California Girls -- The Drive

The girls and I went to California for about a week and a half during the last half of March. 

We braved the drive by ourselves (Rob didn't come) and ended up splitting it up over two days instead of trying to squeeze it into one. Rob usually does most of the driving when we travel as a family, so I was pretty brave to attempt this drive by myself (with the girls). I haven't driven the whole thing by myself since I was in college 10 years ago!

Here is a recap of our trip as told by the text messages I sent to Rob while we were gone.

Sara loved staying in a hotel. She thought it was fun to have a "little house" all to ourselves! But the funniest part was, she could have had a big queen-size bed all to herself, but she wanted to sleep on the floor! I guess that's what you do at sleepovers (according to her), so she wanted me to make a little bed on the floor for her. She loved it!

Here are a few photos of the girls from the next morning:

Good morning Sunshine!

Even though Sara wanted to sleep on the floor, she ended up climbing in bed in the morning to watch cartoons on her "little thing" (iPod).

Here is a lovely photo of me. I put my hair up weird while doing my makeup in the morning.

Sara thought it was a wig. :)

Sara wanted to take a picture of the desert while driving through Nevada, so I handed her my phone. This is the best shot she got. I think it is actually pretty good!

Here are some of the other photos she took. 

1 of 5 pictures of the back of the passenger seat,

A few snapshots of me driving,

5 photos of her little travel buddy,

and two pictures of her legs. :)

A budding photographer, eh?

The next round of photos comes from a pit-stop we made in Jean, NV (just outside Vegas). 

The girls were itching to get out of the car, so we found a gas station with a nice little grassy area and a few trees. Sara enjoyed running around picking dandelions while I fed Ava in the shade.

Pretty sure she had some candy in her mouth which is causing the funny closed-lip smile.

As you can see from the following photos, it was windy.

The wind was making her hair stick up like that! 

Also, Sara was putting dandelions on everyone's ears. 

Side shot of Ava's windy hairdo. 

Our next stop was at Peggy Sue's 50's Diner, just outside Barstow, CA. They have a little garden behind the diner with several metal dinosaur sculptures. 

And a gorilla too.

Rob's response to this photo, "Sara holding Ava is destined to be a family photo classic. :) "

We didn't eat at Peggy Sue's 50's Diner, but we did get ice cream!

We finally made it to our California destination just before dark. We stopped at my brother's house and visited (while Sara played with her cousins) before making the final leg of the drive--just another 30 minutes--to my parent's house. 

It was a long drive! But it all worked out. We all made it there and back and lived to tell the tale. :)

More photos of the trip coming soon.

Philly

I just got back from a 5-day trip to Philadelphia. My sister had a conference there for work, and my mom and I tagged along! Here are a few highlights from our trip:

"Old City" (from left to right - click to enlarge):

• East room in Independence Hall, where Declaration of Independence was signed. Large chair behind desk at front of room is the only original piece in the room.
• Independence Hall exterior
• Colonial row houses in Society Hill
• America's first hospital
• Liberty Bell
• Close-up of tower on Independence Hall
• Constitution Center with my mom
• "We The People" inscription on Constitution Center facade
• Huge bust of Benjamin Franklin

"Center City"

• City Hall - the largest masonry building in the world. The tower was tallest structure in the world when it was completed in 1896. Statue of city planner William Penn on top of tower.
• Views from top of City Hall Tower: downtown skyscrapers, Benjamin Franklin Bridge crossing the Delaware River, Benjamin Franklin Parkway and Museum of Art 
• Love Park / JFK Plaza
• Oversized board game pieces: Monopoly Top Hat, Dominos, Sorry piece
• Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul (the inside was beautiful!)

