NEW YORK CITY #2

on the pier at CONEY ISLAND

I totally touched the Atlantic Ocean. No big deal.

Rollercoasters! (their wooden one, the cyclone, was so fun when we sat in front, but when we sat in the very back it hurt so bad! i can't believe we didn't get wiplash. ellen got a dead leg for the whole day and i got bruises on my arms. the whole time ellen was screaming: i hate thisss! is it over yet. 

coney dog at coney island! also. we had an ice cream cone completely covered in sprinkles. it was the best ice cream.

the neighborhood where we stayed

jaynie and jeff's building, cute apartment!

cafe habana. it was delicious. especially the corn. and... it was only like a 20 minute wait when we were expecting an hour so that was awesome.

the view from the bedroom window

love their apartment! the big windows were awesome.

we went to the top of the rockefeller center. it was way cool because we could see the empire state building, chrysler building, statue of liberty, and central park.

from the top of the rock

this was the moment i had dreamed about since i was 8 years old.

best day of my life. it was surreal. i could reach out and touch or just buy and go home with anything i wanted. it was all right there. my dreams came true. i am not kidding. i found the cutest cheap thing i could find to buy there: doll rainboots that in just a moment you will see on jaynie's cat.

central park

we had someone drive us around on a pedi cab so we got to see a lot more of central park than we would have seen otherwise. it was so worth it.

FAO Schwartz. where to begin. we were worn out. we were hungry.  we saw FAO Schweetz and we then spent all our dinner money on a half pound of candy, each, and ate it before the night was through.

this is kevin. wearing my american girl rainboots. jaynie was cracking up, hysterical.

yes. this is upside down. but. this is on the hop on hop off bus. ellen did not want to pay for a bus ride about history so she had to get bribed into it. and.... she (we) loved it! we saw china town, battery park, wall street, and lots of other stuff.

this is somewhere near wall street i think. but it was really cool there. the tall buildings were looming.

battery park. this world was in between the twin towers on 9/11

oh ma goodness. shake shack. the. best. hamburger. i've. ever. had. the concrete and fries were amazing as well.

i just liked seeing these on all the corners. they're cute.

rockefeller plaza

night at the museum, museum! aka museum of natural history

aka the dead zoo

in the subway at the stop for the natural history museum

highline park was cool- it's old abandoned subway tracks up above the city that they've turned into a park. we loved it.

we all slept with the windows open and their apartment has no screens so ellen got eaten by mosquitoes.

this was the chelsea market that's under the highline park. there were lots of cute little shops there. and delicious cookies.

broadway! (bert tap danced on the ceiling, how cool is that)

jaynie, ellen, and i went to see mary poppins, so fun. and we had excellent seats and that always makes it better.

dear fao schweetz. this is how you sucked me into starting to buy candy. no where, and i repeat, no where, do i ever just come across only banana runts. i heart them. i kinda freaked out and had to get them.

we walked the brooklyn bridge. it only took a couple wrong subway stops, a little bit of wandering around empty streets of brooklyn by ourselves at 9:30 p.m. completely lost, walking through a park where a line of people all dressed in long, black, flowing outfits were all standing in a line, but we made it. we were only terrified for a while and we didn't even pee our pants! i've never seen ellen giggle so much, apparently she does that when she's scared.

the bridge was really cool when we got there, and not a letdown, even after all it took to get there.

i don't know what this is. lots of other people were taking pictures there though so i thought it was a good idea.

staten island ferry to see the statue of liberty

this is how they park their cars. they stack them up. cuh-razy.

true aggie congraduations

cute new Baby :) etc.

3/2 Baby shower for my new little cousin

how cute are they

4/12 dinner with Abbi and Ellen so good. abbi made a delicious penne pasta with mushrooms and cheesiness and tomatoes :) and i made a banana cake. mmm.



2/6 the day dad broke his shoulder spatula. only 1% of all bone breaks are scapulas. yeah my dad's that cool. that sly icy snow. i had to take him to the hospital and it was kind of crazy. i'm pretty sure my dad went into shock because he was in so much pain. the last time we went skiing, he broke his wrist. 2 cases of just plain bad luck. and that time he was fine. he was in pain but not as much as this scapula time.
 but don't worry, all is well now. he is almost all healed up and back to normal. when you break your scapula, it's like breaking a rib and there's not really anything they can do for you except give you a sling and say be careful.
on another note. it was at the end of the day and we were on our way back to the car, so we got in a full day of skiing! my only time this year.

President's Day weekend trip :)



Temple Square

Mormon Tabernacle Choir in the Tabernacle

Our hotel was sweet

snowshoe hike to donut falls



we were adventurous and went up the steep river bed and actually saw the falls

after eating at texas roadhouse, we had some time to kill, so we were just hanging out in the car... waiting for our movie to start. staring at all the people coming out of the ice cream store wishing we weren't so full. we went to see the movie "Big Miracle" and i really liked it :)



Ben took lots of pictures when we were hanging out in the car. i think he secretly likes it a lot. also. we helped ben study for his test... that was pretty memorable. i think we helped him pretty good.

Last but not least.... the Jazz game! woohoo :)

EASTER

dear samuella. I made your sugar cookies. people love them. I love them. they are amazing. the end.



On our way to our annual home run derby.



Matt played us his leaf song (it's amazing and I love it) that he wrote. And in the meantime....

Our mothers buried Sam in Easter bunnies. He secretly liked it.



I love forsythia



are these not the coolest plants ever

 alright. so. these next pictures are my roommate! she's graduating this semester and I got to take pictures of her. it was way fun and I have gained a new respect for taking pictures of people. It's hard. but. she is cute and these are my favorites. also, this is the first time I've ever played around with editing pictures so if they look weird, like weird colors or whatnot, there could be a couple of explanations: a) I have no idea what I'm doing, just playing around. b) I have noticed that my computer screen shows pictures a slightly different color than other screens, so on my computer, they look okay.