staten island

On Monday the kids were out of school for Columbus Day.



So we took the Staten Island Ferry to Staten Island.


Awesome view of Lady Liberty along the way.


Once we landed on Staten Island we paused for a moment to look across the water at the Manhattan skyline far in the distance.


A line of great kids.


My cute Lexi.


Then we walked and walked and walked and walked
to the Staten Island Children's Museum.
It was awesome!

A cute picture of my cute friend, and her sweet baby while the kids played outside.


Inside the museum there was a fun Firetruck
the kids could climb in, up, over, and around.


And dress up like Firefighters.


And slide down the fire pole.


Time and time again.


There was a giant chess set.
My kids are big fans of chess!
Porter and Kyler had a giant chess battle.


Brenner built towers with giant dominoes.


And played giant connect four.


Lexi went bowling.




Brenner getting in on the bowling action.


Porter and Kyler intent on a giant game of checkers.


Another section had a jungle room, an ocean room, an arctic room, and an explorer section.

And an awesome BuG room!


The kids got to see how it felt to have your skeleton on the outside,
like a bug has!  There was also a fun ant tunnel they could crawl in and pretend they were ants.  And interactive bug stations, and displays of huge yucky bugs.


I think if there was a favorite, out of all the awesome-ness, it would have been this building room.  We miss Dave's building days so this was super fun for my kids to pretend they were like Daddy.


Digging...


Hammering...


Drilling...


And a level used as a seasaw!
Are you kidding me?  How fun is that?!!


Malia LERVED that seasaw!

This was such a hands-on museum that on the way out Porter saw the "PULL HERE" lever on the fire alarm and reached up and pulled it!  Ooops!  Everyone started fleeing from the building.  I made him apologize to the lady at the front desk after she called the fire department and told them false alarm and turned the alarm off.  Another memorable moment in our day.  Porter was so embarrassed he won't ever do that again!

Then we walked 4 miles back to the ferry
(just kidding, but it seemed like it!) through ghetto Staten Island
(seriously I thought we were going to be shot by gangs on the street).
If there hadn't been such a big group of us I would have been freaking out!

**I just looked it up and it was actually 2 miles to the museum, 2 miles back, so we did walk a total of 4 miles.  Wahoo!  I'm proud of all these kids!

Got some ice cream and took the ferry back to Manhattan.
It's a 25 minute ride that goes past the Statue of Liberty.


Sailing back in to Manhattan.
I love Manhattan.


And subway-ing home.  Malia is getting a little too big for her britches and thinks she's pretty cool riding on the subway chairs instead of in the stroller.  What am I going to do now?


And that, my friends, was our day in Staten Island.  The 5th borough of New York City we had yet to see.  Another check off our bucket list.  We don't have too many left!  Our time in NYC is winding down.  I will be sad to go. The first year here was hard for me, but coming back after the summer I have realized how much I really do love it here.  I can say that because I know we will be leaving soon.  Ha!  Isn't that the way it goes? 

182nd General Conference

Loved General Conference!  We enjoyed the quiet peaceful sessions sitting together coloring, doing puzzles, eating popcorn, and listening.  We love the announcement of the new missionary age!  So awesome!  It makes me a little teary that my boys will be leaving me a year sooner, but I know it is inspired and it's awesome.  Pres. Uchtorf, Pres. Eyring, and Elder Holland were my favorites, and I can't wait to read them in the Ensign.  

Silly Malia wore this hat the whole Saturday afternoon session.

We went to Emilia's baptism on Saturday night.  

She borrowed Lexi's white dress and looked so cute.  

Dave and Bruce went to the Priesthood Session in the chapel, and Klarissa and I stayed with the kids in the nursery.  Fun memories were made of them playing with all the toys, coloring pictures, and creating their own Sharing Time, taking turns being the speaker and performing musical numbers in the microphone in the Primary Room.  So sweet.

General Conference Sessions are 2 hours later than Mountain Standard Time, so it was a late night with the Priesthood Session going from 8-10pm.  And then we missed the subway home, and had to wait longer to catch the next one with 10 tired kids.  But such a great day.  Such a great weekend.  I'm always sad when General Conference is over, it goes by too fast. I am so thankful for it, it gives a much needed spiritual boost.  I love General Conference!

