Albuquerque Turkeys: July 2015

Friday, July 31, 2015

July Quotes

Hayden: Mom, can we go to Inside Out after lunch?

Dallin: No, when we get home, we should do something productive.

Hayden: We just did a SWIM MEET!

Daphne: Yeah, that's like 4 hours of production.

Sydney on the way home from church: I thought we were going to the La Cueva ward!

Me: We did. That's where we just were.

Sydney: What? That was it? Hayden said it was gonna be fun. But it WASN'T!

(Hayden probably meant primary, and we went home after sacrament, since it was our second sacrament meeting of the day! three hours of church is about all we can take round these parts.)

Sean: I think it's impossible for me to ever get all my wiggles out.

Me: (waking up from a nap and hearing someone in my bathroom) Who's in there? Bennett? Is that you?

Bennett: Doe bat to sleep, Mom! (Go back to sleep, Mom)

Oh, that can NOT be good. Sure enough, he had gotten into my make-up and dumped it everywhere. And that's how I keep Mary Kay in business.

Me: No more snacks; Daddy is picking up some dinner for us.

Sydney: Dinner? I LOVE dinner. It's way better than . . . . working. I love eating and playing. That's all.

(me too, syd. me too!)

Sydney was sobbing today after church because she was in the car that got home second. She wailed, "I hate losing!"

While I was making dinner, Bennett was taking all the cans out of the cupboard and putting them on the counter. I said, "Are you helping me?" He said, "Mm hmm. I matin' breatfast." (makin' breakfast)

While riding home from a friends house, Sydney spilled a bowl leftover watermelon/juice on the seat of the car. Everyone started moaning, "Oh, Sydney!"

Sean: Gross it looks like barf!

Daphne: NO, it does not . . . uh yeah, it does actually.

And from henceforth, the name of that seat is "Barf." He's actually a pretty popular seat to claim.

Sydney: Why are you brothers so mean??!! You keep eating all the fruit snacks!

After Sean and Bennett accidentally bonked heads, Bennett said, "Sean, I just want to bont your head adain! (*bonk/again.)

I recently overheard Sean encouraging Bennet to eat some food off the floor. He said, "Bennett, come eat this fruit snack! It'll build up your immune system."

Bennett: one, two, SEVEN!!!

Hayden (while camping): Have you ever noticed that the nights are longer when you are camping?

Sean: Hayden, they aren't longer, it's just that you're awake for most of it so it SEEMS longer.

Bennett (while hiking): My legs making STRONGER!

Dallin kept talking to Daphne while Sydney was trying to sleep. After awhile she said, "Can you stop getting the sleepiness out of me?"

Sydney: BENNETT!! We're all going TO DIE!

(not sure what Bennett was doing, but apparently something quite fatal.)

Fighting over who had to sit in the back seat, Sean tried this tactic to get Syd to move back: "Sydney, you need to learn not think about yourself so much."

Bennett is picking up on the bad whining habits of some of his siblings who "never get" this or that. At dinner one night when he was given a plastic plate instead of a glass plate he moaned, "I neber det a plate!" (I never get a plate.)

Hayden: I have lots of sides, Mom. A good side, a bad side, happy side, mad side, sad side. And hooligan side.

(boy isn't that the truth?)

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Colorado Camping

After we got back from NYC, Nathan stayed to come camping with us up in beautiful Colorado. (Oh I love it there.) We camped for three nights at a place called Sportsman's Campground, went hiking, fishing, played games and ate delicious camping food. All the kids from Dallin through Sydney caught multiple fish which was pretty exciting.

The last day, we went to visit Mesa Verde. It was raining the whole time we were there, but it let up enough for us to walk down to see the Spruce Tree Dwellings. (I think?) Well, we saw some cool cliff dwellings--the closest ones to the visitor's center and they were awesome.

The bummer is I forgot my camera at home, so all of our pictures were phone pics, which doesn't do it justice, but you still get the gist. We LOVED having Nathan with us on this trip. We all adore him and hope he didn't mind being squished in our car and roughin' it in the mountains with us. It was so great to spend some time with my "littlest" brother before he leaves for his mission in a few months!

"My legs making stronger!!" ~Bennett

Saturday, July 25, 2015

NYC!

