Family fall time

At the dance festival Talee was an awesome baby-eagle hula-hooper!! She had a blast and loved the attention she got from all the parents because she kept her hula-hoop up the whole time.

Dayson had a great time skipping with his dance partner Kylee Bozarth.

One Sunday feeding the ducks at Grandpa's pond.

Happy Halloween!!

Kanab for baby Jack's blessing and Grandpa Keith's Birthday.

Time Out for Women.

Dad,Al,Tucker, and I went on a hike of the Hurricane Canal trail on Veteran's Day. Tucker loved spending time with Grandpa Al and Grandpa Keith :)

New family picture!

Tucker got helped off his bouncey horse by Dayson and broke his arm. He has been super tough about it!! He was very brave!

We had a super fun Thanksgiving in Kanab this year. We played turkey tag. 

NYC Trip

Trip to NYC/Washington DC with Dustin and Traquel Dayley

Sept. 24-Oct. 1, 2013

We stopped for lunch at Rubio's in Las Vegas before boarding our flight to Washington D.C.

On the first plane. After landing in D.C. We boarded a smaller plane and flew into Philadelphia. 

We stayed at a Sheraton Suites in Philadelphia. 

Leaving Philadelphia to head to New York.

First thing we went and found our hotel. It is in a great location!! We parked our car and went to find bus tour tickets.

The bus tour gives a great view of the city as well as a tour guide that narrates points of interest.

We got off the bus and walked to Little Italy for lunch, we ate at a great Italian restaurant. We giggled the whole time at our unfriendly "mafia" servers. 

Even going to the bathroom was scary. It was down some narrow dark stairs then in this tiny hallway. The bathroom was so small even squating was difficult. 

Dustin, Traquel, and I  topped off lunch by experiencing our first canolis while Mike watched in disgust. 

China Town made me really appreciate my lifestyle. This was a whole pig head hanging in the window, yuck!

The 911 memorial and tribute center were very emotional.

We finished this busy day by going to the Top of the Rock. The red building behind us is the Empire State Building.

Finally back to our hotel room which is the most expensive and smallest room I have ever stayed in. The room was about the size of Tucker's bedroom, it reminded Mike of our bedroom/bathroom area of the cabin.

Day 3 of trip - 2nd day in NYC

To start this day off we went to the Manhattan Temple and did sealings. It's such a cool experience to see how different this temple was. It was SO quiet.  We are used to temple workers on every corner of the temple, because of the lack of traffic there were far fewer. The layout is interesting too. The temple begins on the 1st floor of the building, but then the 2nd and 3rd floor are the chapel. Then the next several floors are back to temple. Anyway, it was beautiful. They let us change into street clothes before we left the temple in a bathroom in the foyer.

After the temple we walked over to Central Park where we rented bikes and did a 6 mile loop of the park, it was a blast!

This is Belvadere Castle, the castle filmed in Smurfs.

Taking a break and enjoying the view in the park.

After Central Park we walked to The Museum of Natural History. 

"Rexy" from the movie Night at the Museum was right at the front entrance. It's amazing how much cooler Hollywood can make things look, he was way smaller than I expected.

A giant tree trunk.

On our bus ride today we saw a horse carriage tipped over on its side, so we got re-routed. We had a long and chilly ride back by our hotel, but we hurried in and got ready for our night at the Broadway musical, "Wicked." Our hotel was right across the street from the Gershwin Theatre, so we decided to walk around and find a place to eat. We found a yummy Mexican restaurant that gave us a good laugh...apparently there aren't free refills around there and no one bothered telling us. Fifteen bucks later Mike and Dustin were good to go!

Wicked was incredible!!! 

After Wicked we walked and got cheesecake, carrot cake, and a brownie and shared, what a fun day!

Day 4 -last day in NYC

Traquel and I decided to start this day bright and early even after our late night at Wicked. We walked the few blocks to Rockefeller Center to watch the filming of "Today." It was super fun!!! It's impressive to watch how the show runs.

I loved watching the hair and makeup people doing touch-ups seconds before shooting.

Traquel got to shake Al Roker's hand. Him and I had just touched hands when he got called away to shoot this shot. The other two that I knew were Carson Daily and Pres. Bush's daughter. Al Roker is tiny, tiny, short! 

