One more slide show, for now

I wanted to get one more slide show up to make a dedication to all the people we were able to go and visit while we were in NY. Sorry if you don't like the picture of yourselves, but it's going up anyway. Thanks for taking the time to see us while we were in NY, or one of the various states we visited on our "mini" road trip. I know we didn't get pictures of everyone, but most of you are on here. We love you!

Our day in NYC

We made it home safely and enjoyed every part of our trip to New York. Thanks to everyone who helped make this possible for us! We love you all! But, I better finish telling you about our amazing vacation! Sunday night (July 27) my uncle, Chris, came and picked us up to bring us down to the city to stay with him a couple of nights before we left, so we stayed with him in Queens.

Monday morning (July 28) we got up early and headed out to the NY Subway, a short distance from Chris' apartment. Dar & I were quite proud of ourselves that we were able to navigate ourselves around the city using the subway system and we didn't get lost once! Yay us! :) Our first stop was to Battery Park to get on the ferry over to Liberty Island to see the Statue of Liberty. We got off the ferry and walked around the island for a while before getting on another ferry that would take us to Ellis Island. The history of Ellis Island is just amazing! Darwin and I were completely fascinated by reading the stories and details of the journey that immigrants had to face in attempting to come to America. I wish I could share all the details, but you'll have to ask us personally if you want the info :). We spent a few hours on Ellis Island reading about the stories of the immigrants and then ate lunch there. (For any of you planning a trip like this, I have to caution you about the food on Ellis Island. There is only one cafe, and the food is aweful! Don't eat it if you can help it!) After Ellis Island we went back to NYC and walked the short distance to the site of the World Trade Center. It's not too exciting right now because they removed the memorial monument that was there and are in the process of putting up new buildings (which my uncle, Matt, is one of the people working on it!) so it just looks like a big construction site right now.

We then made our way back to the subway to go to the American Museum of Natural History, which is right across the street from Central Park. The museum was really cool, but unfortunately we didn't realize how early they close, and being the science geeks that we are ;) we didn't get to spend nearly as much time there as we had wanted. After the AMNH we met up with my uncle, Chris, & his girlfriend, Mary, and they took us to a really great Italian restaurant. The food was soo yummy! Then we went and got dessert & headed back to the apartment to pack up our things and get ready to come home. This trip really was amazing! We had the greatest time and enjoyed visiting all the people we got to visit! We hope you'll all come visit Utah sometime! P.S. I just realized that our pictures get cut off on the right hand side with the slide show. Sorry if you don't get the full effect!

Jones Beach - 07-25-08

Yesterday Uncle Anson and the kids took us to Jones Beach in Long Island, NY. It was probably my first real experience riding the waves in the ocean, and it was awesome! Darwin & I went to the ocean when we went to Cancun, Mexico on our honeymoon but there weren't any waves like we had at Jones Beach yesterday. We had a blast and got sun burned at the same time, even though we were wearing spf 50 sun screen. It's fun that we get to visit both the East coast and the West coast this summer in a matter of weeks from each other.

Test Run

I'm playing around with options and ways to post slide shows. Here's my first test:

"Mini"-Road Trip

Well, our "mini"-road trip turned out to be bigger than I really expected, but we had an immaculate time, as Dar would say. Our trip began on Thursday morning (July 17) by heading out to Hertz Car Rental here in Poughkeepsie to pick up our temporary transportation. With much persuasion, I finally got Darwin to agree to get a Navigation system so we wouldn't be lost our entire trip. We ended up getting a pretty sweet deal on our car, having only paid $144 for 3 days, plus the navigation system & bumper-to-bumper insurance for our trip. We thought it was hilarious though when we walked out to our assigned car and it had a Utah license plate! What are the chances of that?! Haha.

The navigation system was a complete and total life-saver! We decided to call it our Liahona (for those of you who don't know what a Liahona is, it's a type of compass used by a Prophet named Lehi in the Book of Mormon) and nick-named it "Leah" for short, particularly because a woman's voice is used for the navigation. We liked "Leah" so much that we decided when we're rich and famous we want to buy a "Leah" for our own car. Half the fun of the whole trip was just being on the road together, enjoying the experience. Dar & I really do love road trips together & we're looking forward to driving out to Oregon in a few weeks with Dar's family!

So, back to our adventure. We left Pougkeepsie about 9:30 ish Thursday morning to drive out to Hershey, Pennsylvania. We didn't do a whole lot there, but did explore the Chocolate World Factory. Admittedly, Darwin was a little disappointed that we didn't get to see the actual factory and that we didn't get to see the real making of the chocolate, but he liked it anyway. It was tempting to buy a bunch of chocolate there, until you remember you can buy the exact same thing at Wal-Mart for a lot cheaper, so we refrained from blowing all our money on the yummy chocolate and goodies.

