30 Days of Thankful: Family

Thankful for every last one of them...

Thanksgiving 2013, Port Aransas

30 Days of Thankful: This Day

Need I say moore? Hope you all had your fill of sweet potatoes, pie, and plenty of laughter.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Ten Years. Always an Adventure.

Ten years ago today, I had run off to Vegas (with sixty close friends and family members, of course) to marry Brendon Moore. During the ceremony, our officiant mistook my tear-choked "Yes" for a conflicted "I guess." :)

Ten years later, I don't guess--I know--that marrying him was the best decision I ever made. I am the luckiest.

Rather than re-posting pictures of our wedding, I thought I would mark the occasion by posting pictures of what we did to celebrate this milestone anniversary. Two weekends ago, thanks to some super cheap airfare and some super wonderful family members who took in the kids, we headed off to Chicago for a couple of days. Why Chicago? See above: super cheap airfare, plus the fact that we had never been before and thought it would be a fun adventure.

We arrived on Saturday afternoon and checked into our hotel, the Park Hyatt. Then we promptly (and very maturely) freaked out over our good luck in scoring this amazing hotel for free through our credit card.

The view from our room of the historic Water Tower and Lake Michigan

Umm, seriously, you always try to tell yourself that the way "the other half" lives can't really be all that different from your own way of life...but I'm here to tell you that, I'm sorry, it is very different. And it. is. fabulous.

I mean, normal people just don't have access to things like a bath butler, bikes for riding at your leisure, automatic black-out curtains, a BMW car service that will take you anywhere within a two-mile radius so you don't have to mess up your designer shoes, or someone who will fetch you neosporin and bandaids for your heels when you do go out in your designer shoes, but can't be bothered with stopping at the Walgreens across the street for the blisters they create. Yup.

(I'm not saying we took advantage of all of those things...some of them we did, and some we just watched others and their miniature dogs do. Equally fun.)

Anyway, for the next two days, I'd say we experienced a pretty quintessential Chicago touristy weekend. We...

went on a Chicago Architecture Foundation boat tour.

ate deep dish pizza at Lou Malnati's.

ate divine breakfasts at The Feast and The Bongo Room.

rode the "L" up to Wrigley Field and attended a Cubs' game,

where they came thisclose to beating the Astros. (See? Quintessential!)

Note the score. I snapped this picture just before they reviewed and called back the homerun that would have won the game for the Cubs.

made ourselves sick on Chicago hot dogs at the ballpark and chocolate cake shakes at Portillos after the game.

walked through the park and took pictures at Buckingham Fountain and the Bean.

visited the Art Institute.

and shopped the Magnificent Mile.

My first-ever visit to the Mecca of the blogosphere: Anthropologie ;)

We honestly loved every single minute. It was short, but the reality of our ten years together is that we have created a busy life--that we love--and that we needed to get back to. It was enough.

I love us.

P.S. Many thanks to Mandy, Jenny, and others who gave us such great recs for our visit!

New York: More Adventures

A favorite of our trip was Hamlin Beach on Lake Ontario, where we spent two Saturdays hanging out. It was seriously great. Hot enough that you could appreciate the cool water and feel like it was a real beach experience...

and cool enough in the beautiful shaded park area just behind the beach to just want to stay all day, visiting and eating and relaxing.

So. great. I even got on Mandy's bike for a couple of little rides...I forgot how fun that is! More pictures:

Brendon came back in town just in time to celebrate his birthday. His only request was a home-cooked meal after eating bachelor food like totinos pizza for two weeks.

Doesn't he look thrilled to be wearing the party hat Shelly and the kids made for him?

"I wish I didn't have to spend the rest of my vacation driving back across the country!" Sadly, his wish did not come true.

On our last Sunday in NY we all drove over to Letchworth State Park and hiked around. It was hot that day, but the scenery is gorgeous.

Love our crew in their tie-dye tees!

New York: Out and About

I really have to finish these vacation posts before I head back to school next week, and there is still so much to cover! Ahhhh! Here goes...

