New York

We decided to go to New York for my birthday, so this is us on the train, it left from Milford (where we live) and took us to Grand Central Station, which is an incredible building, it's huge! Anyway, from there we walked EVERYWHERE!

Ava relaxing and me trying not to throw up!

"I ain't afraid of no ghosts"...me on the steps of the New York Public Library, where the ghostbusters were :) You can't see the stone lions in this pic but they're there, it was pretty cool!
This is Matt wiping away a tear, in honor of my dearest Mother :)
We stopped at a hot dog vendor, cuz isn't that what they do in New York? At least in the movies right? But...it wasn't all that great, at least we can say we tried it right?

Times square

Matt and Ava with Morgan Freeman

Me with the bitter beer face guy :)

Okay, so this is the Toy's R Us in Times Square, HOLY COW! They have a full blown ferris wheel in the store. It's three levels with glass elevators and everything. It was pretty amazing so the next few pictures are at the Toy's R Us

Riding the Ferris Wheel

This slightly creepy Elmo was standing on the street corner but Ava kind of fell in love, just so you know, I'm only standing just outside the camera. I was ready in case he took off with her. I also figured it wouldn't be hard to spot an adult Elmo running down the streets of New York so maybe I was safe, but you never know, it was New York :) Ava was fascinated, she wouldn't stop staring at his face, we finally got her to look at Matt for a picture!

This was the Great American Chocolate Store, Love at first sight...

Ava making chocolate

Matt had to stop and have a Mary Poppins moment with the pigeons...I love my husband :)

The ice rink at the Rockefeller Center

Okay, so here's my Michael Jackson moment, you can all see how wide the wall is that Ava is sitting on, well Matt wanted to go take a picture from the other side, so I was holding her just like Matt is while she was sitting on the wall and a police officer comes up and says, "Ma'am can you please take your baby off the wall?" I wanted to ask him if I get a super duper mom certificate with that request, but I just sheepishly mumbled something and took her down.

This was Saint Patrick's cathedral, it is such a beautiful building, we were able to go inside and it was just absolutely incredible inside and out!

Ava at the end of our New York Minute :)

We got to see just the tail end of Central Park, that place is HUGE, so we just walked through a little bit of it, but it was way cool, I want to go back in the spring!

This is the Tiffany's display window, Matt thought I was crazy, tell me you girls get it :)

Okay, so I think I'm finally caught up, we are doing great here! Matt starts school tomorrow with Orientation and then the exploring is pretty much a solo job from there on out. We miss all our friends and family...and can't wait to see them, hopefully in May, but we are having a lot of fun, and so far we really like it out here!

Connecticut

We celebrated my birthday with our only friends out here, thanks Tay and Liz for coming over. This is Ava licking the candle, all we could find was the number two from her last birthday so I turned 2 hee hee
Ava wanted to be a beautiful princess of course, so she is all dolled up for my party :)

We drove around Fairfield University campus, it is beautiful! It has some gorgeous buildings!
And then we found Matt's school of Nursing..hahaha! We laughed way hard when we saw this among all these majestic buildings, but they are currently under construction so this is their offices I guess for the moment or something, it just made me laugh!

When Ava saw this, she said it was the Princess's house, and it does kind of look like a castle. I love the architecture out here, it's just so gorgeous and different than Utah :)

This is the beach that is 2 1/2 miles away from our house. How fun is that??

"I don't wanna kill you, and you don't wanna be dead..." Any Silverado fans out there? We went to visit our friends and Ava found this toy gun and this is what she did, should we be worried?

Road Trip to Connecticut

So these aren't exactly in order, but all you bloggers know how annoying it can be to make it be the right order so...here they are.

This is actually the picture I took on the last day of our trip, don't worry, he was just in the middle of a blink but I thought it was quite appropriate seeing as how we were in semi-coma's finishing out the trip.
This is Ava on the last day. She refused to keep her shoes and socks on, so everytime we got out, we got to put them back on, and of course we didn't bring any slip on type shoes we brought tennis shoes with laces and all. And as soon as we were back in the car, she'd have her shoes off, playing with her toes again. Oh well, at least she was happy!

We were able to stop in Ohio, and go visit the Kirtland area, where Matt served his mission. Most of the tours were closed but we were able to go through the Newel K. Whitney store and walk around that little area. It was really neat, especially cuz Matt lived in the building right next to the Newel K. Whitney store when he was on his mission. The top of that store is where they held the school of prophets and where Joseph Smith received alot of revelations that are in the Doctrine and Covenants. It was really awesome to see and make some church history kind of come alive for me!
Ava has also learned to take her pajamas off and thinks its really funny, so we put her to bed fully clothed, but when we go to check on her, this is what we find. Needless to say, we had the heat up a little higher in the hotels :)

Ava freezing after an adventure in the swimming pool.

We stopped in Ogallala for gas and food and we just really liked the name, how can you not? Go ahead, just say it...Ogallala...fun huh? haha!

Apparently hotels are well equipped for kids, Ava was quite fascinated with the phones (after we unplugged them) and the ice bucket and cups. Works for me! She was entertained for hours!

Swimming at the hotel...so rigamortis didn't set in.

This was the first day of the trip...a little more life than on the last day :)

And Ava on the first day of the trip, again, a whole lot happier :)

All in all, it went quite well, we only hit two days of snow and Ava was a champ! Our car was AMAZING and made the whole trek! We were very blessed in our travels and were VERY glad to finally get to Connecticut!