Look If You Dare

I love Halloween. It is one of my favorite holidays. I love all the activities that surround it too. This year we hosted the kids Halloween party, took the boys on a date night to the Haunted Railroad and Trick or Treated, of course. Here are some of pictures from our fun month.

Trick or Treated with our little vampire and outlaw on a cold and rainy Halloween night.

Met the "little ladies" for brunch with the Witches at Gardner Village.

Little stinkers making their "dead" faces after a fun night on the Haunted Railroad and a dinner date with Mom. Initially, I thought that this train ride was a little lame, but it turned out pretty good. Scared the heck out of Cole but he is already asking to go again next year.

Okay, here are the scary pictures. This year I hired a company to bring some creepy crawlers to our Halloween party. After threatening the owner of the company with bodily harm if he put the tarantula anywhere near me, we got this party started. The kids were not at all afraid of any of it. They got to see a rose haired tarantula, a scorpion, a ferret, a turtle, a bird eating tarantula, two snakes and a boa constrictor. I was horrified, the kids loved it.

EEK! This one still makes me cringe!

The Bird Eating Tarantula. This luckily, stayed in it cage.

Adorable little blood sucker.

New York

My generous and lovely mother took me to NYC this September and as I sit down to blog I am kicking myself for a few things. First for not taking more pictures, second for not bringing my nice camera and lastly for not writing all this down sooner so I would be more accurate.

We started out by taking the red eye which accounts for the fact that I almost have no pictures from our first day, I was exhausted. I didn't fall asleep until we started the decent into NY. A fellow traveler told me I would immediately be met by the excitement and energy of the city. This was true but I was also met by the comfort of the back seat of the taxi cab and slept all the way to the hotel. It was extra busy in the city, the President was speaking at the UN and many of the city streets were shut down making for a longer than usual commute....thank goodness.

We were not able to check in because we arrived early in the morning. Not near early enough though. Our plane delay had fouled up our plans to try to get tickets to Letterman and The View as well as get to the Today Show. Oh well, we were super touristy and jumped on the double decker bus. We had an adorable tour guide. Our first NY experience? I had an encounter with the rudest man ever and Mom saw a guy peeing in the street. He didn't even stop walking. Hilarious. We followed an old, very fast, Asian women through Canal Street for about 8 blocks where we may or may not have bought some knock off Tiffany jewelry.

We enjoyed our trip through the downtown area of NYC, but I could NOT keep my eyes open for one more minute. We went back to our hotel for a nap and ventured out again later in the evening. We took the advice of a friend of mine who lived in NYC for a few years and went to Grand Central Station for dinner. Making our way down there we ran into a pedicab driver who offered us a ride for what my mom heard as a dollar. Now we all know you cannot get anything for a dollar in NY. He had a thick polish accent and the fee certainly was lost in translation with us. I felt sorry for him hauling our butts up and down the streets of NY, his gears where popping and he was pouring sweat. I felt sorry for him until he told us the price.....$50. It was $1 a block per person. And then I am pretty sure he made some stuff up. It was not funny when it happened but hilarious as we were winding down to go to bed. Stupid tourists.

Grand Central station. We had a delicious meal in an old restaurant here. This building is beautiful. We left and I thought that with my "excellent sense of direction" I could easily get us back to the hotel and save us money after being ripped off by the pedicab. I instead got us VERY lost and on the wrong side of the city. We walked and walked. We crashed when we got back. As a matter of fact, we slept until 10 am!

Day 2 - Much more refreshed after a great nights sleep. Taking the double decker tour bus again through Uptown NY. I think. If any of you are NY aficionados, I am sure I am going to be making up half what follows here.

Soup Nazi

Columbus Square

Although we are not members of the LDS church, I was excited to see this. Felt like home :)

This is the apartment building that John Lennon lived in at the time of his death. He was shot out in front of it.

Gorgeous apartment building across from Central Park. I think Sting lives here. Or maybe it was Bono. I don't know, it's lovely though.

This fountain had a story - some good vs. evil representation. Again, wish I would have written this stuff down.

This is a church that has been being constructed for over 150 years and will not be done for another 100 years.

Columbia University

My very favorite part of NY was Central Park. Just gorgeous and something that New Yorkers really need in such a crowded and busy city. It was what I needed too after being a little overwhelmed by the craziness of the city.

There are all these little tunnels all over. I thought this was so cute, this mom was taking her baby down to the tunnel to listen to a women playing her violin.

Besthesda Fountain. Met the cutest father and son from Australia out in front of it.

We walked into one of the tunnels and this group was singing Hallelujah, my mom's favorite song, it was one of those perfect little moments.

Had lunch at the Boat House.

The Mall in Central Park. Gorgeous.

Jersey Boys was what prompted this vacation. I has seen it in Las Vegas and knew that my mom would love it. I suggested that we take a long weekend trip to LV, she thought NYC sounded like a better idea. Who was I to argue? It was as good the second time and was fun getting to see how much my mom loved it. There was also this guy in the front row who really, really LOVED it. He was distracting but a riot to watch. I loved how much he loved it.

