1st Day of School

Ashlee and Brynlee were SO excited for school to start!

Ashlee is in 3rd grade this year...

Ashlee is excited that so many of her friends are in her class...

Abel, Ashlee, Devin and Emily

Brynlee is in 1st grade...

It will be weird to have her gone all day! She has the same teacher that Ashlee had for 1st grade so it's nice to know that routine already...

Last Days of Summer

Sadly, summer is coming to an end. We've had an awesome summer, though, so I guess we can start school now.

When we got back from NYC, we had our annual Barton Bear Lake get together. We BBQ'd at Grandma and Grandpa's house on Friday night and then had s'mores. Now these are not your ordinary s'mores. Rob's brother, Dave, has introduced us to Gourmet S'mores. I don't think I can go back to plain marshmallow and chocolate ones again. That night we tried out some new varieties which included Reese's peanut butter cups with banana slices and Dove caramel-filled chocolates with strawberries. YUM!

We woke up Saturday morning to the drizzling rain. Not exactly the perfect Bear Lake day. We decided to stay in Logan until the afternoon.

Here are all the cousins in their tie dye shirts that they made at Cousins Day.

Somehow it got later and later and we still hadn't left for Bear Lake. Finally, I think it was a little after 6:00 p.m. that we couldn't resist any longer. Everyone really wanted to go to Bear Lake, even if we just played in the sand for a few minutes and made a quick stop at LaBeau's. With the weather a chilly 60 degrees, we didn't think the kids would dare touch the water, but we brought swimsuits just in case. Well, the kids started off with just their feet in and then seconds later were begging for their swimsuits.

After the sun was setting and the kids were turning purple, we stopped at LaBeau's and then headed home.

The last hurrah was on Wednesday when we went to the pool with some friends. I only managed to get this one picture of Brynlee going down the slide...

School starts on Tuesday. So long summer...until we meet again in 9 months!

Alphabet Game

We drove up to Bear Lake on Saturday with some of my family. On the way up, the kids were complaining that the drive is so long. Ah, 45 minutes, so long...

So after a few minutes of listening to complaining, we started playing a game. We took turns, each person saying a word that starts with the next letter of the alphabet, after reciting all the words that other people had already said. So we started with Apple. The next person said Apple Brynlee. Then Apple Brynlee Cookie and so on.

Ashlee said it was dumb, so didn't want to play, until we got about halfway through the alphabet. I guess she realized we were all having fun without her, so she joined in with us for the rest of the alphabet.

Lando needed a little help remembering some of the words, although he did amazingly well. On one of his turns, he stumbled a little on Golf-ball Horse Igloo, skipping the Horse. "Don't forget Horse. It's Horse Igloo." Lando's response... "Horse glue?" Ah, no, that's a conversation we'll have another time.

Perhaps next time we play, we'll ban the words we used last time and make it a little more challenging.

Dollars

Lando: I didn't get dinner tonight. (about 9:30 p.m., all the other kids in bed)

Rob: We had dinner. Remember we made grilled cheese sandwiches. Did you have a grilled cheese?

Lando: I wanted Costa Vida. (He'd been asking for Costa Vida pretty much all day long.)

Rob: No, maybe another night we'll get Costa Vida. Probably not for awhile, though, since it's kind of expensive. Mommy and I just spent a lot of money when we went to New York, so we need to save some so we can have enough.

Lando: Why don't you just go to the dollar store?

Rob: What do they have at the dollar store? (not sure if he's talking about buying stuff cheap or actually buying more dollars)

Lando: They have dollars there. You can go and just get some more dollars. Then you'll have money again. Just go to the dollar store.

Rob: Okay, I'll talk to mommy about that when she gets home from the grocery store. Right now you need to go get in bed.

NYC: Days 4 & 5

Day 4 started off as usual with a stop at a street vendor for a bagel with cream cheese. These things were HUGE and only $1.25! Can't beat breakfast for two for under $3!
We took the subway to our first stop of the day, Battery Park, to take the ferry to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

This is Ellis Island, where the immigrants first arrived when coming to America. This place was amazing and did an awesome job of describing the process they went through when arriving here.Then we walked a few blocks to Ground Zero. Didn't get any pictures there since most of what you can see is a chain link fence around the construction zone. We also went into St. Paul's chapel. A quote from their website...