Apple Picking

After a week of cloudy skies we woke up on Friday morning to SuNsHiNe!!  Yay!  So I let the kids ditch school and we went Apple Picking.  

We walked through the park on our way and saw some neighbors so we played for an hour.  Then we hit the road.  First was this fun farm in New Jersey.  There was a huge haystack to climb.  My kids enjoyed that one.


The boys cracked me up!

And had fun in the hay tunnel...

There were tractor rides...

digging in the corn...

and pony rides...

And a bouncy castle, hard to get photos of that one.
Then we drove to an apple farm in New York.  I love driving here because there are so many trees, then all of a sudden there is a few houses, then more trees, then a church, then more trees.  I thought this church was cute all decorated with pumpkins.  How New England-ish does this look?  I really really do love living here.

I loved the meandering roads through the sunshine and trees to get to the apple orchards.  We cranked up some fun music and danced and sang and laughed.  We stopped at Wendy's for Junior Bacon Cheeseburgers with no cheese.  I kept saying, "Minus cheese," and the Hispanic workers thought I was saying, "Mayo and cheese."  They could not understand me or what I wanted.  I said it a million times.  Then they finally said, "Oh!  Minus cheese!" I said, "YES!" so happy they understood.  Then they handed me the bag of burgers with what?  Tons of mayo and cheese!  Ahhh!  The kids and I laughed our heads off.  I said, "Oh! What I should have said was No Cheese."  Kyler was like, "Yeah mom, Minus Cheese?  Who says that?"  It was so darn funny.  So we scraped off the mayo and cheese and ate them anyway.

Masker Orchards in Warwick, NY.

Loved all the apple trees full of yummy delicious apples!

I love when Malia wraps her cute arms around my neck and gives me a hug!  

I was trying to get this little stinker to smile.  She wouldn't!  But I love her to pieces.

The days we come home dirtiest are the best.

Dirty and happy.  Love being outside!

The kids with their apples.
They were laughing because Malia had just tooted.
Yes, those things happen in our family.  Daily.
It was too funny.  I should hope it happens every time I take a photo because look at those cute smiles!  And Kyler was trying to catch Lexi's bunny ears.  Funny kids.

So heavy!

Aw, such a great brother.

Kyler then caught a grasshopper that scared Malia, so she ran to Lexi.

She loves Lexi.

The leaves are just starting to change.  So gorgeous.
We drove by trees of brilliant yellow, red, and orange.  Love!

New York State is beautiful.  I love it.

The drive home was gorgeous.  We saw 7 deer along the 8-lane freeway!  It blows my mind that not far from NYC and craziness are beautiful forests full of wildlife.  Amazing!  I missed the exit for the George Washington Bridge, so the GPS took me down to the Lincoln Tunnel.  On a Friday night.  Trying to get into NYC.  Nuts!!!  It took us 3 hours to get home.

We were supposed to go to a little pizza get-together at 6pm, and at 7pm we were still waiting in traffic to get in to the Lincoln Tunnel.  I have a tendency to let anxiety get the best of me sometimes.  My sweet and wise friend, Corinna, texted back and said, "Keep your spirits up and enjoy the quality time with your kids!  Life is great, and you're blessed with healthy kids and a good husband, so a little while in traffic is nothing."

Such a wonderful reminder.  So I indeed relaxed and enjoyed that time with my kids.  How often do I get an extra hour or two with them?  It was great.  They were starving but luckily we had a bushel of apples!  We laughed about that one!  And the apples were delicious.  Fresh off the tree, so yummy, nothing better!  I think they each ate 3!

And the view of the skyline of NYC was awesome.  We could see the Empire State Building, the Freedom Tower, the Chrysler Building, the New Yorker, all the twinkling lights, and the gorgeous moon right behind them.

As we were going through the Lincoln Tunnel the GPS zoned out and projected our arrival time at 10:30pm.  We laughed and said, "The way things are going it's probably right!"

We got to drive right through the heart of NYC after coming out of the tunnel.  Right through Times Square all lit up at night.  We wondered how many people get to do that?

We got home at 8pm and everyone was still eating pizza and playing outside so we were still able to join them.  We are blessed to have each other, good friends, and this beautiful earth that is full of so many good things!