NOW WHERE WERE WE?

I've gotten a little behind on tracking our outings of late. But before I do so...

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY WEEKEND!

AND

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA!

I feel so grateful to live in you, and even though I feel more like a live in foreign country right now, I'm so grateful for all the liberties that are ours.

Side note: Something tells me there is young man inside that Mickey Mouse costume attempting to show eager tourists that he's got dignity...perhaps just and ounce or a shred, but dude, he's still got it. 

Now, where were we. Ah yes, our outings of late...
Last weekend, we hung out with our friends Aaron and Amy (Aaron is also interning with AmEx this summer.) Phil and Aaron graciously took the kids to the Bronx Zoo so the ladies could go wander around SoHo.

 Here is Ryder and Piper in-front (relatively speaking) of some giraffes. 

 And here is Ryder before the feature Dora and Diego 4D experience! I know. Exciting. Besides how could anything not be totally great while wearing glasses like that?

Phil insisted on taking the camera (kind of like my outing wasn't even close to being as exciting as the kids and the zoo. Probably right.) But if I did have the camera, I would have taken pictures of the following events:

• Amy and I's expression after she got off the subway and the doors closed, leaving Penny and I still on it. No semblance of wits, no yelling of plans, just expressions of shock and awe. Luckily, the doors opened again. Phew.
• The trying on and purchasing of Ray Ban knock-offs. I will come home with modge-podge of sunglasses. It's a matter of fact. I am a street vendor's dream.
• Eating coconut helado (it's Spanish for ice cream) while trekking through Central Park. Most delicious dollar you will ever spend in NYC. And I don't even really like coconut.

This morning we decided to kick off our Independence Day Weekend by visiting...

Can you guess???

I know what you're thinking--The Statue of Liberty?

No.

Here's a clue:

Yup, we decided to visit NYC's real and true symbol of liberty:

The Empire State Building!

I know. So there's no connection, sorry. Come to think of it the Lady Liberty would've been a good idea...owell. 

But we were able to see this:

And take these:

And have this:

Move over Meg and Tom! 

There. Now it's like you've been there except you didn't have to spend $40 and wait in line for an hour and a half :)

FOLLOW UP

Thanks everyone that commented on my last post! They were brilliant and just what I was hoping for! Just in case you didn't read over or catch all the comments, I wanted some sort of follow-up post that is kind of a reader's digest of what everyone's great ideas and advice were. 


If so, what should they be for you personally (and for your spouse)? 

•  Moderation is key-June
• Share everything with your spouse. The time you start keeping secret on FB or anywhere online is when you start getting in trouble-Mary  [She gave a link to an article from KSL regarding this subject, but I couldn't get the link to work, so if you're interested, pop over there and give her a shout out]
• My husband and I have a joint facebook account. This helps us to keep in touch with people together and avoid temptations of secretly "friending" an old flame, talking to someone we shouldn't, etc. It also helps other people to know that we're in it together and if they talk to one of us, the other person sees it as well.-Ashley [I loved this idea! Plus, I love what having a shared account tells others]
• Just like anything else, I personally have to monitor how much time I spend on facebook. Elder Bednar gave a talk recently about wasting away our time in front of a computer screen when we could be out with our neighbors and friends. I think if we're not careful, we can miss so much of life whilst browsing through "friends" profiles on facebook. -Ashley
• A good tip: You should never friend anyone you wouldn't feel comfortable being alone in a room with.-Autumn

What should they be for our children or for youth we might have influence over?

• Apply same rules to my children that I apply for myself-June
• Guidelines for my kids is 3 hours screen time a day this includes TV, Wii, PC-Sheryl
• They also don't get an email until age 12 and FB at age 13. We must be friends and they know I check them out because I am their friend, not a snoop.-Sheryl [I'm so happy Sheryl commented because she is such a fabulous mom and I love that "you're their friend, not a snoop:)"]

 What is the proper etiquette for turning people away?

