Daddy Earns a Masters!

 

 

Sean walked for his Masters a little over a week ago!

He didn’t decide to walk until the last minute, so we didn’t have a chance to send out announcements or anything. But we had a lot of fun watching him walk!

Nathan has had a fascination with cameras lately. He grabbed it and took the picture above.

Here he is, excited to be at Daddy’s graduation!

Daddy is sitting on the back row, second one in from the aisle.

Walking across the stage!

What an accomplishment! 2 beautiful boys and a Masters!

Happy to see Daddy after walking!

Here we are at the reception afterwards. And then, pictures with the BYU sign…

Easter!

 

Easter weekend BYU hosted an egg hunt at the stadium. So, we took the kids down there early in the morning to visit the duck pond and then head over to the stadium.

Dan and Nathan love the ducks! They think they are funny creatures. Dan doesn’t talk much, “quack” is one of the words that he will say sometimes, but his understanding of things is incredible for his age. I think he just hasn’t had to talk to communicate yet, and that he will just start saying sentences when he needs to. I can reason with him about things like I can with Nathan and know that he gets it because of the way he responds.

Here is the wonderful Sean and and me, enjoying the sunny day out.

Nathan is starting to get quite a throw on him.

Chasing the ducks a little…I didn’t feel too bad, this one was really aggressive and kept trying to take the bread right out of my hand…

After a picnic lunch, we headed over to the stadium.

They had the Easter Bunny and Cosmo there. Nathan and Dan didn’t seem too sure about him.

Here is the field of spoils. Everyone lined up around the edge to wait until they said “go.”

Here is Nathan enjoying his loot. He got quite a few eggs this year.

Dan did pretty good too. He was all over the get the eggs to put in your bucket. He got several too. Nathan’s first Easter, he ran out got one egg, and plopped down perfectly content.

The next day, we did a Easter egg hunt at home. Dan was very excited and he knew exactly what was happening after the previous day’s adventures…

We Love Aunt Melissa!

 

Aunt Melissa came to visit us during her Spring Break! We loved seeing her!

Nathan looked forward to her visit every day. He woke up and asked if she was coming over and was disappointed if she wasn’t that day. He especially loved playing games and playing trains with her.

Melissa was very nice and helped out with a lot of things like cleaning up the garage, baking bread, and helping get our new house in order. She also helped with our Family Home Evening for the week, which was about Easter and the Resurrection. We did the Resurrection Eggs lesson. When Nathan found the empty egg, he was pretty shocked that it was supposed to be empty. But I think it got the point across that Christ had risen from the grave and wasn’t there anymore, because he talked about it for the next several days. “The egg was empty. Like Jesus. And then Jesus was in the clouds,” he would say repeatedly in a very serious voice. Melissa did a good job.

One of the days, we were able to get out and have some fun. We went up to Temple Square in Salt Lake City.

At one of the buildings they were playing a video about Christ’s Resurrection because Easter was coming up. Nathan wanted to stop and watch it. He got very quiet and thoughtful. When it was over I asked him if he felt something special and he said “yes” is in a hushed voice. After a minute he added, “And the egg was empty.”

We stopped outside for some snacks and Dan practiced his “ROAR”-ing.

Temple Square had some beautiful flowers right now. Dan’s not sure what we were doing. Why do I have to look at the camera? I want to play with the flowers…

In addition to the visitor centers, we went to the Museum of Church History. I don’t remember ever visiting there before. But I was very excited to find a whole children’s section on the top floor! It was like a small children’s museum that focused on church related topics. It was so much fun and the kids had a blast!

Here they are building a temple…

…and getting some food ready to feed the missionaries…

…the chickens made noises when you took the eggs out…

...getting some yummy vegetables out for dinner…

…I think they could have spent hours making dinner for the missionaries…

Here they got to practice copying the scriptures like the prophet Mormon.

And Nathan’s absolute favorite was fishing off of Nephi’s boat. They had several other activities too that were fun for the kids. I think we will definitely go back there.

We love Melissa!

 

We love to see the temple!

New York City

We're here in New York City. Our apartment is nice, for which I am very grateful because we've spent most of our time inside due to the cold weather. We have managed to go to Times Square a couple of times (mostly for Toys R Us). I could see New York City being a lot of fun without kids, being single or newly married, with money to burn. For our stage of life though, it is mostly just somewhere different to live. 