After Jersey Boys we went to the Stardust Diner because of a recommendation by a patient of mine. Initially, I thought it was super cheesy. The waiters and waitresses sing whatever song they choose. But when they started singing.....Oh, my! They were unbelievable!!! I cannot believe the talent in this town if these are the people who end up waiting tables in a diner in Time Square.

The view from the area where we got on the Harbor tour. This is the financial district. Really beautiful area.

Lady Liberty

Ok, really? I asked a women to talk our picture in front of the Statue of Liberty. There is her torch poking out the back of my head. I didn't feel good about it but didn't want to be rude by checking her work right in front of her. By he time I did, a lost photo op.

One of the many beautiful bridges. Beats me which one it is.

After our harbor tour we went to Ground Zero. The site itself is just a construction area and the noise and hustle made it hard to feel the power of what happened there. That is until we walked across the street to St. Paul's. It is the church that acted as a headquarter for the rescue efforts. Many of the flyers that were posted with missing people on them are still there, as well as other memorabilia. It was so emotional. The sadness of those days, as well as the beauty of the city and country pulling together can be felt very strongly here. It is a lovely memorial to those who died and to the rescuers who risked their lives.

St. Paul's

This is the graveyard out in front of the church and across the street through the trees is Ground Zero. It is amazing that this church, as well as the headstones are still intact, this is an 18th century church.

We went to The Top of the Rock. The top of Rockefeller Plaza. The views are stunning.

The Empire State Building

View of Central Park

Mom at the Top

We also took an NBC Studio Tour. I love that junk so I really liked that part. We waited in line for stand by tickets to the dress rehearsal for SNL. We knew that we were not going to get in as we were 147 and 148 for stand by but we met many nice people in line.

St. Patrick's Cathedral

One of the loveliest buildings I have every been in. Obviously, my photos are not doing it justice.

Time Square. This is the craziest place I have ever been. It is so loud and so busy and crowded. It was my least favorite part of NY, but something everyone should see.

I thought that my Mom had seen Wicked when it was in SLC and was happy to be reminded that she had not. We got tickets for the Sunday matinee, a nice little surprise. I had heard that it was great and amazing and guess what? It was. It was funny, sad, thought provoking, clever and a wonderful way to spend almost 3 hours. I cried at the end of it, why? Because I was so proud of the performers in it. They were amazing.

Garbage. I was obsessed with the garbage. These black bags are full of garbage.

Our last day we headed down to The Today Show. This picture wraps up that experience. No Matt, no Meredith, Ann was there but couldn't be found. It was freezing after being unseasonably hot the rest of the trip. We did see Al and we were spotted on TV during the Hoda and Kathy Lee hour by Aunt Gale and we phoned my Dad in time to get it recorded.

Almost famous.

Another funny story that I do not have any photographic evidence of was when someone stole my mom's drink. We had not made having a fabulous dining experience part of our trip. We were way too busy sight seeing so we would be starving and eat whatever we ran into. Which means we ate at The Olive Garden one night. Haha! I don't care what anyone thinks, it was clean and air conditioned. And frankly, delicious. Anyway, on our last night there we went into Greenwich Village. We just stumbled upon this place called Garage. We had the most delicious meal there. We also had a gracious and attentive waitress, something new for this trip. We sat out near the sidewalk and we were visiting with her when a man walked past our table and took my Mom's drink right off of the table. Because we were looking at the waitress we didn't see what had happened but she had. She yelled at him, then his girlfriend yelled at our waitress. We sat it the middle, stunned by what was going on. It was kinda scary....then hysterical.

Thank you, thank you to my Mom for taking me on this trip. It was so wonderful and more wonderful because I was with her. I am so glad we had this time together. Love ya, Mom.

A New Skiby

I was not ready to have a new puppy. Don't get me wrong, they are adorable. That's the problem. That adorableness makes you forget that they are not potty trained, they don't sleep through the night and they chew stuff up. Nolan had seen an ad for some Springer Spaniels and was trying to dog block me by buying a dog he liked before I bought the dog I wanted. I wanted a Shorkie. According to Nolan that is not a "real" dog. Anyway, he called me one day on the way home from work and asked if I had looked at the ad. I said I had and that they were cute but at that moment what I needed was for him to pick up the boys asap because I had taken them with me to my hair appointment. When he showed up to get them, he was covered in dog hair but was without a puppy. However when I returned from my hair appointment, I found this in our front yard.

Prior to pulling up to our house I was planning on telling Nolan how getting a puppy now was a bad idea because we are busy and away from home often. I couldn't believe he had went and got one. I vowed not to help with any part of it, puppyhood that is. Not getting up in the night, cleaning up after him. Any of it. So you know what that dog did? He went on and acted like a perfect angel. Slept through the night, had only had one accident in the house and has yet to ruin anything by chewing it in the 3 weeks that we have had him. He's adorable. He's so lovey and despite my protests, he knows who butters his bread. I am his favorite by far. After much debate over the name; Gus, Oliver, Andy, Buzz...we settled on Sam. Welcome to the family, Sam.