"Parkway Museums District"

• Benjamin Franklin Parkway with flags from every country lining the street and museum of art at the end
• Shakespeare monument and public library
• fountain at Logan Square
• Entrance statues flanking steps below Philadelphia Museum of Art
• view of downtown Philly from top of museum steps
• Rocky statue (the famous scene of him running up the steps was at this museum)
• Washington Monument and Museum building
• Thinking with "The Thinker" in front of the Rodin museum
• A Monet from the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Other Highlights:

• Trying an authentic Philly cheesesteak sandwich (just so you know, the "cheese whiz" is what makes it authentic. It's basically melty nacho cheese, not the stuff squirted out of an aerosol can.)
• Taking a horse-drawn carriage tour through Old City and Society Hill
• Refreshing my memory / learning more about the founding of our country
• Touring the Betsy Ross house
• Seeing the special Van Gogh exhibit at the museum of art
• Eating at the Reading Terminal Market, a huge indoor farmer's market full of ethnic food stands, fresh produce, delicious cookies, ice cream, and other treats, etc. housed in the building that used to be home to the Reading Railroad.
• Attempting to hail a taxi on the street, then trying to call one to pick us up from the museum of art, then having the dispatch lady on the phone ask me where the museum is. "If you don't know where the Museum of Art is then I'll try calling another company."
• Getting a foot massage in Chinatown after a long day of sight seeing
• Visiting my Aunt who lives an hour away in New Jersey in a large, beautiful brick home on a peaceful, wooded, secluded lot in the countryside. Thanks again for picking us up, Anita!
• And of course, spending some quality time with my mom, sister, and nephew!

What to do when you're running late for a flight

1. Make sure you have the maximum number of luggage items to check (two bags and a child car seat) to make sure your check-in is as long as possible.
2. Have your husband drop off your bags at the scan place so you can RUN to your gate while carrying a backpack and pushing a baby stroller (both fully loaded).
3. Coast down the switchbacks of ramps instead of taking the elevator to get downstairs, being sure to avoid all wheelchair passengers who are traveling in the opposite direction.
4. Quickly weave through other travelers who create a Frogger-like atmosphere as they leisurely walk through the terminal (probably because they know how to be on time for a flight!).
5. Accidentally go to the gate number that matches your boarding assignment instead of the actual gate number.
6. See that there is no attendant at the gate (because it's the wrong one) and ask a nearby attendant if she will scan your ticket so you can board the plane (you don't want to miss your flight!).
7. Refrain from strangling said attendant when she looks at you with a "don't bother me" kind of stare and replies, "She'll be back" when you tell her there is no attendant at your gate.
8. Walk onto the boarding walkway anyway because you can see the plane is right there, and you don't want to get left behind!
9. Tell the airline worker (possibly the pilot) who you see at the front of the airplane, "I'm late and there is no attendant to scan my boarding pass."
10. Show your boarding pass to said airline worker/pilot so he may consider you an ignorant dummy as he replies, "that's because we're not boarding yet, and this isn't your gate" (pointing to the B15 gate, NOT the B22 boarding pass number).
11. Run back down the terminal to your correct gate (the one you passed on the way to the wrong gate) and give a sigh of relief when you see the plane still attached to the walkway AND an attendant at the gate.
12. Hand your boarding pass to the attendant while telling him about and laughing over your funny story of going to the wrong gate.
13. Notice that he is unimpressed with such anecdotes.
14. Board the plane which (thankfully!) has plenty of empty seats, even though you missed the "family boarding" time and every other passenger is already on board. 
15. Choose an empty row in the rear of the plane where your toddler can have the window seat during take off, and can stretch out across two seats during nap time.
16. Arrive at your destination and wait at the luggage carousel for your bags and car seat.
17. Go to the customer service desk after you wait until the carousel stops moving but have not seen any of your luggage. 
18. Listen as the airline worker informs you that your luggage did not make it onto the plane but will be arriving on the next flight in two hours. 
19. Rent a child car seat from the airline and go get lunch at an overpriced sandwich shop nearby.
20. Return two hours later to collect your luggage, then cry when the airline worker tells you it didn't arrive on that fight either and the next flight comes in an hour later.
21. Wait in the seats by the baggage claim for the airline workers to call your cell phone to let you know your luggage arrived on the previous flight after all.
22. Finally leave the airport with your luggage in tow but get lost trying to find the freeway entrance, and then get stuck in traffic once you do find it. 
23. Arrive at your destination 7 hours later than expected. 
24. Enjoy your stay!

