The Farrells

The Farrells
Matt, Nicki, Owen and Nora live in the San Francisco Bay area. Matt is a research analyst at CBRE and is loving his job. Nicki spends her time playing with Owen and Nora, reading, crafting, and taking lots of pictures. Owen loves to read, sing, throw toys, and quote movies. Nora is growing quickly and loves to be the center of attention. We have a wonderful life!

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Friday, May 27, 2011

More NYC....

We did SO much in New York. Going back through all my pictures, I'm amazed at what we fit in. Anyway, here are pictures from our tours of Radio City Music Hall, the New York Public Library, Liberty Island and Ellis Island, Grand Central Terminal, and the United Nations.

Radio City Music Hall is a beautiful building in Rockefeller Center.


The downstairs lobby of the music hall - the diamond shape is supposed to be very soothing.

A working diorama of the stage. We couldn't take pictures of the real stage because Cirque de Soleil was setting up their new show. The auditorium is HUGE. The stage is divided into four sections that are moved up and down by huge elevator lifts. It was designed when the building was first built in the early 20s-30s, and has not been updated since - it's still considered one of the most technically advanced stages in the world.

We got to meet a real Rockette!

The main lobby from several floors up. Cirque de Soleil also had things in here, so we were lucky that they had taken a break at this point so we could take pictures. Before being restored several years ago, this lobby (especially the mural in the background) was so covered in soot and smoke that it was just dirty black and gray. When they restored it, there were people who had been working there for years that said they thought they were looking at a new mural - there was so much detail in it that had been covered by cigarette smoke.

The main reading room in the New York Public Library. A BEAUTIFUL building. As much as I love the BYU library, I probably would have done a lot more studying in college if I could have studied in here.


One of the lobbies in the hallway outside the main reading room.

The main entrance hall.

The library is celebrating its 100th birthday and had some cool exhibits up.


The famous lions guarding the entrance.

We had to walk through Times Square to get back to our hotel. This picture kind of captures the glow-iness of this place at night.

On Liberty Island. Karen had to attend a graduation ceremony for NYU this day, so I went by myself to Liberty and Ellis Islands - hence the pictures of myself.

Ellis Island. This room is where the third class and steerage passengers went through to have medical and legal checks done before they entered the US.

A model of Ellis Island. The building that I was in is the one to the right.

There is a huge wall outside with the names of the people who came through Ellis Island. There were TONS of Farrells.

Bernard John Bromley is my ancestor. It took me forever to find his name... I finally discovered that it was behind a construction fence and I couldn't get to it. I stuck my camera over the fence to get this picture - I couldn't come all the way to Ellis Island and not find him!

Outside the main building.

The ceiling of Grand Central Terminal. It has a whole bunch of constellations painted on it with little LED lights to represent the stars. The constellations are actually backward from the way we would see them if we were looking up at the sky.

The 'whispering hall'. If you whisper into the corner, the sound travels up over the ceiling and right to the person at the opposite corner.

The outside of Grand Central.

Beautiful details at Grand Central.

The main hall.

The Chrysler building - down the street from Grand Central. I think it's the prettiest building in New York.

The United Nations! I was sad that they didn't have the flags flying.


With my 'passport', so excited for the tour!

We got to see some of the humanitarian projects the UN is working on... that box in the back is a 'sports in a box' for kids who are displaced due to war or natural disasters. They also have a 'school in a box' that included chalkboard paint - cool!

The General Assembly room!

So excited.

This is what the UN should have looked like.... when we went through much of it was covered by construction and scaffolding.

A UN flag damaged in an attack in (I think) Iraq.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Frick Museum, MMoA, "Catch Me If You Can", and where we stayed...

The Frick Museum is an art museum housed in a mansion built by Henry Frick. He built his mansion with the ultimate goal of turning it into a museum one day, so the rooms, furnishings, decorations and art all go together beautifully. His criteria for selecting art was whether or not it made him happy - which means that not only does the collection have art from masters, but also some lesser-known artists, and all the pieces are beautiful. It was worth going just to see the beautiful house, not to mention the wonderful art. There was a Rembrandt exhibit there that I loved. We also went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. What an amazing building! We saw lots of awesome paintings there - some Degas, Seurat, Van Gogh, and many others. It's fun to go to a big huge art museum like this, because you see works that are frequently covered in basic art or humanities classes. It was fun to see the originals of paintings that I have studied many times before.

The Frick House. It takes up a whole city block!

Metropolitan Museum of Art. There were a whole bunch of secret service guys standing around (like, 40 or so). Apparently, Joe Biden and his wife were in the building at the same time as us.


A beautiful Van Gogh. This is one of Karen's favorite paintings, so we took a picture.

A display of armor in the MMoA.

Ringo Starr's snare drum! I took this picture for my mom. :)

We saw "Catch Me If You Can" at the Neil Simon theater. I didn't know much about the show, but we ended up loving it! It was very well done.

The view out the window of the apartment on the Upper West Side where we stayed for the first few days. Look at those cool rooftop gardens!

These people built that house on top of the building. Doesn't it look like a cool place to live??

The kitchen in the apartment. Functional, but I'm glad I don't have to cook in there!

The cute studio apartment. The kitchen is off to the right as you enter, before you get to this room. The bathroom is at the end of the room to the left. Small, but cozy.

This picture is for Owen - this fire station was right next to our apartment building.

Karen's house in Pennsylvania. We stayed here for about a day and a half, after our trip to Morristown, New Jersey. I loved her house! It made me anxious to look into getting our own apartment.

The kitchen.

The front view of the house.

This is what we drove through on our way back into the city - the second week I was there was pretty much rainy the whole time.