Weekend with the Nyes!

Our good friends the Nyes (from Vegas) moved to DC this summer and so we had to take the opportunity to see them! We decided to meet on middle-ish ground, near Atlantic City NJ.

We made it! And all within minutes of eachother, timing worked perfectly :) 6 cute kids waiting for lunch!

They did get a little crazy having to wait a half hour :)


Some guy at the restaurant let the kids sit on his motorcycle. The kids liked it, but I to be honest I think the guy actually got way more of a kick out of it than they did!

Not the best picture, but had to grab a shot to remember the YUMMY food! I got breakfast for lunch and it was delicious!

Then we headed to the beach in Brigantine, NJ. It was cold, but not near as cold as the beaches in Maine and Massachusetts we went to weeks earlier.

These two can be awfully cute together when they get along! They are just still kind of young for the kind of friendship older kids have, but are always excited to see eachother.

                  Marlee had a lot of fun playing in the water with Ryan. I love watching them play.

I'm not going to lie, I spent most of my time on the sand, not in the water :) It was nice when Marlee would get cold enough to come snuggle with me.

Brinley and Jansen had a lot of fun playing in the sand together. Brinley got tired of the water quicker than usual.

Wish I had good pics of Casen in the water, that is definitely where he spent most of his time!

After the beach the kids swam in the hotel pool and then we all had pizza together,

Breakfast the next morning, we took our food outside... much easier with 6 kiddos :)

We headed to a natural reserve of some sort, wanted to enjoy the outdoors on Sunday. The kids all loved this little frog Nate caught as soon as we got there.

The lily pads were so beautiful, just like in movies.

The kids kept collecting rocks, which made our return walk rather lengthy. We would make them run to catch up!

Their giant rock collections! Kids crack me up!

We headed to get some lunch before both heading back home, we found this cute little place on a little lake.

The Nyes sure are great people and we will definitely miss getting to live by them! So glad we had one more adventure!

Headed back to the city!

Headed "home."  I had never bought mini cucumbers before, but turns out they are a perfect snack for the kiddos since they can each eat their own, love that.

New York Week #3!

 Brinley and Ryan went on a little Daddy-daughter date to the Empire State Building.

 Beautiful views! Wish they would have had the big camera, but thank goodness for iphones :)

 Lucky girl!

 Didn't even realize Ryan caught this, but it was the perfect picture to show how things went most nights! It was hard for Marlee to stay in her pack n play in the closet when our bed was just right there.

  Hat day! The kids all wanted to wear hats and match me :) We decided to use our last day of bus tickets and tour a little more of the city.

 I have always loved this building in movies! It was fun to see in real life. Kids had no clue what it was.

 Marlee kept calling this building the princess castle, probably the only building in NY she cared to see!

 People looked at me like I was crazy taking these 3 cute kids on a bus tour on my own. Good thing they are awesome, I know, I'm biased.

 We got off the bus at a pier and then played at a park. Poor Marlee girl, so tired from all the running around.

 We played at a park near the pier, it has these giant foam blocks the kids could build with. They had a ton of fun!

 The surroundings of this park were a little different than what we were used to!

 It started POURING before we left the park, made our morning adventure even more exciting!

 It was fun to see old buildings, wonder what their stories were, whose faces used to peer out those windows...

 We definitely needed a bigger kitchen table to accommodate our three little artist.

 Marlee and Auri, Marlee sure loved her little friend! Auri loved everytime she got a chance to sit in the stroller... Casen did not love it so much and complained when he had to walk!

 Ground Zero. Really glad I got to take the kids to see this. Pretty incredible.

Things like this made everything more personal. I kept telling the kids, these aren't just names, these are real people.

 Daddy was working late again so we grabbed a pizza... eating that whole plate of veggies with the kids first makes it ok to eat greasy pizza right?? :)

 The view from our apartment was beautiful! The ladies who worked at the front desk were always so sweet to the kids and excited everytime they passed through.

 We met Hilary and her kids at Central Park, never found the play ground we wanted but the kids had fun running around... eventually I restored to telling them to see who could find the biggest leaf - here is Marlee's.

 Brinley built this fort and insisted on sleeping in it. She actually stayed in "bed" for once! yay!

 My cousin Chris Gilbert, his cute wife Tori, and her family all came to NY for a week. We were able to meet up with them at the Shake Shack. Her family is so sweet. Chris is such a great guy, can't wait to see where life takes him. It sure was fun chatting with them.

 On Sunday we went to church at the Manhattan Temple. Most of the building is the temple, but we went to church on the 3rd floor which was literally just like so many other LDS churches, it was crazy!

The gym we went to was SO nice and fancy. I would have loved to take more picture but felt dumb :) So I just snuck this one real quick one day.

Riding the subway!Maybe the only time they all just sat on the bench for more than a minute.

This is more like the way Marlee liked to ride the subway :)

On my way to my ultrasound and waiting for my first appointment!

Can't even tell you how happy I was when I found out it was a boy. I have to admit I cried just a bit, I just knew Casen would be so excited. His prayer for a brother finally paid off :)

My friend Hilary watched the kids so I could go to get my ultrasound, it was fun to get to come back and announce the news to the kids!

The subways were seriously filthy!!! Do you think this floor has EVER been cleaned??