We went to Colorado

We visited the town of Castle Rock, CO last week to visit Rob's sister and her family. Rob's brother-in-law recently opened a new Pediatric Dentistry practice, and Rob did a lot of the design work including the logo and website. So when we got an invitation to their open house in the mail, we decided we should attend! Plus, there's the added bonus of Sara getting to see her cousins. She spent the week doing a whole lot of this:

While in Castle Rock, we helped setup for the dental office open house, and also helped pass out balloons and free toothbrushes in a booth at the local Oktoberfest. In between those two events, we spent a day down by Colorado Springs to take the cog train up to the top of Pikes Peak. Much easier than hiking the 13 miles to the top!

 The train

taking a ride.

enjoying the scenery.  

At the top.

 
It was cold up at the top. And the summit was much larger than I imagined. It was pretty flat, and looked like it had been cleared a little because it wasn't completely rocky. Makes sense because you can actually drive a car on a paved road all the way to the top of Pikes Peak. There is even a restaurant up there! We got two donuts (world famous of course); one covered with chocolate, and the other with vanilla fudge. Yum!

Sara with her cousins.

Don't get run over!

Oh, and also while in Colorado, Sara became the world's best 21-month-old soccer player. Don't believe me? See for yourself. 

Rob went to Singapore. And Cambodia. Here are some photos.

Rob was in Cambodia and Singapore from April 29 - May 9 for an "International Context" trip as part of his MBA program at Westminster College. If you're interested, here are some photos from his trip. I didn't feel like re-posting them all here. Sorry blog.

Here's the photo I made him take before he left on his trip. :)



And here's Sara happy to see her daddy after he came home! She's wearing two necklaces Rob brought back for me from Cambodia.


And here's one more photo from his trip.


To see what it's all about, you have to click here to view the rest of the photos! -- I promise it's not a trick. Really. It's not. Click there and you'll see more awesome pictures from far away lands. Promise.

We're outta here!

We be goin' to California for the weekend plus a few days. Wahoo!! Little Sara has met most of my family, but she still needs to meet two of my brothers, a sister-in-law and brother-in-law, and of course her two cousins on my side. We're excited! We're driving out as early as possible tomorrow moring (well, today I guess -- posting this at 12:03 midnight) and hoping Sara will do well in the car. Wish us luck!

Stupid Delta

Just a few days ago we were looking for flights directly into Bakersfield, CA (where my parents live) and Delta had round trip tickets for $212 each! A great deal! Now just a few days later after taking some time to discuss whether we should drive or fly (driving = 10 hours each way and $380 in gas, flying = 2 hours each way and $466 for tickets), we decided to book the flights. But now they are $332.00 per person for a total of $706.00 with taxes and fees!! What the heck?! Just two days ago they were $240 cheaper for the exact same flights! What gives....

I tried calling Delta's customer service to see if I could still get the cheaper rates, but they were no help. "Rates change daily and are compacted hourly." blah blah blah....

Moral of the story: if an airline ticket price seems too good to be true, don't take time to think about them, JUST BUY THEM BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!

So looks like we'll be driving after all. :( Which sucks because it takes so much time which means less time spent with family. Stupid Delta.

I Heart NY!

So here they are, the photos you've all been waiting for.... We returned from our trip to New York on Monday night, and we had so much fun!

This photo was taken during our flight out of Salt Lake City. We flew right over the mountains! I've never seen them from above like this before.

An appropriate title photo for this post! Rob liked this, so he took a photo. It was on the side of an electrical box on a street light.

Here we are in Central Park in the area called Sheep Meadow. What I think is cool about Central Park is what you see in this photo is only a tiny portion of it. The rest is so wooded that when you're walking around, you can't even see or hear the city. It's like you've gone off into the mountains or something and you're far far away from Manhattan, but really, you're right in the middle of it! There are just a few places like this one where the buildings of the city peak through the tops of the trees.

