Welcome 2011!!

This is my last picture of 2010. I've had so much fun taking a picture a day to document my life in 2010 that I've decided to gear up for round 2! In 2011 I've decided to take a picture a day of something that I'm thankful for. I hope you enjoy the journey with me! Here's to another great year! I can't wait!

The Happiest Place on Earth! Day One

It rained! Rained!! and Rained some more!!!

But that didn't slow us down or stop us one little bit!

We put on these great dollar store ponchos and trekked around.

This is Emme's mad face she's mad that she has to get off the ride instead of just ridding it over and over again. It made me laugh!

We rode so many fun rides and met many fun characters!

The Valley of Temples

A while ago when I lived with my dear friend Kara she decided to attend a different temple everyday for 6 days straight. After all we live in Utah and how amazing is it that we can do that we have the option to do that. I've wanted to do this myself but it takes a big commitment for a week. Well I decided that the week before I left to celebrate Christmas was a good week to dedicate to this. It was a very fun and exhausting experience! 

Temple #1 

Salt Lake City, UT

Monday

December 13, 2010

Temple #2

Draper, UT

Tuesday

December 14, 2010

Day #3

Bountiful, UT

Wednesday

December 15, 2010

It was really foggy and had snowed. I was glad that I could see the temple better when I was through with the session - Plus I look much happier in the second picture. I guess that's what the temple does to you! 

Day #4

Provo, UT

Thursday

December 16, 2010

Day #5

Mount Timpanogos, UT 

Friday

December 17, 2010

Day #6 

Oquirrh Mountain, UT

Saturday

December 18, 2010

I was having a hard time getting a good picture- the wind was blowing horribly and I was attempting to stay out of several wedding pictures. It can be tricky to get a good self camera shot when I have to take ten pictures to get a good one and it's bad when people are watching me. So the point of that is this isn't my best work. 

And then for good measure....

St. George, UT

Monday

December 20, 2010

I didn't have time to do a whole session but still it was fun to attend a 7th Utah temple. 

And here's a great picture... Some people walking around the temple very graciously offered to take my picture. Like I said it can be a little awkward when you're trying to get a good self shot and sometimes people offer to help out. 

Lunch and Window shopping

Of course we slept in the next day. Our 36 hours in New York were quickly coming to a close but we'd packed in a lot the day before so we had a slow start to the day.

 

We checked out of our hotel and then met Jake at Patsy's Pizza for lunch. This quite possibly was the BEST pizza I've ever eaten. Pepperoni and I don't even like pepperoni! It was fun to catch up with Jake and I was glad he had a few minutes between working on a project to meet us. Thanks Jake for meeting us and thanks for suggesting such a wonderful place!

We then headed down to 34th Street to see the famous Macy's store. This was an experience all its own! There's a reason that it's called the biggest department store! I'm not a shopper so I was a little overwhelmed. We stayed just long enough to get a little taste of the place.

A whole floor of cosmetics.

The biggest section of nylons I've ever seen!

Apparently it's wasn't big enough so they had to build in 1/2 floors. This was fascinating to me!

I dropped off my wish to Santa. I love that Macy's theme this year was Believe. There is a lot to believe in at Christmas time!

I loved their Miracle of 34th Street windows. This is my favorite Christmas movie and the windows were scenes from the original movie.

All of the other Macy windows told the famous Christmas story of "Yes Virginia there is a Santa Claus".
They were really cool complete with audio. I bought the book they were selling to help me remember how fun it was.

We walked up 5th avenue and enjoyed looking at other windows and ventured into Sacs 5th avenue. I was scared to even look at price tags in this store. The Christmas decorations were fantastic and I was overwhelmed by again a whole floor of cosmetics!

I decided the Christmas tree looks much better from a distance.

We picked up a treat at Magnolia's bakery. We'd done a lot of walking and like I said before a trip to New York isn't complete if you don't do A LOT of eating.

And here we are after we landed in Salt Lake. Just about 48 hours from the time we left. The flight home was quite eventful complete with a guy throwing up on the flight attendant right by our seats as they were trying to get him to the bathroom. Tricia and I must have warped sense of humors because we thought this was highly amusing. It must be the fact that we're school teachers. We decided that we'll take students puking and calling the janitor any day over the poor flight attendant who had to wipe it off and keep working. -Yuck!

This trip was so much fun and I'm so happy it worked out for us to go! It definitely won't be the last time I'll fly to New York to see a show. 

New York - Lion King

After a very wonderful hour and a half nap we walked the 3 blocks from our hotel to the Minskoff Theatre to watch my first ever Broadway show. I've watched Disney'e animated movie several times and love the songs and story line. Though I knew that I'd enjoy this I had no idea just how much! The opening scene started and I had goosebumps! I was in awe and was instantly hooked. I loved the live music, the costumes, and the whole experience. I was so happy that we had decided to get tickets to a second show- definitely a good decision. 

This mask is used in the scene where Simba sees and talks to Mufasa in the stars. It is all so fascinating!

Here is Scar's costume. The costumes were so fantastic! Really! you have to see them to believe it!

Time Square and Dessert

One of the things that I definitely love about being a tourist in New York is Time Square at Midnight. I love to stay up no matter how much I need sleep or how hard I try to be good and go to bed early. So the fact that the fun just gets started in Time Square around ten is great. However, it is a lot to take in and I'm always left with a feeling that I'm overstimulated and it is a relief to get inside a store or back to my hotel and get to sleep. Basically it's a lot of fun and I like the lateness but I wouldn't want this to be my every vacation or even part of "regular" life. And I do realize that if you live in Manhattan you probably rarely hang out in Time Square. 

We spotted this delicatessen you don't have to look hard to find food anywhere in New York in fact it's one of my favorite parts about New York there's always some fun new place to find food.

We treated ourselves to a little treat - we shared a warm brownie topped with ice cream. I was glad we decided to share after all it was midnight and who needs that much sugar before getting some sleep - the lights already had me feeling like it was the middle of the day. 

On to a wonderful evening!

After Lion King we headed off to dinner. We didn't go anywhere special just TGI Friday were everything was 6 dollars more expensive than it would anywhere but Time Square. Then we had about an hour before we needed to walk a few blocks to the Gershwin Theatre to watch Wicked. 

We went into American Eagle in Time Square and I found this stellar hat that I just about bought. I would have been sold had there have been different letters on the side. :)

This is a much happier picture than the last one we took outside of the Gershwin. I never blogged about this part of our trip last June for a couple of reasons - the biggest being I deleted a bunch of pictures on accident and I was trying to forget about it. The short version of the story is Tricia and I thought we had tickets to see Wicked on Saturday night when in reality it was Friday. We discovered our mistake on Saturday morning which meant of course that we'd missed our chance to see it. We bought tickets to an off broadway show which we both really enjoyed. But for the last 6 months we've been looking for the opportunity to see Wicked to make it up to ourselves. We found cheap airfare, bought tickets, and booked a hotel in Manhattan's Theater District. Mainly to see this show as well as celebrate our 30th birthdays. I was so excited to finally get to see the play I'd heard SO many good things about!

This is a smaller version of part of the set of course we had to get our picture by it.

Tricia and I both had huge smiles when it started to settle in that we were really going to get to see this fabulous play!

After the play... the signs above the doors made me smile! This play was more than I had hoped for. I loved it just as I loved Lion King but for different reasons. I loved that I knew basically nothing about the story line and it unfolded before me. I loved the music. Live on Broadway really is a neat experience. I loved the sets. I loved sitting and taking it all in. So much fun!

And of course it should be said that I'd give this play and experience two strong thumbs up!