• If I don't want to hurt feelings, so I just ignore their request for like six months and then reply-Autumn [She also threw out the question , "Also, when you deny someone do they get a memo?" [So just make sure to REALLY ignore them. I do this too]

Thanks again everyone. I've got a lot of new ideas to apply to my own life, which always helps me feel motivated. Hopefully you found it valuable in some way too!

LET'S TALK: FACEBOOK

So I love talking. I am always game for some good conversation. I especially love talking to other women, which probably explains the countless hours I’ve logged talking to my mom and sister. I love having conversations regarding the world, the gospel, motherhood, families, the strength of women and how all of these things work together. These conversations and discussions always leave me feeling buoyed up and motivated to be better.

I also love to blog. And not only do I love to blog, but I happen to blog with many amazing women (I’m lucky enough to call friends). And so I thought (light bulb ping!) it would be kind of fun to combine these two loves. I’ll introduce certain topics that fall under the previously listed categories and then add in your two cents, plus advice and/or ideas, which equals a great formula for fun and educational online discussion. Right?

The point is to see how these issues relate to us, as women, and as Latter-day Saints. I would take the time at this point to open this up to men, but I know that there are no men that look at my blog besides my husband, and maybe my dad and my brother...maybe.

Now, to my first topic of conversation: FACEBOOK

The Issue

I know I’m not the only person who finds themselves wondering how to handle the Facebook phenom. There two different aspects of this issue that I find myself…concerned about. 1) How will I introduce this and other online social mediums to my children and other youth I have influence over 2) How will I choose to conduct my personal participation in these same things?

The Problem

There is always the good and the bad to things like this. And just as there is a dark side and a light side to many aspects provided by the world wide web, Facebook is just another oreo milk shake to be pilfered through and figured out as an individual trying their darndest to be their best self.  

The other day while driving in the car I heard on the radio a similar statistic to this article that I later read that stated 1 in every 5 divorces is due to Facebook. I’m sorry, what? That’s pathetic.

As for the youth, I’m not quite sure what negative effects it has, other than I’m sure it’s pretty similar to the  many other unsupervised forms of communication that are available to teenagers today. And well, the old spending x amount of hours staring at a screen is never good.

I’m not going to lie, it’s good entertainment to see the back-row introvert is now working for a Fortune 500 company and probably already bringing in 6 figures a year, but do I really need to see what’s going on in his life? It might even be intriguing to see where an old crush ended up. But am I really their friend? Really? I don’t think the term “friend” has ever been used so loosely than in the world of Facebook. In fact, where do we draw the line as to who we add, who we turn away? Oh and speaking of which, what is the proper etiquette for turning people away? Should there even be one? Do we end up having a bajillion friends because we’re afraid we’re going to hurt what’s-his-name’s feelings from what I think was high school?

Solutions

But there is the good. I’ve seen Facebook allow extended families, even immediate families, stay in closer than they ever would have without it. And who doesn’t love tons of happy birthday wishes on their big day or really actually being able to stay in contact with a dear friend, where it otherwise would be hard to do so. So I don’t believe banning Facebook is the answer, in fact I believe it’s imperative to figure out how to use it constructively, as I don’t see it going anywhere any time soon.

My mom was telling my about a stake conference meeting where one of the speakers was talking on how they as parents chose to run their home and one of the rules they made for their children in regard to Facebook was that they only were allowed 100 friends. So they would really have to consider and prioritize who they were going to allow access to their Facebook page. What do you think about this?

So here are the questions to consider and want to hear your fine thoughts, advice and wisdom.

• Am I overreacting? Do you think even think there should be guidelines? Come on, you can tell me.
• If so, what should they be for you personally? What should they be for our children or for youth we might have influence over?
• Lastly, what should those guidelines be?

Seriously, if you’ve made it this far, please leave a response. 1) So I don’t feel like a loser for having one-sided conversations with myself. 2) It will be cool, I promise. it will be like the new blogging revolution! (Which reminds of a time in college where someone commented during a lecture and accidentally said something about making New Years revolution instead of a resolution. Upon noticing her error she cried out, “ A New Year’s Revolution!”. I still chuckle to myself about it….Ahhh…but I digress)

NEW OUTINGS

I consider my need to post a little less about all of my New York newbie experiences a positive sign. One that hopefully means I'm getting more used to the big city living.