Here's us with a picture of a Kit-Kat candy bar character guy, who is a real person trying to be a statue. It was pretty funny that he was trying so hard not to move, so we got a picture with him :) I loved being there and felt almost as excited as the Willy Wonka factory winners who got to spend a day in his factory! Okay, maybe not quite that excited, but it was great to be there and take Darwin to the factory for his first time.

After our little trip to the Hershey Factory, we headed back towards northern Pennsylvania to meet up with another friend of Darwin's from Disney World, Aron Wright. It was so great for me to meet him and for Darwin to see a good friend again. They haven't seen each other since 2003, so it was a nice time for them to catch up. Unfortunately neither one of us remembered to pull out our camera to get a picture with Aron & Darwin together, but it was great to see him! And thanks for the Iraqi money, Aron! We're going to frame it when we get home and hang onto it! Thanks for thinking of us! Following our wonderful visit with Aron we drove another hour north to find our hotel, and pulled in at about 12:30am.

July 18: After snoozing for about 6 hours we were up and ready to go again. The sweet guy at the hotel was concerned that we didn't get enough sleep, but we were off on our way to Amesbury, Massachusetts to meet up with Rinalda, a lady Darwin knew in the first area of his mission to Fortaleza, Brazil. She lives with her husband, Anderson, and daughter Melissa, in Amesbury. Trying to find their apartment was the first time our "Leah" messed up an address, and because they live so close to the border, when we had to make a U-turn we ended up in New Hampshire twice, taking our total of states visted that day to 5: Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire; all in one day! Suh-wheat!

It was fun to meet yet another person Darwin knows from his mission. Rinalda, your family is beautiful and it was so fun for us to come visit and spend some time with you!

Following our visit with Rinalda and her family we headed down to Cambridge, Massachusetts where we would be staying the night with one of my former coworkers, Kristen Mills, and her family. They were great to let us stay with them. The Mills' just moved to Cambridge July 1, so that Kristen's husband, Jad, can attend law school at Harvard University. They took us on a tour of Harvard University and told us some of the history of the school.

This is Dar touching the foot of a statue on the Harvard University grounds. The reason he's making this face is because it's rumored that if you rub the foot (which you can see is a different color than the rest of the statue because so many people have touched it) it will give you good luck. But, it is also rumored that some silly boys have urinated on the foot of the statue as well (although we were trying to figure out how they were able to urinate on something so high). Haha. So Darwin is trying to be lucky while completely disgusted at the same time :) It was really fun to be on the campus of such an aged and well known University. Good luck with law school, Jad!

July 19: Saturday was the final day of our "mini"-road trip, but was pretty jam-packed and we were both exhausted by the end of it. We had the privilege of spending the day in Boston, Massachusetts, touring the city and engulfing ourselves in its history. It was the first experience for both of us to ride on a subway train, and it was pretty sweet.

We did the Freedom Trail, if any of you are familiar with the area, and saw some pretty incredible sites, but we don't want to bore you with all the details of the day ;). One of my favorite things we saw was an amazing cemetery. It was the confirmation of the stereotypical cemetery of the time period. In that particular cemetery several well-known historic figures were buried, such as: Paul Revere, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and possibly the infamous Mrs. Goose. But the thing that fascinated me the most were the tomb stones. Many of them had a skull at the top of them with angel wings coming out of the skull, or cross bones. Others had "grim reaper" type creatures, and others had angel faces with wings coming out.

Some of the tomb stones were practically buried in the ground so far you could only see the top of it. The cemetery was definitely very fascinating. It was probably one of my favorite stops of the trail. Not to mention how cool it was to see the grave of Paul Revere and John Hancock.

One of Dar's favorite things was going to see the U.S.S. Constitution again. He visited it just out of 4th grade when his family took a trip around the United States. For those who don't know, the U.S.S. Constitution is a war ship from the Revolutionary War.

We also got to tour the U.S.S. Cassin Young, a World War II battle ship. It was neat to walk around both ships and to see the living and working quarters of the men who worked and lived on them. We were also surprised to see jelly fish all over the place around both ships. I guess we're just not use to ever seeing jelly fish in the water in Utah :)

Visiting the ships was the last thing we did on the Freedom Trail and we headed back to Cambridge after that. My very favorite thing of the whole day was being able to see my favorite twins the whole world. Sarah Loiacono & Rebecca Loiacono Green. We became very good friends when I lived in NY in 8th grade, and have remained good friends ever since. It was truly a blessing to be able to see them again, and even though it was a short visit, we had a great time together catching up on things.

Me, Rebecca, & Sarah

We met up with them to eat at a really great Italian restaurant in Boston, and Darwin was in heaven with his sea food platter; he usually doesn't get the opportunity to eat sea food because I don't like it so he tries not to eat it around me. However he decided to take advantage of being on the coast and splurge on this particular occasion with some fresh Boston lobster, muscles, clams, shrimp, scallops, calamari (squid), and I think halibut.