Both of us really enjoyed this. It was very cold and we had to head back to get ready before check out. On our way back we called our boys and had them meet us for breakfast a few blocks away from our hotel. This is where we had eaten breakfast the day before as well as the dessert after Wicked. 

After we checked out of our hotel we headed out if NYC. We drove by the Statue of Liberty on our way. Our first stop was at Princeton University to walk on its campus. It was in Dustin's mission boundaries in New Jersey. 

We ate lunch at one of Dustin's favorites. 

We then stopped where George Washington crossed the Delaware River on Christmas morning. We then contined onto our next stop which was Philadelphia. We went on a quick tour of the US mint.

Following the mint we went on a tour of Independence Hall and saw Liberty Bell. 

Day 5 - first day in Washington DC. We started the day driving to the DC temple, and did sealings. It was a gorgeous temple. Very big and busy.

After returning to our hotel to change we headed to the metro to commute to downtown DC.

Once in town we headed to one of the many Smithsonian buildings. We spent most of our time looking at war memorabilia.

This is where we choose to eat dinner before jumping back on the metro and heading to old town DC. 

Old Town trolley was a free trolley that we rode to a Ben & Jerry's ice cream shop. After buying our ice cream we went and sat in a park on the bank of the Potomac River.

Traquel got a great shot of our guys trying to figure out the metro system to get us back to our hotel.

Hooray, we made it back to our nice hotel, time for bed!!

-Sunday September 30, 2013 day 6 - 2nd day DC/Mt. Vernon. 

We traveled to Mt. Vernon today to tour the home of Pres. George Washington. It was a great opportunity to increase a love and respect for all of his hard work and sacrifice. He inherited his home from his older brother who inherited it from their father. He made many additions and improvements to the home and land while it was his. He had somewhere around 300 slaves to help run the large farm.

We took a specialty tour in addition to the house tour that taught about the filming of the second National Treasure movie, it was way cool and I am excited to watch it again. This was the door to underneath the mansion.

View from the back porch and the Patomac River.

Waiting on the back porch to be welcomed to their home.

One of the "pleasure gardens" on the estate.

After Mt. Vernon we traveled back to DC where we toured more museums. Dustin and Traquel headed to the Botanical Gardens Museum while Mike and I took off to the Air and Space Museum.

The Wright Brothers plane.

The plane Amelia Earhart flew by herself across the United States.

After this fun museum Mike and I decided to catch a bike taxi to save my blistered feet from walking to the Halocaust Museum.

This museum was of course very emotional. The room that caught me the most was thousands of shoes and a saying talking about how they survived because they were made from leather etc. instead of flesh and blood. At the end of the museum there was a memory room with this scripture on the wall. Deuteronomy 4:9

Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them fade from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.

While the museum was of course heart-wrenching it gives me a humbling look into how blessed I am. Thinking of the Hallocaust also always gives me a deep love and respect for my Grandma who lived in Europe during these years. While her country was not hit as directly as others, the fear would have been horrible. I think of her often and miss her like crazy!!

After a quick dinner we headed to Union Station and boarded a night tour of DC. 

Back to out hotel for our last night at the Sheraton Inn in Pentagon City. ( the hotel is right by the Pentagon.)

-Day 7 travel day from DC to Baltimore.

We choose to travel onto Gettysburg and go on an auto tour of the Civil War battle grounds today. 

I can't even say a lot about this tour. We had a Audio cd in the car that told the story of the battle grounds while we drove around in our car, but I kept falling to sleep!! I was so tired, I didn't get a lot out of it, but Mike loved it :)

After Gettysburg we drove into Baltimore for our last night because Traquel had a conference she was attending there after we all head home. By the time we got to Baltimore I was ready to go check things out because of my several naps today, and Mike was super tired. We compromised and went for a little walk of Baltimore before chilling in our hotel room. This is the view from our room.

Baltimore Harbor

I talked to this man for about 5 minutes and watched him pull in three little fish in that short time. 

Dinner before bed on our last night! It has been a blast, but I'm excited to see my kiddos!!!

We got up at 3:00 am utah time to get to the Philadelphia airport on time. 

A few minor hiccups like me leaving my moms car keys in the rental car and keeping the rental car keys slowed us down, but we still made our flight. 

Our connecting flight landed us in the Chicago O'hare airport which I was excited about simply for Paul. ( he didn't care as much as I did. Ha ha!) 

And finally, the last picture I took was of the coolest toilet I've ever seen.