"Located directly across from the World Trade Center site, St. Paul's Chapel, an Episcopal church, was home to an extraordinary eight-month volunteer relief effort after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001. Unwavering Spirit, a new interactive exhibit, honors that ministry and its legacy of love and compassion."

Emotions were very near the surface as I reflected again on that day when our nation was changed forever.

Walking around the Ground Zero block, we were tempted again by a pizza place. My mouth is watering right now for a giant slice of New York style pizza!Then we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge to...yep, you guessed it, Brooklyn :)

It was amazing to me how "quiet" it was over there. We could actually hear some birds chirping and weren't bombarded with the noise of the busy city. Then we took the subway back to our hotel.

For our last night in NYC, we ate dinner and then walked to Times Square to experience the lights and action down there...

Day 5 was pretty much traveling home. We woke up at 6:00 am (which I wondered how in the world I could do that considering it was 4:00 back home in Utah!), checked out of the hotel at 7:00, picked up a bagel on the way to the subway to JFK and headed home to Utah. It was a really fun trip. I was ready to be home, though! Next vacation will be a nice, relaxing one...sitting on a beach with a good book for 5 days. Hey, a girl can dream, right?!

NYC: While We Were Gone

A HUGE thank you to Rob's sister, Cheryl, and her husband, Chris, for taking care of the kids for us while we were gone. The kids had a blast staying with their cousins!

Every summer we have a Cousins Day for the Barton cousins to all get together and play. The summer was quickly coming to an end, so they ended up doing it on Wednesday while we were in New York. You can read about the fun HERE and HERE.

NYC: Day 3

We were exhausted after the first couple days in NYC. Day 3 was a pretty relaxing day. First, we went to the Manhattan New York LDS temple and did an endowment session. The outside doesn't look like much but the inside of the temple is beautiful!

Then we had lunch at Rupert Jee's Hello Deli. The sandwiches were yummy and of course, it was cool to see Rupert...

Next we headed to the Gershwin Theater to see Wicked! Love, loved it! Seeing that, the Yankees game, and Ellis Island (Day 4) were probably my favorite things from the trip!

After the show, we walked back to our hotel. We took a nap (did I mention we were exhausted?) and then went to Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola at Jazz at Lincoln Center for dinner and a Jazz show. John Patitucci, Joe Lovano & Brian Blade performed...not totally my type of music but it was enjoyable.

New York City: Days 1 & 2

Rob and I just got back from our trip to NYC for our 10th anniversary. It's not actually until the 27th but with school starting and all, we had to get it in before it never happened! We flew out Monday morning and got into JFK around 3:00. We took the subway from the airport to our hotel...and got out of the subway to find Trump International Hotel and Tower greeting us to NYC...
For dinner we found a "hole in the wall" pizza place that was so good, we both ended up ordering another piece! YUM! Then we walked around Central Park for awhile until it got dark...

(The Sheep Meadow in Central Park...it is an area reserved for quiet enjoyment)

Rob by a fountain by the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir

A view of the city skyline from Central Park

This was the view from our hotel...Day Two started with a bagel and cream cheese from a street vendor (pretty much how every day started!) Then we hit the streets of New York, first stopping by the Late Show with David Letterman....

We didn't get to see a taping since they weren't taping that week. We kept on walking to Radio City Music Hall...

(This was taken the night before we left on our way to Times Square)

then the Rockefeller Center (we didn't make it early enough to see the Today Show outside, but did peek into the window of one of the buildings and saw Kathy Lee Gifford doing her show)...

then to the New York Public Library...

then the Empire State Building...

(I love this picture from the Empire State Building showing Central Park among all the skyscrapers)

Next it was off to Grand Central Station (where it's grand and it's central...movie, Marcy??) to take the subway up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art...

The night ended with an awesome Yankees game...

In the seventh inning, the Yankees were down by one and I turned to Rob and said, "The Yankees better win, and I better see a homerun." Have no fear, Hideki Matsui and Jorge Posada are here! Bottom of the 8th, they hit back to back homeruns! Melky Cabrera and Johnny Damon added RBI singles to extend the lead to 7-4. Then they brought out Mariano Rivera in the 9th to finish off the Blue Jays ...okay so they hit a homerun off him first thing, but then he finished them off :). Yeah, it was awesome! They ended up winning 7-5.

The wait for the subway ride back to the hotel was miserably hot, sweaty and crowded...but hey, what better way to experience NYC, right?