However, a record of our time here must be kept! So here's what we've been up to the last week or so...

We took another outing with Claire and Norah to Central Park. We like hanging out there. There are lots of things to see, shade, places to eat, bathrooms to, well you know and play areas. This time we checked out the Jackie O Reservoir and saw the Belvedere Castle. Such a fun place to hang out and take some photos. I would have been a bit more creative with my royal renaissance-type poses had I not been clutching Ryder with a death grip in order to avoid any nasty falls over those precarious castle ledges.

On Saturday, I made my second run to Trader Joes, which I'm really starting to enjoy, bye-the-way. A little me time and I get excited thinking of all the yummy frozen dinners we're going to have. I was in a bit of a conundrum, however, because I needed to find some time to get Phil a father's day present. If I waited to long, TJ would have a crazy long line (any place worth going to in NY always has a line) and if I waited until after I would have a suitcase full of frozen dinners to carry around. Do you now see how it was a bit of a conundrum? Anyhow as I'm trying to figure something out, I pop out of the subway to see a Nordstrom Rack (enter choir "Ahhh" here) a mere block away from TJ. Heaven sent. And one of the best I've seen, mind you. Went in, bada-bing-bada-boom, errands done.

After the nap time we walked almost 30 blocks to the Children's Museum of Manhattan. It was wonderful. Four floors of really cool educational play. Plus, a water feature area. To say Ryder loved it is an understatement and it showed when we had to leave. The tantrum only subsided when we promised we'd come back again. Good parenting, eh?

Here, Ryder is wearing a chiton. A common toga dress men would wear in Ancient Greece. See, we learned something.

 He was so excited to play with some blocks!

 Taking things very seriously, as any fireman should

Sunday was casual and nice, as usual. We love our ward and I love going to church in the temple. (The church "building", or floor rather, is sandwiched in-between the Manhattan temple.) The church members here are really great and there is something about NYC, because every week I go to church I will end up running into someone I know. Whether it was from Seattle or college...it's fascinating and pretty fun. Especially when you go through most of the week wandering through hundreds of people, cultures, languages not knowing a soul. So I love Sundays here.

And Monday was a special treat because my Uncle Scott was in town with his wife and daughter, Shawnee, so we met up with them for a little play time at the park. Ryder had a blast running around with my uncle and there may have been something about him that made him miss a certain Pompa... It's always so good to see family.

BIRTHDAY BLESSINGS TO YOU

Today we are throwing, as hard as we can, birthday blessings to one of our most favorite people:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

First off, there are a couple of people who are missing you and wanted to tell you a little something:

 Note: Ryder drew both the "H's" Sorry, mom, I didn't mean to make him look like he was 20 years old in that first one.

As for me, I was thinking how great it would be to get on record all of the reasons you are so wonderful, so in celebration for the 55 years of your life, here are 55 reasons why I love you so very much and why I'm so grateful for this day.

