Thanksgiving weekend.....

For Thanksgiving we went to my aunt and uncle Donald and Sherry's house. They were so sweet to invite us since both of our parents had gone out of town, and we had to stay in Vernal because Ben had to work that night. I didn't have my camera dang it, but we had a lot of fun. Ben and I spent the day there with Grandma Monsen, Donald, Sherry and her son Kenny and his wife Laura. Sherry cooked a great dinner, then we hung out and played games and watched football until Ben had to go into work. He worked the graveyard shift all weekend so I went out to Monica's to hang out. I met her in Provo on Friday morning t0 do our Christmas shopping. We shopped all day and got l0ts done. I'm finished with my shopping besides a few things here and there. On Saturday we just hung out at her house all day, then went back up to Provo that night to go to my good friend BriAnn's wedding reception. She lived in Vernal until about 4th grade and we have stayed good friends all these years. I love her so much and am so happy for her. She looks so happy and the guy she married seems super nice!

Little Ellie Bellie is getting so big! She looked adorable at the reception. I can't get enough of her, she is such a happy, fun baby! I love her so much! I'm glad I got to spend time with them this weekend!

Guitar Hero, sleepovers and Christmas lights

Misti and Dustin came out to Vernal this week to go hunting. Ben and I got to watch Cason overnight last night since they were getting up so early to go, and since Ben didn't have to work today. We had so much fun with him! He' s the cutest little guy ever! He is the most polite kid I've ever met. I asked him if he was ready to go to bed and he said "No thank you, may I watch Handy Manny please?" I don't know how Misti ever says no to him! He had fun playing Guitar Hero with Ben, and this morning they put up the Christmas lights outside. Cason loves anything that plugs in or lights up or has buttons, so he was having a blast. He is so cute!On a side note: Kyler left the MTC on Tuesday to head to Canada. He got to call home from the airport in Atlanta. He is starting out in a city called Bedford which he says is pretty close to Halifax and Dartmouth. He sounded great, and said he is having a great time and is really excited to get there and start serving. It was fun to hear from him. Oh, and I'm going to see Twilight tonight! I'm way excited!!

I Heart NY!

Well, I am FINALLY getting to blogging about our trip to New York. We had sooo much fun! This is going to be the longest post of my life, but I need to put all these pictures on. It' s more for my journaling purposes, so don't feel like you have to look at all of it!

We flew out of Vernal on Saturday morning. It was so nice flying out of Vernal! It was great not having to drive to Salt Lake, and it was especially nice when we got home, not having to drive 3 hours to get home! Anyway, we flew from Vernal to Denver, then from Denver to Newark. Ben's training was in Flanders, NJ, and the motel we stayed at was in Rockaway, NJ. It's about an hour and 20 minute train ride from NYC. Once we got to New Jersey we had a driver pick us up at the airport and take us to the hotel. We ate dinner at the resturant in the hotel and then went to bed, because we were exhausted from flying and had a really early start the next morning.

Sunday morning we took a cab to the train station to catch the train to New York. We had a tour scheduled for 8:30 am, so it was dark for most of our ride, not to mention it was pouring rain! Once in the city we grabbed a cab to meet up with our tour. It was on a little bus with only like 18 people, so it was great! I'm so glad we did this tour, we got to see a ton of things in a short amount of time. A lot more then if we were trying to get around to all those places on our own! Our tour guide and driver were great! They were so entertaining!

Our first stop took us to Central Park. We went to a part of the park called Strawberry Fields which is a memorial for John Lennon. This building is where he lived and where Yoko Ono still lives. It's just kitty corner from Strawberry Fields.

This weird guy is named Gary and he is the self proclaimed "Mayor" of Strawberry Fields. He was a nut, but our tour guide had him tell us all about it, it was pretty interesting. The guy next to him in the orange shirt is our funny guide, Trey.
Central Park was gorgeous, I loved it! It was one thing I didn't get to do on my last trip to NY (along with many other things) so I was so glad we got to go there this time. On a side note: it was rainy and humid most of the day, and I am well aware that I look awful in most of these pictures. Oh well....
Don't ask me what Ben was so cheesy about? This picture cracks me up!

