Memorial Day

I know, I know - I'm behind in posting. We've been busy. With my cousin Jacob's wedding, a weekend of orchestra concerts, and apartment hunting, I haven't had time to wait for my pictures to load.

Anyway... we had a great Memorial Day. We got up early to go see a hot air balloon launch (that didn't end up happening due to high winds), went boating on Lafayette Reservoir, went to the San Ramon Wind Festival, built a birdhouse, and then had a family barbeque. It was a packed day, but we had tons of fun.

This was as filled up as the balloons got. We were SO glad we woke up at 5:30 to get there.

My cutie boys rowing the boat.

He wanted to "do by self".

Owen was saying "I love to sail!"

He thought this tower was the "Tangled" tower. He kept asking if there was a princess stuck  inside.

So excited about his birdhouse.

Putting a Chinese stamp on his kite at the wind festival.

So proud of his panda stamp.

His finished kite.

He was so excited to have his face painted. Can you tell?

See? Told you. :)

Out of the snakes, frogs, cars, other animals and boy things he could have had painted on his face, my sweet boy picked a cupcake. He cracks me up.

Working hard on putting the birdhouse together.

Painting.

Last of the NYC pics...

Went to see "How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying". Love that show anyway, and the fact that Daniel Radcliffe (aka Harry Potter.... aka the character that I've been obsessed with for YEARS) played the main part made it that much better. LOVED this show.

LOVE.

September 11th memorial.

Trinity Church. Beautiful!

Fishes Eddy. Kitchen store + used restaurant supply store. They carry their own lines of kitchenware, but they also have old diner plates, utensils, and other random used kitchen stuff. I got a set of root beer float spoons for way cheap. Their inventory changes all the time (since they're getting used/vintage stuff), and when I was there, they had ceramic glove molds... totally random, but fun. If only I had my own house....

On top of the submarine the USS Growler at the USS Intrepid museum.

One of Intrepid's propellers.

Flying a medic rescue helicopter.

An A-12 Blackbird... way cool spy plane!

In the 'island' - where the captain commands from.

The back of the Intrepid with the name and the Blackbird.

Tenement Museum. Loved this tour! You couldn't take pictures inside, but each floor was restored to represent a different era. This neighborhood used to produce the majority of clothing items that were available for purchase in upscale department stores. During one period of time, it was the most crowded place on earth. Fascinating tour!

The M&Ms store in Times Square. We could see this guy looking at us in our hotel window. Creepy.

Wall of M&Ms? Yes please.

Empire State Building at night, lit up in white, blue, and orange for the Subway Series.

The Flatiron building at night. Such gorgeous architecture!

I was pretty proud of my ability to capture the traffic like this, but decided that I should probably invest in a tripod.

In the dirty dirty subway. Yuck. 

Manhattan Temple.

Lincoln Center.

Front entrance of the Manhattan temple.

Pretty housing on the edge of Central Park (east, I think....).

Central Park.

The fountain and lake in Central Park.

This kid was amazing. And like, 10.

This lady was amazing, too. We stayed and listened to her for a while.

Dollhouses in FAO Schwartz.

Life-size Indiana Jones made out of LEGOs.

The Big Piano show. So fun!

My favorite picture of the whole trip. :)

On my way back home!

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.