Make Sure You Log Off of Facebook when Family is Visiting, Especially Sneaky Nephews

We went to Boise for Thanksgiving and Black Friday. It was fun. It was wonderful. I love getting to spend time with my family since I don't get to do it very often.

We stopped by Littlest Brother & his New Wife's apartment to check things out. They have a pretty nice place. They are students and a couple computers were laying around with half finished homework on their screens. Hopefully they saved their work before we showed up.

Later that night my New Sister-in-Law and Littlest Brother stopped by Sister Homemaker's house to visit and eat yet more pie. I ate as much as possible and it still wasn't enough. I love pie.

New Sister-in-Law told us a classic story. They had left the same time as us and when they got home a little later that night she got on her computer and checked out her Facebook page. "Hey! M, why did you change my facebook status? Everyone's gonna hate me!"

He acted a little shocked and replied, "I didn't change it. I didn't touch your computer!"

"Then how did it get changed?"

"I don't know. Are you sure?"

"Oooohh yeeaaahhhh. Your Nephews and Nieces were over. I bet Middle Child did this."

"So what did he change it to?"

"Family visiting. Boring."

Trimming the Tree, Boy Style

It was that time of year. That time when you start getting the the Christmas decorations out of storage and spreading them around the house. I had bought a new tree last year and was anxious to put it up for the first time. It's a cute tree with red berries and pinecones attached to the branches. And it went up really smoothly. The branches have "Memory." That's fancy talk for saying all the branches and twigs spring out on their own and I don't have to spend half a day unflattening all the branches.

The I got the decorations out and let the kids go. I had them put on all the ornaments this year. I've always let them help but this year I had them do everything. They were pretty excited.

I had gotten most of the ornaments out but hadn't gotten to the ones that I still store in the original box. The kids took care of that. They pulled the ornament and all it's packing out and threw everything on the floor except for the ornament. That went on the tree.

The kids were pretty dang proud of how well they did decorating the tree. I don't know if it was decorating so much as quickly hanging the ornament on whatever branch they happened to be closest to at the time. It's not so noticeable in this picture, but notice the overabundance of ornaments on the bottom of the tree and the lack at the top.

I came in later and removed the 3+ ornaments on each bottom branch and spread them out over the whole tree. In case you were wondering, the box of ornaments was on the floor near this side of the tree.

Notice how the tree becomes exponentially less decorated the farther up you look. It's really quite fascinating. If I was a mathematician I may have been able to figure a formula for the amount of ornaments on each level of branches. I can't help but think of weird things like that. Aren't you glad I don't talk a whole lot?

Reasons Why I Will Never Quit Attending Church (and it ain't the preaching)

1. Seeing the Media in attendance to dig up dirt on someone who unfortunately was part of a highly publicized event
2. Children punching one of their siblings at the end of the Mother's Day song (yes, my children)
   
3. Listening to someone discuss the feelings of Darkness and Evil that they felt emanating from the city their plane was descending into which happened to be Pre-Katrina New Orleans (they didn't even make it to the French Quarter)
   
4. Children singing extra loud and out of key
5. Confessions of recent adultery announced over the pulpit while their spouse was in attendance
   
6. A stranger coming in, asking some questions, sitting down on a row obviously saved for a large family, getting up, and fleeing with someone else's purse from that row
7. Checking out who has had the latest boob job
8. Watching random children running all over the chapel, during church, and attempting to plunk out a tune on the piano before the parents can whisk the child away
9. Viewing all the Girls' Prom dresses the day after Prom
   

And One More Thing

Did I mention the Cupcakes? To Die For.

Our Final Day & a Half or All the Famous People we Saw

Our trip was coming to an end. We only had a day and a morning to fit
in the last of what we wanted to see. First off was Battery Park.

This globe was at the World Trade Center when the towers fell. You can see the damage.

Here we all are at the wharf.

MiL & I with that Famous Statue in the background.

We decided to take the ferry out to see it. We discovered it's quite large.

SiL & I at the entrance to Battery Park

This is Fraunces Tavern where George Washington bid farewell
to his troops after the Revolutionary War.

The New York Stock Exchange. It amazes me how it's just squished
in between some buildings on a little street.

SiL with George Washington where he was sworn in as first President of the US

Trinity Church. Absolutely gorgeous but it is also squished in between
a bunch of buildings and this was the best picture we could get.

The side of the church. There's a lot of famous people buried here
including Alexander Hamilton and Jerry Orbach.

Spongebob on the Street!