It was a wonderful trip, and a great opportunity to check off some states, see some wonderful sites, and spend some time with some great people. We're glad we were able to meet up with everyone we were planning to see, and to see the sites we wanted to visit. Thanks to everyone for making the effort to see us while we're in the area. We love you all, and thanks to Jad & Kristen for letting us crash at your place for a night, it was great to see you all & hope to have you all come visit us in Utah!

Jad, Konrad, Kristen, & me (with my incredibly perfect posture :) haha)

NY Fun

Dar & I haven't really been up to a whole lot the last few days, besides relaxing and simply enjoying our NY vacation. Sunday (July 13) after church we went to my grandparent's house in Millbrook, NY to celebrate all of the June & July family birthdays (which there are a lot of). We were able to see most of my family there, and Darwin was able to meet most of them for the first time. We had delicious food and a great time catching up and socializing. Thanks for your hospitality, everyone! Over the next few days Dar & I will be on a mini-road trip to Pennsylvania, then out to Massachusetts, & back. We'll let you know about our little adventure when we get back. It should be exciting because we have no idea how to get around the area & everything looks the same with all the roads lined with trees! This should be fun! Keep your fingers crossed for us and pray that we'll make it back safely!

We made it!

Sorry it has taken us a few days to get you caught up on our adventurous trip in New York. We've had a blast already! I hope this isn't too boring but I'm just going to do a quick run-down of our trip so far, and try not to bore you...We arrived at the Call (my aunt & uncle's house in Poughkeepsie, NY) residence Tuesday evening, and by Wednesday afternoon we were on the road again to begin our first adventure out here on the East Coast. After a 5 1/2 hour car ride we arrived in Palmyra, NY and set up camp at a KOA campground in Farmington, NY, which would be our home for the next 3 days. That night after we set up camp, Darwin had his first experience of catching fire flies, definitely an experience to remember!

July 10: Thursday we did a tour of the LDS Church sites around Palmyra. We first went to the Palmyra Visitor's Center and low and behold, I ran into someone I went to high school with in Layton. Haha. Small world! I didn't know her personally but she looked familiar to me and after talking to her for a minute we discovered that we both graduated from Layton High School and I graduated the year before she did. Her name was Amber, and she is in Palmyra for the Hill Cumorah Pageant as a harvest dancer. Following the Visitor's Center we walked to the top of Hill Cumorah, went to the Palmyra Temple, and took a tour of the Smith Farm, then had the privilege of spending some time in the Sacred Grove, and then took a tour of the Grandin Print Shop where the Book of Mormon was first published. Following the Print Shop we took a little gander over to see the Erie Canal, which was fairly close to the Grandin Print Shop. Darwin, of course, couldn't resist the opportunity to take a little dip into the Erie Canal; quite possibly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity:

Shortly after his "dive" into the Erie Canal we noticed a strange item floating towards us, so we watched and waited...As this was happening, Darwin gave us our quote-of-the-day: "Of course it's coming to me! I'm it's daddy!" Really a had-to-be-there kind of a quote, but I thought it was pretty funny. Especially because as it turns out the thing was a huge, dead fish. Haha. We took a picture of it for memory's sake, but I don't want to gross anyone out so I'll refrain from posting it for you :) Thursday night we had the opportunity of watching the dress rehearsal of the Hill Cumorah Pageant, which was absolutely awesome, although we didn't get any pictures because we were following the rules of no flash photography, unlike some others in attendance.

July 11: Friday we had the opportunity to drive another hour and a half to Niagara, NY to see the infamous Niagara Falls. This was a totally amazing experience! We've been told by many that it's completely worth it to go to the Canadian side to see the Falls, but we had an absolute blast on the American side. The Falls were beautiful, and it was amazing to be right there in the the mist of it :)

We were so immersed in the "mist" of it we actually had the opportunity to pretty much take a shower in the Niagara Falls. We did a tour called "Cave of the Winds" where you take an elevator 150 feet down into the ground and walk on this deck-type path, and you get to stand right up next to the American Falls. The wind and water was so intense that we were pretty much soaked with water from the Niagara Falls by the time the tour was over. We liked it so much we wanted to do it again; we should have, unfortunately we didn't. One of the best things about it was that it only cost us $10 a person, and we got a free rain poncho and sandals out of the deal. Absolutely worth it! I totally recommend it if you're ever in the area and have the opportunity to do so. We weren't able to take pictures of us while we were on the dock "showering" because we didn't want to get our camera wet, so this is a picture from the top of the falls of other people on the tour.

