Thawing out

I took Burke and Dean to Utah for a little vacation while they are off track. They had tons of fun in the snow. They thought they would be funny and throw snowballs and Grandpa while he cleared the driveway, but the funny thing was when grandpa turned the snow-blower on them and pelted them with snow. No pic...I got outta the way for that.

We also saw lots of friends and family. The boys loved hanging out with their 2nd cousins and swimming even though it was freezing outside. Utah has these amazing indoor rec centers and we spent hours at them.

Of course we had to pick up some Krispy Kreme...more than once. Did you know the drive-thru in Provo is open 24 hours?! Lucky.

And one of my favorite things was snow-shoeing. Its basically hiking in the snow, but man, it was so amazingly beautiful....and peaceful, when I went with Carl without the kids:)

Thanks everyone who let us stay and added to our fun while we were there! Hanging with family, seeing old friends, eating Indian food, the Banff Film Fest, the temple, BYU...it was a blast!

The last of the cruise

After Boston we went to Portland, Maine where there are a lot of cool lighthouses.
Our next stop was the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick. They have the highest tides in the world there. The two pix below were taken somewhere in the middle of the tides, but you can still see the difference.

This time lapse video is pretty cool. It shows the tides come in and go out in 30 seconds.


The tides create these rock formations along the coast. These are the Hopewell Rocks. The water goes out about a mile at low tide and then almost fills the whole under the arch at high tide. Pretty crazy.
Our final stop was Halifax, Nova Scotia. Something I never knew was that 330 bodies were recovered from the sea after the Titanic sank. 150 of those bodies are buried in Hailfax. It was amazing to see the same death date on so many tombstones. Here is the one that inspired the Jack Dawson character for the movie. The number 227 on the tombstone signifies that he was the 227th body recovered.Needless to say, we counted the lifeboats on the first day!So that's it! It was a fun vacation and I had a great time. But I'm not sure cruises are the way I like to travel. I like exploring places and experiencing the people, subways, culture, etc., more than making pit stops. Plus, now I gotta lose the 5 pounds I gained cuz all you do on the ship is eat, eat, eat! But it was worth it:)

Boston Highlights

A friend of mine planned this cruise with her sisters because none of their husbands wanted to go with them! So she just kinda opened the cruise up to a bunch of us girls and so we ditched our husbands, too! After leaving New York, our first stop was Boston. Here are my Top 5.

#1 on the list is definitely Officer Bob! I don't think I have to explain why!

#2 is Fenway Park. I couldn't go to Boston without going to Fenway. Plus, the Red Sox are Burke's favorite team so I had to get this pic for him. And a new hat. And a bat. And a penant.
This is the recurring theme of my trip.
#3 is Harvard. This is John Harvard's lucky shoe. They say that if you rub his shoe you will have good luck! So I had to do it!

And I had to have a pic with some real Harvard boys.#4 is the ivy everywhere. We were told that the term Ivy League is actually a sports reference, as in division iv (the Roman numeral). So a sportswritter nicknamed the schools the i-v league. I thought it was because they all have ivy growing on them. Guess there's a reason I couldn't get into Harvard. #5 is the Old North Church. This is the place where the famous "One if by land, and two if by sea" signal was given. What I liked about it, though, was the podium design. If the speaker is boring or talking too much, BAM, you could flatten them.

I'm Back!

I am back from a great week of relaxing, eating, and lots of laughing. After two way too short days in the Big Apple I now understand why everybody hearts NY. It is absolutely amazing! I could have stayed there for the whole week instead of going on the cruise, but since I already payed for it, I figured I better get on the boat! Here are some of the NY highlights and I'll blab more about the cruise later.

Most of you know how much I hate Coach purses, so I had to laugh when I saw these shoes! Please, please, please don't let this trend start up in my town!
Being in Rockefeller Center was too cool! I was looking for Matt Lauer or Al Roker, but apparently they don't meander around in public after the Today Show taping ends.
But I found the best panini ever!

We went to the Top of the Rock observation deck for an amazing 360 view above the city. We met Officer Penetti up there and talked with him about 9/11 and he pointed out where the WTC buildings were. Such a nice guy and so much fun to talk to a real New Yoka (good accent, huh?!).
Being at Ground Zero felt surreal. All the images and emotions from 9/11 filled my mind and it took my breath away seeing the hole and imagining what it must have been like. It was surprising that all signs of the disaster were gone (besides the gaping hole). But it was also surprising that there isn't really any progress on the Freedom Tower. I guess it is a political mess.
Since we we're short on time we took a rickshaw ride through Central Park so we could see as much as possible. It was like a movie trivia game. Our driver would point out an area and we would try to figure out what movie was filmed there. It was awesome.
We walked down Broadway and we were so bummed that we couldn't catch a show or at least see Letterman. Next time, for sure!

This is probably a dumb question, but why is it called Times Square? (Ok, I looked it up...it was named after the New York Times which used to have it's offices here a hundred years ago. Who knew?!)

A view of the Empire State Bldg as we cruised down the Hudson out to sea.


That's me with the Brooklyn Bridge behind me. It was a little bit windy on the deck of the ship!
And let's not forget Lady Liberty. Ok, I'm pretty sure this one is a guy, but it cracked me up to see the Statue of Liberty walking around.

Here's the real one! And it was absolutely breath-taking sailing past her. More to come about the cruise and other places we went. New York was my favorite though!

Chillin in SoCal

We had a great time in SoCal! It's always nice to get away and hang with the fam. Sea World and the Zoo were fun, but my favorite thing was chillin on the beach and watching the cousins play.
Plus I had a great toe design which always makes me happy:)
Here's a slideshow of all the pix if you have time to kill! You can make it go faster by clicking the arrow.

Get Outta Dodge!

The spring air is making me restless! We let Dean ditch Kindergarten and took off for some hiking in the Sierras. Just what I needed to make it through the rest of the weekly grind!

Mickey Mouse Club

We weren't planning on going, but who could resist Disneyland with friends?! Elk Grove just isn't the same for us without the Hogge family here. But donut shops in SoCal are celebrating the studly new pig in town!


Thanks for luring us down here! Disneyland is even better with friends you love!