SiL with a firefighter that is featured in the 2011 Firefighter Hunks Calendar

MiL and I with the same guy

NYC Fire Department Ladder Co #10. I don't know if it's operational or not
but there's a lot of remembrances for the fallen firefighters.

The scene of the World Trade Center as seen from the 2nd floor of the adjacent Burger King

Next we went to Paul's Cathedral.

This is where the Rescue Workers from 9/11 rested. The first room has
been turned into a memorial for the rescue workers, the fallen,
and the support they received from around the world.

There was such a feeling in this room. I couldn't handle it for very long.

All of the mementos of the rescue effort and the fallen was just too much to bear.

I love how everyone always comes together in a crisis.

Guess what? The NY Yankees won the World Series while we were there!

Remember the Ticker Tape Parade we missed?

Even though the city had been cleaned up, not everything had been
gotten yet and we could see remnants all over.

These are right in front of City Hall

Me & SiL with some parade mementos

And then, of course, we had to hike the Brooklyn Bridge

We're such tourists. I'm not sure why a local would come here but there were
runners and bikers crossing this bridge and fighting all the tourists who were
busy snapping pictures and not watching who was coming at them full speed.

An awesome shot of all those wires

This is where they film Law & Order, one of my favorite shows.

Over on the left you will see a white-haired gentleman. That is John Slattery from Mad Men. He was filming a new Matt Damon movie in the bar. Unfortunately Matt Damon wasn't around.

And we had to visit the Paul Frank store. This flag is rather weathered
and I almost thought someone had just hung it off their balcony.

A Suit of Armor and I

As we were headed home for our last (sob) night (sob) we decided to get some pics of the Play sign. Guess what!?! Daniel Craig & Hugh Jackman were leaving! SiL snapped this pic of Daniel Craig, just like everyone else, hand held high and no idea of what is in the frame. Daniel Craig has the black beret hat on his head, just in case you didn't know. And yes, he's sporting a hideous, monstrous mustache.

Hugh Jackman was a little more elusive. He is wearing the NYC hat.
He waved and told everyone Thank You before getting in his car and racing off.

Our last morning, we got up early and headed west to see the USS New York,
made from World Trade Center steel.

It was only in town for a few days and we didn't have time to see it, it was only open
twice for a few hours each while we were there. It really is a magnificent ship.

And of course the USS Intrepid was pretty awesome also.

The propellers are huge!

And the last shop before we headed home was the cupcake shop!
If I could have brought one thing home, the Cupcake Shop (sigh), Crumbs.

Goodbye NYC! I love you and will be back as soon as possible. I will not be a fickle lover!

Day 2 and How We Had Way Too Much Fun in a Museum

The second full day in NYC found us waking up early, again! Wow, we must have had a lot to do to get up early so often. The night before we had Grand Visions of going to the Ticker-Tape Parade for the NY Mets who had just won the World Series Wednesday night. But as we were watching the Thursday evening news to find out location, time, etc, we saw scads of people sleeping overnight in order to get a good seat for the parade. Then it hit us, We are in a City 10 times more populated than our whole state. Like we would ever get close enough to even see anything! We quickly changed plans and decided to avoid Downtown at all costs. So we headed North. First stop was the LDS temple in NYC. The cool thing is that not only does this building house a temple but also a meeting house.

Then we walked to the American Museum of Natural History

We were greeted at the front door by this giant, headless skeleton!

Oh, wait, he does have a head! It's just way up in the clouds. "How's the weather up there?"

MiL by some Ancient Tablet

Helkp! We're surrounded by Roving Elephants!

And monstrous tusks!

Dum Dum wants some Gum Gum.
Sent this to Middle Child and he violated every cell phone rule
at school and was a big hit with everyone who'd seen Night at the Museum.

Hopefully this guy won't eat us! He's pretty big!

Giant, extinct turtle about to give me a kiss!

MiL & SiL amongst the Mammoths

I told them not to get so close, it's spearing them like marshmallows!

Hope I don't see any of these monstrous moose in our mountains!

Giant Scary Shark, please don't eat us!

Ginormous crab walking our way!

Then we went and stood in a freezing line to get tickets for Mary Poppins. Afterwards we got Pizza to warm our chilly bones. It worked. Unfortunately this is the only pic we got of the place. It was huge and busy. Help! I'm not in Kansas anymore!

Mary Poppins!

The theater was so cute!

Look at all the pretty details!

SiL & I enjoying the show

Then, since we were already in Times Square we got some more cupcakes. Yummm......

Aren't you jealous? If I could bring one thing home with me for keeps.
Then it was off to bed with full tummies for another busy day tomorrow!