1. You're a kindred spirit to me
2. You can make anyone your friend
3. And if you don't have time to make them your friend, you just end up charming the socks off of them
4. You are genuine
5. You are always trying to do your best
6. You've taught me to always be kind and nice
7. You have an amazing smile
8. You can read my voice and face like a book. 
9. You are crazy talented! But to be a bit more specific.
10. You could and should be sitting next to Candace on the judge panel for Design Star. 
11. You are a needle art GENIUS.
12. You're an artist in the garden and taught me to love flowers.
13. You have style in everything you do
14. You love to read
15. You taught me to love to read :)
16. This probably already goes without saying, but you're an amazing mother
17. You're a just as amazing Nana
18. You are a teacher, and a really good one. 
19. You are a wise and helpful counselor
20. You're a good driver, even though you don't like it
21. You are beautiful outside
22. ...and inside
23. You have unwavering integrity
24. You have an undeniably close relationship to your Heavenly Father and the Savior
25. You are a great missionary and asset to the Gospel
26. You love your scriptures
27. You know your scriptures
28. You make everyone around you feel comfortable
29. You can always make me feel better
30. You have a great laugh. I love hearing you laugh!
31. You are so fun to talk to. I wonder what the tally would be on the hours we've spent talking :)
32. You think I'm funny
33. You are an ardently loyal and happy wife, utterly smitten with your cute husband
34. You love animals, even really big, overwhelming dogs
35. You Skype with me and my family 
36. You always talk to me about anything and let me ask you anything
37. You are an example of what a lady is and should be
38. You have beautiful, long and freakishly strong fingernails
39. You are a cancer survivor
40. You are a wonderful sister
41. You are a warrior who has conquered a hard childhood
42. You have beautiful jade green eyes
43. Your grandchildren love you and miss you when you're not there
44. You share my fetish and taste for handbags
45. You are and example of and have taught me the importance of motherhood and womanhood.
46. Your feet, that you were gracious enough to pass along to me :)
47. You taught me what faith was and how to exercise it from a very young age
48. You look at my blog every day
49. You are one of the few people I can brag to--everyone needs a compliment bench once in awhile
50. You have taught me the joys of Jane Austen movies and are able to share together their life's lessons
51. You are so fun to shop with and great shopping friend
52. You are an exceptional listener, even if one happens to go on and on
53. You are working on becoming an awesome at computer communicating devices for the times I live far away
54. You always make me want to be better
55. You have in some way passed along all of these amazing things about yourself to your children, family, and friends.

I LOVE YOU MOM! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

FUNNY FACES

Ryder: Take my picture mommy!

Me: Okay! Ready? Make a...

PENELOPE RAE

After knowing this girl as well as I do now, sometimes I wonder if I should have named her something like, "Joy" or "Patience" or "Angel Baby-of-my-Heart"...

Luckily, I don't feel too bad because I'm in love with her name almost as much as I'm in love with her.

WADA! WADA! AND PANDAN

We get a little overwhelmed (which seems to be my theme word for NY) when planning what to do on our Saturdays. What to see? What to do? Will there be something fun for Ryder? It's really easy to go against my previously made rules and take on a little too much for one day...which is exactly what we did...again.

We found out the subways run a little differently on the weekends due to construction, so instead of getting off near Chinatown like we had originally planned we had to ride it to the Brooklyn Bridge. This was where we thought, "Let's go check out the Brooklyn Bridge!" And that's what we did. Besides being highly entertained by the "wada! wada!" stands every 20 ft. (water! water!) I couldn't help but feel the need to take an enormous amount of pictures, many of which were of myself in front of this amazing piece of architecture. Lucky for you, I'll only include a few.

After this we started walking. Ryder took a nap and we let Penny air out a little from sitting in her carrier.

We headed toward the financial district to see where Phil works, which is also right by Ground Zero. There really isn't much to see there besides a big construction site, but we did see the below I-beam memorial that had been removed and saved and stated it stood as a symbol of hope.

Across the street from what used to be the World Trade Center was St. Paul's Chapel: Opened in 1766, St. Paul's Chapel is Manhattan's oldest public building in continuous use - a place where George Washington worshiped and 9/11 recovery workers received round-the-clock care. I totally love historical stuff like this. This chapel was surrounded by a cemetery with headstones only 2 inches thick where most of the engravings had been worn off. These people were OLD.

There is a feeling around this building and Ground Zero that just left me with tears streaming down my face the whole time.

How quickly that changed after stepping into Century 21 which is, if you can imagine, the mother of all TJ Maxx's, Ross's, and Nordstrom Racks all thrown into one. We'll tackle that one later.

 Taking a break before our jaunt over to Chinatown...I dunno, it could have been a wise time to go home...

After lunch we went to check out an apartment for a friend and decided to walk full circle back to Chinatown. My feet were screaming at this point but Chinatown's famous Ice Cream Factory kept me going. They are known for there famous flavors and quality of ice cream like mango, black poppyseed (gross), red bean (tastes like pink vanilla), and pandan (made from a mongolian leaf and utterly delicious), which is what I got.

