joint by Serendipity because the wait was so long for a table, we just walked down the street, had dinner and went back and got seated for some dessert. I had their famous frozen hot chocolate. It was divine! Mitch had a killer sundae that was made up of warm pecan pie on the bottom with butter pecan ice cream, caramel and hot fudge sauce with whipped cream. It was super too!

After we rolled out of Serendipity, we stumbled upon this...The mothership of all Gap's!! Awwww!

Times Square

On thursday, we went to Top of the Rock, which is an observatory 80 floors up. We had heard from several people that it was even better than the empire state building. So we went for it and it was amazing! The view and sites were unbelievable! This was one of my favorite things that we did in NY.

Empire State Building

After TOTR, we found our way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art or known as The Met. We spent the majority of the day in here. It was so wonderful. There were so many things we liked about this museum. They had so many cool things that we might never see again like art from Monet, Picasso, Van gough, a real part of a temple, lots of egyptian arctifacts, jewels, stones, photos, sculptures, it had a roof garden and reall good food in their cafeteria.  

That night we met up with a friend of mine from high school, Josh. He moved to NYC right out of high school and has done very well for himself. We had a really great time and he took us to dinner at a little hole in the wall but I seriously had the best pizza of my life there! It was so good to see him!

On friday we decided to ride the subway down to see the Statue of Liberty. It was well worth the humidity we endured down there. It is a sight to see! She is beautiful and her color is so brightly green. Its amazing that she is as old as she is. She was a gift of friendship from the people of France to the people of the United States and is a universal symbol of freedom and democracy. The Statue of Liberty was dedicated on October 28, 1886, designated as a National Monument in 1924 and restored for her centennial on July 4, 1986.

Mitch's salute to America and the Lady Liberty...These pictures are so hilarious to me! Gotta love his sense of humor.

That night we had tickets to watch the Yankee's play the Baltimore Orioles!! We had some yummy hot dogs and were watching batting practice when all of a sudden it started to down pour! And it didnt let up for almost an hour and a half. But then after lots of praying on my husband's behalf {heehee}, the rain stopped and they uncovered the field and we had an exciting game! Awesome stadium and we had awesome seats!  

Derek Jeter was getting heckled by this kid sitting right next to us, he kept yelling at Derek, calling his name and all of a sudden he turns our way ans says to the kid "What?" Funny.

A prefect ending to a perfect trip...Junior's cheesecake. It was like heaven in a box. Thank you honey so much for this trip for my bday. You are so special.

Love you long time.

Rockslide

This weekend my mom and Phil took the kids camping up to Lemon Lake, where my grandparents have land and both of them keep RV's there all summer. The kids loved every minute of it and I went up today with Carly to escape to nature. It was a beautiful day! Perfect in every way. The kids wanted to go down to play in the creek that has a built in water rock slide that I played on when I was even a kid. They had a blast playing away. It was so nice to be in the fresh air and to gain some clarity on life.

CMWS Parade

This year Mitch's aunts decided to enter a float in the Connie Mack World Series parade and asked if the girls would like to ride on it with their dance recital costumes on. Of course my girls were thrilled to get to do it! Aubrie and Caleb went the day before the parade and helped decorate the trailer. I shot a video of them during the parade but its horrible footage because I am trying to get their attention and wave, while filming- not a good combination. So I will spare you and give you this photo of the girls instead.

My pretty girls with their friends Brielle and Kyla.

Changes....

So yes, it is a season of change. Lots going on. Lots to do. So for whoever reads this post, let me tell you about our big changes, just so no one thinks that this post is about them because why would I post about someone else anyway when I have so much on my mind and plate??
Change #1, Mitch and I are both going back to school. BIG CHANGE. I am nervous about being able to juggle the house and kids while attempting to study and learn the human body. I am taking Human Anatomy &  Physiology 1. Scary. Mitch is taking three classes and will be working towards his teaching degree. I know, you dont need to remind me that teachers dont make very much but thats not what makes our world go round. I want my husband to be happy and to not work his poor body to death at a power plant.
Another change is  I am also so scared about how many after school activities my four kids are going to be doing. Caleb is going to do fall baseball and mutual, Aubs and Bryn will both be doing dance and soccer! I know it doesnt sound like alot but they both will have practice twice a week and a game on saturday but that means four soccer practices for me and two games on saturday. And Aubrie is old enough to do lead role auditions for the recitals, so she will have practices for those too.  Oh and she will also have piano lessons somewhere during this mess.  Yikes! Makes for alot when Mitch works the hours he does. Not to mention trying to squeeze in church callings and keeping up on the house, cooking and finding time to workout. I am going to be happy to see November! But I know with lots of patience and prayer it will all be okay.
I am also going on a personal journey myself and will post more about that later. Lots to do!

I know alot of you read my blog and want you all to know I am going to go private with my blog. If you still want to keep up with me and my family, you can email me your email address so I can send you an invite.  If I dont get an email from you, you wont be able to view my blog starting in about a week. Oh and if you blog stalk my blog, dont be shy just send your email. I blog stalk too:) Email me at hollz143@yahoo.com

12!

Is it really possible that our boy is 12?! I cant hardly believe that this day has come. Twelve is such a big step in so many ways. Caleb will be going into 7th grade, receiving the Aaronic Priesthood, passing sacrament, and will be able to go to mutual. 12 alos just seems older to me. Alot more things to take seriously and to be more mature about. 12 years have gone by like the blink of an eye. Its amazing that we have had the privilage to have this boy in our presence for that long. There are so many things I admire in Caleb and so many things I see he can make possible in his life. He has been blessed with amazing intelligence and with such a compassionate spirit. He loves his family and shows his love daily for his sisters and for those around him. Caleb is passionate about baseball and love to play Modern Warfare on the xbox. Something that drives me crazy but I bite my tongue often because I know he enjoys it. He likes to skateboard and ride bikes with his friends. I am so very grateful for this special boy. Blessed to be his mama and to be apart of his life. He is such a big part of who I am because I grew up along with him. He holds more of my heart than he knows and yes, he is a mama's boy:) The picture to the left is one of my favorites of him. He was almost three and shows what a fun loving kid he is! Happy Birthday to the best son a mom could have!

Ties

Yesterday Mitch taught Caleb how to properly tie his church tie. Funny how something so easy can mean so much. Our boy is turning 12 this week and will be old enough to be ordained to the office of a deacon and recieve the aaronic priesthood. He had his last day of primary and will be able to start attending mutual (youth night) every wednesday. He has been looking forward to this for a very long time. He is so excited to be able to do these things. I love this picture of him and Mitch looking at eachother. I am grateful Caleb has such a wonderful, worthy example to follow after. These two guys own more of my heart than they know.