Lancaster, PA

Joseph has spring break this week, so we took a quick trip to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The countryside was beautiful and I loved the rolling hills and lovely farms. We took a horse-drawn buggy ride through the Amish country and learned about their culture and simple way of life. It was about as opposite of NYC life as you can get.

We had fun playing tennis, swimming at the hotel pool, and shopping at the outlets, too. It was a great little family vacation that was much needed by all of us.

The rest of Joseph's spring break will consist of him taking the WREB licensing exam - a 3 day clinical observed test. He's getting so close to being done and we are so excited!

Our Zoo

The Staten Island Zoo is just down the street from our home. With a boy who loves animals as much as Matthew does, you can bet that we visit the zoo a lot. It is free on Wednesday afternoons, so we head over there for a couple of hours to make sure they are taking good care of our animal friends. We love the brown bats, otters, iguanas, crocodiles, scarlet macaws and peacocks, to name a few. The kids love feeding the farm animals and playing on the big animal sculptures. I love that they get to experience the zoo regularly and make such great memories. This is one thing we will definitely miss when we leave Staten Island.

Slow Down, You Move Too Fast

Nothing makes you slow down quite like a house full of sick kids. We've been taking it easy around here for the past little while, and I've been enjoying the quiet days and one-on-one time I've had with Matthew & Anna. Now that we are feeling better, I hope to remember to leave some unscheduled time for quiet and play and not fill our days with errands and long lists.

I just finished reading this book for the third (or fourth...) time. I love it, and every single word spoke to me to tell me to slow down, waste less time with unimportant things, and really appreciate life. I recommend this book to anyone, mother or not. I'm sure I'll be pulling it back out in a month or two when life gets crazy again.

P.S. We have a current obsession with Zorro at our house. The kids are constantly wearing capes and masks of some sort, running around the house yelling "Zorro!", sword fighting, and writing the letter Z on anything and everything. They love watching an episode of the old Disney series before bed each night with Joseph. I love watching them love something so much.

Finally February

For some reason, January felt like it lasted for a year. I was happy to see February come... and now it is almost halfway over! We've had some nice weather that has allowed us to play outside and enjoy the sunshine, and it feels good.

Joseph's sister, Mary, is visiting us this weekend and we got to attend the opera! We saw Ernani at the Metropolitan Opera House and it was wonderful. We really enjoyed ourselves and it was a great experience.

This next month is pretty busy with school work, tests, church callings, and other projects. There is always something to do, but that is how we like it. Oh, and happy Valentines Day!

City Life

We've been able to do a few fun things around the city lately. With only about 4 months left here, I'm getting a little sad and I'm anxious to make good use of our time!

Some friends and I went into Manhattan last week to enjoy some tasty desserts. We had cream puffs at Beard Papa's, banana pudding at Magnolia Bakery, and gelato at Screme Gelato Bar. It was delicious and we were only a tiny bit sick at the end of the night. :)

We finally checked out the Bronx Zoo. We highly recommend going to the zoo in January because you get the whole place to yourselves! We were very impressed and we all had a great time. It was pretty cold, but most of the exhibits were indoors so it worked out great.

We also went to dinner with some friends at Schnippers near Times Square. It was delicious and lots of fun to have a date night in the city and catch up with Whitney & Bryan.

I usually tend to hibernate at home during the cold winter months, so it has been nice to get out of the house and have some fun!

And So It Goes

We got to spend two weeks with our families in Utah over Christmas. We couldn't get enough of holding baby Grey, who was blessed the first Sunday we were there. He is the sweetest thing ever.

We spent two days in Ely, Nevada, where we relaxed, went on long walks, and drove tractors. It was fabulous.

Christmas came and we were so grateful to be surrounded by our wonderful family. Matthew and Anna were so excited by everything and we loved watching them enjoy themselves.

It was great to see cousins, aunts, uncles, and friends that we haven't seen for a long time. Our kids only begged to come home a few times when they got too overwhelmed, Joseph got a little bit of studying done (for the boards which he takes next week!), and our families didn't complain about all the time and space we were taking up - so I'd say it was a success! :)

We had a wonderful time. Now we are looking forward to 2012 - graduation, moving, kindergarten and more!