Next we went to the Rockefeller Center. We saw the cool building and the famous ice skating rink that you see in all the movies. It has flags from every country in the world around it. They were preparing it for the winter when we were there.
Then we drove around a lot looking at cool buildings and hearing a lot of interesting facts about New York. This is an apartment building in the Upper East Side and our tour guide said an apartment here would cost about 15 million to buy, and then $40,000 a month in maintenance fees! Holy cow!!
This is the building that's in the Spiderman movie.
We had some good views of the Empire State Building here.
Then we went to a pier to stop and eat lunch. It had a bunch of stores and resturants, and amazing views of the Brooklyn Bridge.We then got on the Staten Island Ferry to go across the bay. The ferry goes right by the Statue of Liberty and also gives you great views of lower Manhattan. We went across to Staten Island and then immediately got back on and went back over. Just to the right of our heads was where the twin towers would have stood.Then we went and visited the Trinity Church. It was so cool. It's such an old building with awesome details. There was a cemetary in the church yard, and the graves were hundreds of years old.
This was Alexander Hamilton's grave. He's the guy on the 10 dollar bill as Ben is showing off here...
The Trinity Church was right across from Wall Street, so of course we went there next.
Next we went to Ground Zero. It was really neat to see. It was neat to hear Trey talk about what he was doing that day, and hear a story from a New Yorker's point of view. It's basically just a big construction zone right now. They're building 7 new buildings in that area, but aren't building any in the footprints of the twin towers, except a memorial. I would love to go back and see it when it's all finished.
After our tour was over we went and ate at the Russian Tea Room. Ben was dying to find a resturant with authentic Russian food and someone recommended this one to us. We didn't know how expensive it was going to be until we were in and seated, so we ended up just ordering dessert. We shared a dessert and it was just 2 little crepes, and it was still like $30. It was really yummy though and Ben was in heaven.
Then it was just more touring around the city. We saw more of Times Square, Radio City Music Hall, watched a parade down 5th Avenue, and then went to St. Patrick's Cathedral. The cathedral was beautiful inside and out!
Our last stop of the day we went back to the Rockefeller Center. We went up on top of the building to look out over the city. We went just before dark so we could get pictures in the daylight and of all the lights at night. Last time I was in NY I went on top of the Empire State Building to look over the city so this time I wanted to do something different. I liked this building better because there was an amazing view of the Empire State Building, which you obviously can't see from on top of it! It was awesome up there!
Then we headed back to Madison Square Garden to catch our train back to New Jersey. We passed Macy's on our way. What a huge store!!
The rest of the week Ben was in training, so I just relaxed all I could. Our motel was in such a nice area. It was right in the middle of a big shopping area, with a mall right across the street and stores and resturants all around us. I slept in every day and went down to the fitness center and worked out. I went shopping and read Twilight. I had a fabulous time just getting caught up on some much needed R&R. It was great.
When Ben would get back at night we would go out to dinner and go shopping. One night we went to the movies and were the only people in the theater.
Ben's last day of training was on Thursday and they only had training for half a day. Everyone that was in the training was heading home but us, so their driver came and picked me up from the motel first and then drove us to the Newark airport. Ben and I just got on a bus that was heading into NY from the airport. It was the easiest way to get into the city. I was so glad the driver was willing to come pick me up, the drive in the van was so much nicer than another train ride from New Jersey. I had to take this picture because I think it's funny that they have these DO NOT HONK signs everywhere but that's all everybody does! Our bus driver was the worst one out there, he never laid off the horn! I took this picture out the window as he was driving by this sign honking. Ben and I couldn't stop laughing.
Pretty much our only scheduled thing on Thursday evening was going to Wicked so we just went to Times Square for some souvenier shopping and hanging out.
Then we went to a resturant called John's Pizzeria to get some good old New York style pizza, and boy was it yummy!! After that it was off to Wicked!!
Wicked was awesome! It was so much fun! I wish we would have had time to go to a couple more Broadway shows. After the show we headed back to the train station for our fun hour and a half ride back to New Jersey. Then it was a really early morning catching our flight back home. We had such a good vacation, I'm so glad we were able to go and spend this time together.