New York with Liv

In February when the BYU Football schedule came out, my brother and Ryan decided we should come out and visit for the UConn game, within driving distance of Manhattan. We left Penny, for the first time, with my parents. It was so hard leaving her, I just cried and cried when I dropped her off, and I missed her like crazy the entire time we were gone. We went over Labor Day weekend so Ryan only had to miss one day of work, and brother Ryan got Monday off to spend the day with us!

We got there super late Thursday night, then got stuck in traffic for two hours, so we got to their apartment even later and finally got to bed around 2:30 am. We went straight to bed, but the girls woke up so happy to see each other and got along right away. We all got dressed in our BYU gear and had an easy morning, and went down the street to the new Trade Center Memorial. It is the most remarkable memorial. In all the chaos of the city, with the running water it is so quiet and peaceful. Shanna showed us how they put a white rose on the names when it's their birthday, so the girls had a fun time running around to find all of the roses. Another cool thing about the monument is that they don't list the names in alphabetical order, they list them by association. So the people are next to the people they knew, they worked with, were related to or friends. Such an amazing place. 

We rented a car and headed on out to UConn, along with the other thousands of people traveling on the Friday afternoon of Labor Day Weekend. Ryan anticipated some traffic so he wasn't worried about arriving on time. But then all of the sudden we came to a stand still, and after 45 minutes we found out that Obama was in town and the roads were completely shut down so he could get to where he needed to go. So after parking and walking we got to the game just after kick off. It was a beautiful night for a football game. We all ate a lot of concession food, and had a great time, even the girls!

BYU pulled out the win, which made for a good trip home. This time, instead of 5 hours we were able to get back to the apartment in about 2 hours. It was such a fun night and so glad we were there to go with Ryan and Kenna. 

We tried our best to make the rest of the trip very kid-friendly. So we got up Saturday morning, the girls dressed the same and did their hair the same and we made our way up to FAO Schwartz. We had a blast walking around looking at all of the huge stuffed animals and an overwhelming amount of Hello Kitty paraphernalia.  

 

 

For lunch we went to this hole in the wall place called the "Burger Joint" that is located in an up-scale hotel. It was so good too! 

Then we went across the street and played for awhile at this awesome and huge playground in Central Park. The girls were in heaven. It was so fun to watch them run around and laugh and play. 

The kids then enjoyed some ice cream while the dads checked out Niketown. 

Needless to say they were a little tuckered out. We ordered in some Chinese and once the kids were asleep Ryan and I took an entertaining ride to the Magnolia Bakery to get some delicious banana pudding. 

We  were glad we got to spend Sunday with Ryan and Shanna and their family, to go to church with them, to entertain Kenna and Jace in Sacrament Meeting and attend a baptism of a girl in their ward afterward. It was such a nice relaxing day, with lots of Carson snuggle time too. 

On Monday, we had an extremely day, making the most of our last day there! We went to breakfast at Financier, waited an absurdly long time for our food, but it was sure tasty! Then we took a ferry over to Brooklyn and made our way to a fun little shaded park for the kids to play in. 

The kids got a ride on the Carousel and then we had a yummy lunch at the Shake Shack. 

 

We went back for a little rest, and then went back out to Times Square, visited the Disney store and M&M store, and had seen enough crazy people to last a lifetime we decided to go back and get ready to leave back home.

It was such an incredible weekend, and I'm so glad we took Livy so her and Kenna could play. When people ask her what her favorite thing was she says, "Coloring with Kenna", gosh I love her. We can't wait to do it again sometime. 

We missed Baby Pen so much, but I was so grateful for the picture updates while we were gone. So grateful for the best grandparents ever. 

First Day of Preschool

Our Sweet Olivia had her first day of Preschool and was SOOO excited to go. It was a long summer of anticipation looking forward to it. We decided to go to a bigger preschool up the street in Saratoga Springs just a few minutes from our house. She has a wonderful teacher, and loves going every Tuesday and Thursday. She gets to take something for show-n-tell every day. For the first few months there was a different color for each day. So she got to dress up for "green day", "yellow day", and she loves it. I loves this little 3 almost 4 year old smart little girl. 

Hobble Creek Half Marathon

On Penny's birthday Ryan and I ran the Hobble Creek Half Marathon. The race is usually fills up within an hour of registration, but I saw in June that they added a few spots at a discounted price, so I decided to sign us both up. I made a goal at the beginning of the year to run 3 half marathons, so this completed that goal.

We stayed over night at the Jacksons so we could wake up early and Sue helped watch the girls. It was a beautiful morning and perfect weather for a race. I wanted to beat my time from the Utah Valley Half, but I hadn't really ran more than 6 miles leading up to the race, so my expectations weren't super high. And our time came within 10 seconds of our time from the UV Half. But I was still happy, because it felt great, and was still a good time!

Jackson Family

Since it was the first time in 18 months the whole Jackson family was together we needed a good family picture. Our last minute planning turned out great. I wish Ryan and I were scooted in a bit more, but I love it. I love all of these little cousins. It's so fun to see them all run around together, we are just so sad that everyone has to live so far away! But we love taking advantage of the times we do have together. 

Ogden Open House

On our way home from Bear Lake we stopped in Ogden at the open house of the new temple. It was so amazing and beautiful. It was a huge blessing to be there not only with my own little family, but all of our Jackson cousins. I am so thankful that we can be together as a family forever. How blessed we are to be together for eternity. I love my little family so much and am so lucky to have them forever. 

Happy First Birthday Pen!

Our sweet Baby Penny turned 1! She is the sweetest and best baby. She loves her older sister "ceec", "mama", "dada", and her very first official word "dog". She loves our Sarge and every other dog so much. We walk into our house and she says dog over and over again until she sees him. She loves to eat, she's gotten very good at signing it too. She always waves 'hi' and 'bye', and signs "more" and "please". She loves to hug, but we call it the Penny Lean, she will just lay her head on your shoulder and smile, it's the best kind of hug. She's a super crawler too! She has gotten so fast I don't think she even wants to walk. 

We were lucky enough to have family in town for Penny's birthday, so they all came over for some chocolate cupcakes. It was so fun to have all of this family in our home celebrating a birthday. 

Then since my parents were out of town, we did another party the next week. We are so lucky to have both grandparents here for this sweet girl's birthday party. We love this sweet and happy girl and are so blessed to have her in our lives and in our home.