Kid Pics 2014

Here are the pictures of the kiddos for this year.  I'm really happy with the way they turned out.

Tess, age 9

Miles, age 6

Bree, age 3

And our 3 sweeties together.  We love them so much!

DC, NYC, AC, Philly Trip! (3 of 3)

On Monday Bryan had to go to work in Atlantic City, but I didn't want to just sit around the hotel alone all day--boring!--so I drove to Philadelphia to do some more sight-seeing.  First stop was Benjamin Franklin's grave...

 ...then over to Independence Hall.  This was the room where the Declaration of Independence was signed.  Pretty neat!

 ...and the Liberty Bell.

Here's a view of Independence Hall from the Liberty Bell building.

 Here is the little sliver of a house where Thomas Jefferson lived while he wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776...

 ...and the little house where Betsy Ross lived (supposedly) while she designed and sewed the first American flag.

 After seeing some of those historical sights, I thought I'd drive over to see the steps from "Rocky."  There is also a statue there of Rocky.  I was there right as rush hour was starting, so traffic was crazy and I didn't think I could find a parking place easily (and frankly I didn't care a whole, whole lot about it).  So I have no pictures of it.  However, while on my way there, I made a wrong turn and during the re-routing on my GPS I happened to find myself at a red light and looked up to see the construction of the Philadelphia LDS temple.  That was a lucky accident, and I'm glad I saw it!  (By the way, thank heavens for GPS navigation!  Otherwise I would have probably been too nervous to go by myself that day.  It was so nice to have that friendly little voice telling me where to turn.)

Wait, here are some pictures of Bryan on the Rocky steps from a previous work trip to Philadelphia in April.

That night we decided to check out the boardwalk in Atlantic City.  I'll tell ya, Atlantic City is kind of a hole.  It's like Wendover.  I could not believe how run down and abandoned it is!  So many of the hotels are completely empty and the homes all around there are pretty sad.  It's turning into a ghost town.  Very strange.  Anyway, it was a cold windy night so we brought a blanket, because, as has been previously established and mentioned on this blog, a cold Michonne is not a happy Michonne.

All in all, we had a fantastic trip!  I loved it.  I saw tons of new things, and many wonderful things I've seen before but was thrilled to be able to see again.  Most of all it was just so nice to get away and spend time with Bryan.  

See ya later!

DC, NYC, AC, Philly Trip! (2 of 3)

Day 3 and 4 of our trip was in New York City.  Oh, how I love that place!

We started out by doing a session at the Manhattan Temple.  The best time for us was the 9:30 am session, and when we got there we were surprised to learn that the 9:30 session is in Spanish!  Ha!  That's OK though, they had headphones for us dubbed in English.  It's kind of wild to see a temple smack in the middle of a busy busy street full of sky scrapers.  Pretty neat though.

After the temple we walked through Central Park and then had pizza for lunch--yummy New York pizza!  Mmmm.  We saw a few quick sights (Radio City Music Hall & Rockefeller Center) and then headed to the theatre for a Broadway show.  We saw "A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder."  It was really good.  One actor played eight different roles and he was amazing.

 After the show we went over to Times Square.  I love the energy in the city and nowhere else is it as electric (literally and figuratively) as Times Square.  Bryan doesn't really care for the crowds, the noise, the smells, all that stuff that goes along with a super busy city but I really, really love it!  Granted, I would not want to live there (for too long anyway) but for a quick vacation I just think it's so exciting!

 Next, we went down to the 9/11 Memorial.  We did not go into the museum because, again, we had to be choosy about what we did and saw in only 2 days.  I would love to go again sometime and see inside the museum, but we enjoyed walking around Ground Zero and seeing the beautiful memorial there.  The waterfalls are built on the foundations of the twin towers, with the names of those who died engraved all around the edges.

 We also walked out to the water's edge to see the Statue of Liberty.  Bryan and I have each been out to see her up close on previous trips, so this time we just snapped photos from afar.  And, as you can see in the photos, the weather suddenly turned bad.  Super windy and rainy all of a sudden, so we bailed and went to dinner.

 The next day we went back into the city for another great day of being tourists.  We saw the Empire State Building...

 ...The Flatiron Building...

and then took a super long walk down the island.  We didn't have anywhere that we had to be and frankly it was just nice to walk down Broadway and enjoy each other's company!  We went back to the World Trade Center...

 ...then over to Wall Street and Federal Hall where George Washington took the oath of office.

We ended up taking the subway back uptown because we were tired from walking (another half marathon that day!)  I wanted to get souvenirs for the kids and suggested we go to FAO Schwartz.  I thought Bryan would want to get in and get out because he doesn't really care for shopping at all, but he loved it in there!  He wished we had more time to look around.  It really is a cool store.  (Here's Bryan by the Lego Skylander Swash Buckler.)

 I wanted to go to Serendipity 3 for their famous "Frozen Hot Chocolate" which we had seen on a food show (on Food Network?  Travel Channel?  I don't remember, but I just remember that it was something "everyone should do while in Manhattan."  They also have a dessert there that is a thousand dollars.  Seriously, it has flecks of gold in it.  Crazy!)  So here we are with our frozen hot chocolates... (and they truly were delicious!)