We were breaking down at this point and had to deal with a very inconvenient subway situation so after four subway changes and a 6 block walk later, we were finally home. ~Sigh

LEARNING THE ROPES

So after our first successful venture on the subway, I may have gotten a bit over confident because I went from being brave to just plain stupid.

Yesterday, we'd been cooped up in our bite-sized apartment for too long so we just headed our around 3:30 in the afternoon. I thought we'd hit up FAO Shwartz, ya know, thought it be fun for the kiddos. I took off with a general idea of where it was. Lessons learned from this outing:

1) Know exactly where you're going. Just know the address and take a map, because I'm here to tell you, not all blocks are created equal and if your plan is just to weave through streets with your "general idea" you could be walking around with two babies for a very long time.

2) Traveling on the subways is much, much, much easier in the mornings when there are less crowds. I knew I was in trouble when I had to sheepishly squeeze my and my stroller on at 3:30, let alone 6:00 (which is when we went home). My saving grace was that Penny got all sorts of charm on on our way back home.

3) Check the weather. Rain isn't too big of a deal, but it doesn't help when you've got the previous two items going on.

Luckily, today I was able to put my new found lessons to good use. I met my new friend, Claire (who's husband is doing a finance internship at Amex), at 66th and Central Park West. Our plan was to explore a little of Central Park and to check out the zoo. We got to the carousel and Ryder and I couldn't resist. So Claire graciously watched Penny and took photos of us as Ryder and I took a ride.

 @ the carousel

 For the first couple rounds Ryder was a little nervous and had to keep a hand on my neck as if any minute he needed to jump ship, he could :)

The ladies, Norah and Penelope

We attempted to go to the zoo next, and probably would have been really cool had we found it. We got a tad bit turned around (it's harder without the street signs) ended up taking a nice stroll through "The Mall". At this point, lunch seemed like a fantastic idea while Ryder and Claire's cute daughter, Norah, took naps. We spent the rest of our time playing and running around and I made sure to start our journey back home before 3:00.

 Here we are walking "The Mall". Below is cute Clair with Norah and Ryder

A much more successful and fun outing. Most likely, it was due to our cute company, which is a good thing to know as well :) It's funny though, because it's like we're all like babies (well, most of us are) where we get home and we're all suffering for so much stimulation overload that all any of us can do is stare at the TV with our mouths open or do this:

Three cute things about this photo: 1) how she used her teething toy as a pillow 2) how she always throws her feeties on my lap 3) Penny

Oh...and Phil...remember him? He's around here somewhere. Last night he was found here, enjoying a little Mets baseball:

Luckily, the weekend is upon us which means we get to go do something all together. Wahoo!

VICTORY AND 70 DEGREE WEATHER!

Today was the day--thatr I conquered the subway with two babies, by myself. And it wasn't that bad. However, I think the cool 70 degree, breezy weather helped--a lot. My entire attitude changed knowing I wouldn't be wet by the time I got home :)

We had a play date with some other women in the ward and even though I had planned to walk the 20 blocks to the park, time got away from me and not wanting to get there just as everyone was winding up, the subway was the only option. So apparently, necessity is the mother of conquering your fears.

It actually went really well. I used everyone's tips and only popped Ryder out of the stroller to go down/up stairs. What I didn't know before is that you swipe your card and turn the turn style, without going through. Then you get the person on duty to open the emergency exit/entrance for you. This went easy peasy and we just rolled right onto the train. And just like everyone said they would, I had some cute person help me carry my stroller up the stairs.

My only snag came when I was standing on the subway so smug and happy I had accomplished my goal, that I missed my stop. Luckily, I only back tracked about 4 blocks :) Hehe.

If you've been reading all my posts about adjusting to this city, this was a huge feat for me as it opens up a whole new world of opportunities for us three to explore the Big Apple without Phil. (Although, we do prefer him there :) Plus, "ride the train" is probably Ryder's most favorite thing to do in the city and considering he's having a little trouble adjusting, I'm happy to accommodate him in this way. Just as a warning if you call and talk to Ryder, be prepared to get told over and over "come visit me?", "come see you?", "no, not far away." Poor little guy. Hopefully, as I get more adjusted and comfortable with the big city, he'll follow my lead.