While in Niagara, Darwin was also able to meet up with an old friend, Brian, whom he worked at Disney World with in 2003. It was fun for Darwin & Brian to see each other again and for me to meet him. When we were done looking at the main falls and Brian left us, we drove down the river a few miles to a whirlpool in the Niagara River. We got to watch the jet boats, from a tour the Canadian side does, drive into the whirlpool and a cable-car type deal that goes out over the whirlpool on a cable extended over the river. That was really neat as well.

While we were there we found out about a trail that led down to the river and went on a little adventure hike that turned out to be a little more adventurous than we had planned on. We got down to the lowest part of the trail we could find, and then Darwin, my uncle Anson, and cousins Amanda and Jarom decided to hike down a little further to the river's edge. My cousin Sariah and I decided we were getting tired of hiking and started back up the side of the gorge to wait for the others at the top. Turns out while Sariah and I were hiking back, my cousin, Amanda, slipped on a rock and fell into the Niagara River!!! Thanks to Darwin's quick thinking, and Amanda's survival skills, Dar took our camera off from around his neck to first make sure it wouldn't get wet, and pulled Amanda out of the river. We're so glad that she's safe & that nothing serious happened in the event, but also grateful for the exciting story to tell. Thanks for thinking quick, Dar, and being able to rescue our sweet Mandy! This incident also led to the quote of the day for Friday: Anson as we got in the car to head home: "Something doesn't smell right." Mandy, sitting in the back soaking wet from falling in the river: "Maybe it's me?!" (Because she smelled like the stinky fish fragrance that comes with rivers and water falls). Following our fun time in Niagara and the drive back to the KOA, we decided to take the advantage to go see the Hill Cumorah Pageant again. We decided we might as well because we had the time and will probably not have the opportunity again for a while. It was just as good the second time!

July 12: We drove back to Pougkeepsie today and entertained ourselves during the long drive by watching the kids sleep in the back seat. Darwin took video of it, and I'll try to post it later. That is just about it for now. I'm going to try to post more frequently when I can so you don't have to read an entire book at one time about our adventures. Until then, ciao.

Look Out New York

We are about to embark on an extravagant journey to the Big Apple. (By the way, does anybody know why it is called the Big Apple?) We'll be staying there for three weeks visiting Kiara's family, other friends, and the wonderful vistas near by. I know all ya'll here in Utah are gonna miss us so we'll keep you updated on our blog and you can check it after you get home from work. I love summer vacation!

Independence Day Festivities

Darwin started out his independence day festivities a day early by going flying with our good friend, Jared, and was able to take a turn at flying the plane for his first time (with the dedicated coaching of Jared in the seat next to him). Good job, babe!
Friday morning we got up bright and early to attend the Balloon Festival here in Provo, which has become tradition for us on the 4th of July. It's one of our most favorite things to do. It's a blast to watch the hot air balloons fill up and then take off into the air, and attempt to make their way back to their launching field to participate in some balloonist competitions. We were literally right underneath some of the balloons at times. It's totally a fun event for the holiday, and we strongly encourage those of you who haven't been to make the effort to get up and be there at 6:00 am to enjoy the experience.

After the Balloon Fest we went and enjoyed a delicious breakfast provided to us by the McSweeney family and watched the parade together. Darwin and I then came home and took a nap for a couple of hours (because we got up at 5 to get ready for the balloon festival and we knew we'd be up late enjoying the fireworks). Following our nap we went down to Mom & Dad Deming's in Mapleton for a BBQ with delicious food and fun, festive drinks...
We stuffed ourselves to the brim and then headed back to Provo to save a comfy spot on the grass to await the Stadium of Fire fireworks. I almost think we had more fun waiting for the fireworks than actually watching them, almost being the key word :). Mom & Dad Deming bought glow-sticks for our enjoyment, Darwin & I brought sparklers, and Travis & Rachel brought the kids and a yummy cake! We had tons of fun playing with the glow-sticks, sparklers and the kids. It was so fun to watch Alli watch the fireworks as well. Alli will be 2 in October and when she saw a firework she liked she'd say, "Ah!" or "Oh!". It was totally fun. I hope your Independence Day was as fun and exciting as ours was! Happy Birthday, America!

Dar & Alli chasing Emma

Dar attempting to write his name w/ a sparkler.

Me w/ my neon antennas & necklaces.

More birthday wishes

I hope you're not sick of all the birthday wishes going on in our blog lately but I guess June is just the best time to have a birthday! Also, because Jared & Tracee don't have a blog yet, I wanted to post some pictures of their little girl, Reagan's, 1st birthday. We had b-day celebrations with both of their families and then later we went on a nice walk up the Provo River Trail to Bridal Veil Falls. Here are some pictures...enjoy!

Reagan opening our present :)

*Note: These are not my hands pushing Dar's face into Reagan's cake. They belong to Jared's sister, Rebecca. I'm the one taking the picture :)

Reagan & Jared enjoying one of Reagan's new toys.