 ...but then... I looked up as the host seated a group right behind us.  I glanced up at the woman and kind of thought she looked familiar but didn't really think twice about it.  But behind her, in walked Steven Spielberg and I realized it was Kate Capshaw!  Aaaah!  I was super giddy because I thought it was so cool!  He faced the wall so we couldn't get a great picture but it was awesome.  I had a billionaire a foot away from me!

  He actually got up and took his grandson (I assume) to the bathroom, so I told Bryan I had to figure out a way to snap his picture without being totally obnoxious.  When he came back up I pretended I was taking a picture of Bryan across the table from me, but I tried to angle it toward Steven (Mr. Spielberg??) instead.  I was somewhat successful with the picture.  I tell ya,  I couldn't stop smiling.  Why was it such a big deal for me?  I don't know; he's just a person.  But I was starstruck for sure.

We left on that happy note and then drove to Atlantic City! :)

DC, NYC, AC, Philly Trip! (1 of 3)

Bryan has been doing some work in Atlantic City recently and he was mentioning that it's quite close to DC and close to Philadelphia too.  So we decided that I'd tag along on the next trip and add New York City as well.  We had such a great time!  We packed a LOT of sight-seeing into just a few days, so I will pack a LOT of pictures into just a few posts.  So be forewarned.  :)

Part one is Washington DC.  We flew into Baltimore and found the hotel and then quickly got in the car to DC.  We got there around 6:00 pm but we were able to see a lot in a few hours!  I love that practically everything in DC is free, and a lot of things are open to see at night.

First stop was the Washington Monument.  It was beautiful.

Then across to the WWII memorial, reflecting pool, and Lincoln Memorial.  I loved the Lincoln Memorial.  It was really impressive.

 Then over to the White House.  It was smaller than I thought it would be.  It's cool to finally see in person something I've seen hundreds of times on TV and in movies.  (Bryan's co-worker Jared and his wife Jenny were with us too.)

 On our way back to the hotel we decided to find the Washington DC LDS temple.  We were surprised to see it was still open and the parking lot was really crowded around 10:00 pm.  Unlike the White House, it was bigger than I expected it to be.  And it was gorgeous.

 Day 2 started off with a tour of Ford's Theatre.  It was interesting to hear about the history of the theatre after Lincoln was shot.  Apparently at some point the building was transformed into an office building and looked nothing like the original.  Finally they realized that it should be a landmark and they restored it to just how it looked when Lincoln was shot there, including some of the original chairs in the box where he sat.  (I found in strange that they had a picture of George Washington in front of the box--I expected Lincoln!--but apparently when the owner of the theatre heard that President Lincoln was coming to a performance that night, he had the box decorated specially for him.  Hence the flags and the presidential picture of Washington, depicting that this was now the "presidential box."  So this was how it looked that night.)

We went to the Smithsonian next.  There is SOOO much to see there; we really had to pick and choose which buildings to spend time in.  We just didn't have time to see it all.  We went to the Natural History Museum, the American History Museum (where it was neat to see the flag that inspired the song "The Star Spangled Banner" after the War of 1812), the sculpture garden, and the National Gallery of Art.  (Nobody wanted to see that but me, but thankfully my sweet Bryan humored me so I could at least zip through and see a few special highlights by Da Vinci, Van Gogh, Rembrandt, and Picasso.)

We also went to the Holocaust Memorial Museum.  Nobody really wanted to go there either, just because it's so incredibly sad.  We just didn't want to be depressed, and we knew we were in such a hurry but didn't want to rush through something so important.  Anyway, I talked everyone into going because I just knew that I would regret it if I didn't go.  It was a somber experience.  The museum is very well done and full of so much information.  The more I learn and read about the Holocaust the more I am just astounded and disgusted by it.  It's truly unimaginable that so many people believed in a man (and a cause) so evil.  I'm glad I went, but I wouldn't really want to go through again.
 
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As it was approaching evening we had one more thing we wanted to see before the 5 hour drive to New York--Arlington National Cemetery.  We got there and parked at about 4:23 pm.  We asked the ranger where and when the changing of the guard was and she said every half hour, but we would surely miss the 4:30 time because it's quite a walk.  She suggested we just go slowly and go see President Kennedy's grave first and then catch the 5:00 changing of the guard.  Obviously she had never met Bryan and Michonne Terry....  now, for years I've been told that I'm a pretty fast walker.  I've had friends tell me that I walk too fast and that they cannot keep up.  Well, let's just say that I'm relatively slow compared to my dear husband.  That man can WALK!  He and I both have short legs too, so I don't know how we're such fast walkers, but we are (he is especially.)  When she said to wait until 5:00 it was like the challenge was thrown down, because we looked at each other and we knew we could prove her wrong.  We booked it.  Booked. It.  (I checked it on Google Earth and it's .74 miles from the parking lot to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  And it's ALL uphill.  A somewhat steep uphill too.)

Well, you better believe we saw the changing of the guard at 4:30 pm.  We got up those last few steps, sweating like pigs, and I was feeling like I was going to have a heart attack right there on the steps, but by dang, we made it in time.  The changing of the guard is pretty cool.  The visitors center tells all about the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and it was really interesting.

Here we are on the way back down.  Thankful that we didn't die.

Here is the eternal flame by the graves of President and Jackie Kennedy.

Our phones have pedometers on them so it was really fun to see how much we walked on this whole trip.  I'll tell ya, it was a lot!  13.2 miles on this day. (Then a 5 hour car ride.  We were pooped out that night!)