The thing that I've noticed the most is that from where we live in Queens, just outside Manhattan to Times Square, there is really no difference except for the huge screens with advertisements and the prices are +$5-20. Everywhere is dirty. We've started giving the kids baths every night and they leave a ring around the tub whenever we've been out. 

Everyone here walks around stony faced, but they are very helpful if you ask them. Children are much more rare here. The city is not made for kids. Most people will start their careers here and then move away to have kids because it is really expensive to have a car and not all of the subway stations have elevators all the way up from the subway to the street (very few actually do) and often the elevators are closed for maintenance. Most of the time, when I realize I'm stuck at the bottom of a stairway with the stroller someone will walk by and offer to help before I even ask. Lots of people have told me about their parenting career while we ride the subway because I have two kids.They are also really helpful if you're lost or need directions. Even if you look lost, without asking anyone, someone usually offers to help.

The Toys R Us store is kind of fun. Nathan really liked the life size dinosaur that roars and moves his head and arms around. It is really cool. It was a T-rex. They charge for pictures so I can't send you a picture of what it look like. The Toys R Us also had huge Lego Sculptures of the Hulk, Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty and other major buildings around New York-complete with little furniture pieces. The Toys R Us has been the most exciting thing so far.

Often street musicians will play in the subways and sell their CDs. Some are REALLY good. One group was from Peru and used special wood flutes and things to recreate the Lord of the Rings music (etc). The music was absolutely beautiful as the subway has really good acoustics.
 
The food prices aren't too much more here in general, but there are not really any big grocery stores like in Utah, Oregon, or California. It is all corner markets because people will go to the closest place to their home when they have to walk and carry what they buy. Sean does our laundry on Saturdays.
Nathan is really into Curious George and trains right now. Dan loves putting objects in containers or putting long skinny things in holes. 

Sean is loving working with the team at Tech Stars. He is working a lot of hours, but he is happier than ever. Companies and investors will bring in food all of the time for the teams there. He especially likes a Greek restaurant and a Mexican restaurant that they keep bringing in. 

Here is a squirrel that keeps coming and sitting in our window. Nathan named him Jumpy after Curious George’s squirrel. The kids get very excited when he visits.

Here we are making play dough monsters to pass the time! This was the first time Dan was old enough to try! He loved it.

Here is Nathan’s creation.

This is a cool, old church building that we passed while walking to find the 9/11 memorial.

Here we are waiting for the subway…Dan is so smiley!

Grand Central Station! This was one of the more kid-friendly places to visit and therefore one of our favorites.

The architecture was really cool.

There was a section of the station where choirs would come and sing because of the awesome acoustics. We loved to get cheesecake at one of the shops (Juniors) in the eatery here. It was REALLY good!

Nathan and Dan also loved the electric trains they had set up. Nathan’s favorite was the Polar Express.

The added fun elements like King Kong on the buildings and things too.

When we went to the Museum of Natural History, we found the easiest way for Nathan and Dan to stay together was for Nathan to hold Dan’s hand and “help” him. Otherwise, Nathan ran ahead and Dan couldn’t keep up. It was pretty cute! Nathan is a good big brother.

The kids LOVED the Museum of Natural History. They got to get out of the apartment and out of the stroller to explore.

They really liked the dinosaur bones.

Nathan wanted his picture taken by the elephant. He thought that one was particularly cool.

They ran up and down this ramp for a long time. They had some awesome bone sets at the museum. There were giant turtles, hippos, and other animals that you don’t usually see.

When it finally was warmer and sunnier, we went to a playground near our apartment.

Here is Nathan enjoying a day out on the streets! We didn’t get to go out unless Sean was with us on the weekends because NYC is not very double stroller accessible.

Here is a picture of Sean by the church that we passed on the way to the 9/11 memorial.

Some of the old building were pretty cool looking.

Here is a memorial by the Statue of Liberty look out point.

Here is the Memorial for the Universal Soldier.

The kids also enjoyed going to the FAO Schwartz Toy Store. The big piano and stuffed animals were a lot of fun. They also let Nathan play with a marshmallow bow and arrow set and a remote control car. He was in heaven.

We have more pictures of NYC on Sean’s phone and I will post them when I get them. (Statue of Liberty, etc)…