As I said, we spent much of our time in NY seeing and doing. Everything from museums to hiking. Here is a little highlight reel:

One of our first days out was to visit the National Museum of Play. I had no idea what we were getting into when we headed here. It. was. huge. We were there for at least five hours and didn't come close to seeing everything.

Aubrey loved the center where you could be onscreen with the Sesame Street characters. She was enthralled with counting with Elmo. Shayne loved the gaming area. Duh. Gracie loved the butterfly garden, which is the best one I've ever seen. And for Alex, it was a tie between the awesome play grocery store and the carousel.

 

We went to a couple of spray parks, picnicked, played on playgrounds, and ate lots of pop ice. Yes, we could have done all of that at home in Texas, but what a treat it was to be able to go to the park at three in the afternoon and not sizzle! (And after going to those spray parks, plus the one in Ohio, I find myself looking at our local spray parks with disdain. They seem pitiful in comparison.)



Other stops included the local zoo, which, while a little ghetto, held one attraction we had never seen before...

 

We loved watching the giant polar bear swimming and playing with his ball. So fun!

Another day we hit a bounce place that also had a little track area for tricycles and...roller skating. This was a total hoot! I was laughing so hard at our novice kids. Seriously, this series of pictures of Shelly with her two littles makes me laugh out loud at the memory of their scrambling feet:

There's more, but I've got to hit the road for the day. I'm taking a bunch of youth down to a water park this evening for a big bi-stake activity. No big deal except that the park just re-opened after getting more than 30 people sick last week. Yikes! Pray for us!

Niagara Falls

We stayed overnight in Kirtland and headed northeast once again the next morning. It was about a four hour drive from there up to Niagara Falls. Before our trip, Brendon and I talked about how we never really thought we'd ever see the falls. Would it be cool to see them? Yes, but when you add up all of the cool things we'd like to see in life, so many other spots would win out on the list, because they are more of a destination. So we were excited that such a fun sight was able to be worked in as a stop along our way.

 

The power of the water is overwhelming. As in a little bit scary, watch your kids extra carefully, overwhelming.

 

We took the Maid of the Mist boat tour (And you know I was thinking about Jim and Pam's wedding when we did!) and had a front row view to the billowing mist of the Horseshoe Falls.

 

So cool. This is Alex before we got on the boat; he was less than thrilled with the blue poncho. Can you tell?

 

But by the end of the ride he had learned a new word: Awesome! And it was.

 

After we had worn ourselves out with all the sightseeing, we packed it into the van again and headed to Matt and Mandy's house for dinner, about two hours away.

It was the perfect end to the day. They live right on Lake Ontario and had some delicious pizza waiting for us. (What was that one pizza again? Apple and cheddar? So good!) We spent the rest of the evening visiting and getting reacquainted with Buddy the Dog.

After two years of anticipating this trip, we were finally in New York! 

Next Stop: Kirtland

Before we arrived at our final destination, we took a couple of days on the road to see the sights. Shelly and family met us first in Kirtland, Ohio (about a four hour drive from Karisa's house), where we spent the afternoon touring some Church historical sites.

 
In front of the Newel K. Whitney general store

To be honest, Kirtland was much more than I expected--both in the emotions it brought to the surface and in the actual physical setting. I loved it.

 

I think this place was the most emotional for me--the room where the original School of the Prophets first convened. Here, inspiration was sought, revelation was received, missionaries were called, and the Gospel was learned by some real lions of the early LDS Church. Amazing.

After the tour, we visited the grounds of the historic Kirtland temple and then had a picnic and let the kids burn off some energy at a nearby park.

This is Alex saying, "Ta Da!" after he climbed and went down the slide all by himself.

Then, that evening we had the chance to go to a production called "This is Kirtland!"--a musical about the Church's local history put on by the local LDS stake. Our good friend in Waco used to live in the Kirtland area and is an accomplished musician; she composed much of the music for this production, so it was fun to see her work, at work!

 

Niagara Falls tomorrow!

(Sorry for redundant posts for those of you who read Shelly's blog, too. I'm trying to add in some different pictures at least!)