Bethesda Fountain in Central Park.

Central Park is AMAZING! Especially right now because it is green and springtime. It was raining a little, so there weren't tons of people there which was nice.

Time Square. This is the first place we went. Our hotel was out near the airport, so we took a subway train into the city. We got up to the street and gazed at all the huge buildings with massive advertisements with big flashing lights. We were mesmerized! And also very disoriented!! We had no idea which way anything was, and had no desire to stare at our maps all day long to try and figure out how to get anywhere else, so we decided to do the open-air tour bus. It was a beautiful sunny day (which was nice since the forecast called for rain!) so the buses were perfect. AND you can hop off and hop on these buses, so we were able to get off at the stops that interested us, and then get back on another bus to take us to the next stop. The buses came around about every 10-15 minutes, so it was very convenient, and a great way to see the city. After we finished the downtown loop, we felt much more equipped to navigate the city on our own. The tour gave us a better feel for where everything was, and we hit up all the touristy spots as well!

View of the Empire State Building from below.

and the view from the top!

That's the Financial District behind us.

I like this photo because the camera focused on the bars and the city is out of focus. Kind of an artistic shot.

This is how close we were to the street lights while on our tour bus! If we stood up, it would have hit us on the head.

Grand Central Station.

One of my friends and her husband (Kaytee & John) live in Connecticut right now, and they were able to meet us in the city! We met them here at Grand Central Station. This building has really cool architecture which is somewhat captured in these photos.

America's first pizza parlor! Mr. Lombardi came over from Italy and opened his pizza place in New York. We had lunch there on Saturday.

Yes, it WAS as delicious as it looks!

We decided to take the Staten Island Ferry (which is free) to try and get a better view of the Statue of Liberty. This photo was taken on the ride back toward the city (which is behind us).

This is the closest shot we could get with one of us in the photo.

This is the closest shot we could get WITHOUT someone in the photo!

A fun shot of us riding the subway. We were pretty successful navigating the subway, except for one time on Sunday when we accidentally got on an express train, which means it doesn’t make all the stops. It passed right over the stop we wanted to get off on! So we jumped off at the next stop to get on a train going back the other direction. There was one there when we got off, so we hurried on got on it, but it kept going North, the same direction the other train we had just gotten off was going!! Long story short, we ended up in Harlem!! But we never got off the train. A local woman was kind enough to tell us that the next stop was the last stop, and the train would head back the other direction. So we just stayed on it until we finally got to the stop we were looking for in the first place!!

One of these is the Cash Cab, I just know it!

Another photo from Central Park. This was on the day when my friend and her husband came to see us, and he refused to let Rob hold our camera. He held onto it and kept taking pictures for us! It was very nice of him. It almost felt like we were getting engagement pictures or something because he was taking so many photos!

We had a GREAT trip to NYC! Some other highlights of the trip:

• Seeing Phantom of the Opera
• Rushing through the MET during the last half-hour before closing and then getting forced out by security!
• Meeting up with one of Rob's old college roommates (and still a best friend of ours) during our layover in Dallas.
• Rob getting his souvenir: a bootleg copy of Iron Man from Chinatown! (don't tell on us!)
• Finding the most perfect little pastry shop on Sunday night to get hot chocolate and dessert. It was just what we were looking for!

One of the funniest things that happened was on Sunday night on the subway as we rode back to our hotel. A black man in his 50's or 60's got on the train and immediately began to sing. He started singing about eating chicken, and going to KFC, and about how much he loves chicken because he is a “chicken head.” Then, after verse one, he decided to sing the song again in Spanish, then in Italian, then in Indian, then in Chinese, then in Japanese! By the time he got to Japanese, he was just singing words like “Mitsubishi, Suzuki, Toyota, Sushi.” … the funniest part came at the very end. When he was finished with the Japanese verse, he stopped and said, “So many languages…” – Then he walked around with a paper cup asking for money.

It was such a great trip! Thanks again Rob for being such a great husband and surprising me with such an awesome Anniversary gift!