July 22-25

Manhattan, Brooklyn, Harlem

NEW YORK CITY

When we walked out of the LaGuardia airport, we saw taxi after taxi and it made me think of the kids' "Yellow Car" game. Bennett will randomly yell, "Lellow Tar! I win!!" while we are driving around town. So we took this picture to show that we have won the yellow car game forever.

This summer, Arthur took me to New York City to see my sister Melanie perform in Deep Love, AND to see King and I at the Lincoln Center. We stayed with Arthur's brother Matt who lives in Brooklyn, and took the train everywhere. We met Melanie on Thursday to do some sightseeing and to see King and I together.

Freedom Tower and the 9/11 Memorial & Museum

We spent the whole morning walking through the museum. What a sobering and reverent place. People spoke in whispers and it was striking how clearly I remembered my own experience with that day as I walked in and remembered with everyone else. Amidst the tragedy of that day, there were also beautiful acts of courage, kindness and heroism that was very moving to see memorialized. Never forget.

Museum of Natural History

We got there just 45 minutes before they were closing so we walked through briefly and saw what we could. Very cool museum.

We walked through Central Park on our way toward the Lincoln Center to catch our show.

I'm not sure what church this is, but I thought it was so charming. I love the red doors.

We were wondering where the temple might be because we'd heard it was around here somewhere.

We crossed the street and when we turned around, we saw the angel Moroni up in the sky! We had walked right by the temple and hadn't known it! Kinda cool to accidentally find the temple.

The Lincoln Center was diagonally across the street from the temple. Before we went in, we enjoyed some New York-Ice-Cream-Truck ice cream and wow, can I just say that I dream about that ice cream sometimes? It was sooo creamy and delicious! And there was a hole in the bottom of my cone so all the while I was eating the ice cream it was dripping on my pants. Nice.

The King and I

Lincoln Center Theater

It was beautifully done--we saw a few of the understudies, including Anna's understudy, but everyone was fabulous. It was interesting to watch a show that I had completely memorized. I knew exactly when there was any kind of deviation from the script and the whole time was comparing myself to the Broadway Anna. :) There were things she did that I wish I'd thought to do, and also things where I preferred my own interpretation. But despite the fact that I had to keep myself from singing along, it was wonderful, and so much fun to see a Broadway show with Arthur for his very first time!!

(hope he might want to take me to another one someday! hint, hint.)

Afterward, after some late night snacks at Starbucks we took the train up to Harlem to make sure Melanie got home safely, (that was a good choice--Harlem is pretty much what you'd imagine it to be) then rode the train back to Brooklyn where we fell into bed dead tired.

Top of the Rock

The next day, poor Matt was "sick" and had to skip work to come wander around the city with us. First we went to the top of the Rockerfeller Center for the amazing views.
Way less crowded than the Empire State building, and really cool views. That's Central Park in the background of both of these pictures.

We met Mel at the bottom of the Rock and wandered around some more. We walked through the beautiful and historic St. Patrick's Cathedral. gorgeous.

Mel had to catch a train to head up to the theater for her Deep Love call time. So we had lunch in a food court in

Grand Central Station.

The Plaza Hotel

Enjoyed some gingerbread ice cream while enjoying this view at Central Park

Made our way through the spectacle of Times Square and up to Melanie's theater to catch her performance in Deep Love. It was her last performance as Constance.

Our cousin, Sean Wood came to her performance too!

All of us after Melanie's show.

She did a great job! I'm so proud of her and excited for her that she had the opportunity to perform in NYC! And it gave us the perfect excuse to get out there and visit Matt, finally!

We went up to Harlem to get Melanie's stuff, and she came and stayed the last night with us at Matt and Erin's place. We met Sean and Schmuly in Brooklyn that night as well and had a great time all together visiting and enjoying dinner at some delicious restaurant I can't remember the name of.

The Subway

Brooklyn Bridge

Our last day in New York, we all had pie from Four and Twenty Blackbirds for breakfast. I never got a picture of that little pie shop, but it was delightful. If we get back to visit Matt, I'll definitely be looking forward to stopping there again. All we had time for before our flight was a walk on the Brooklyn bridge and around the DUMBO area.

Loved our trip to New York City this summer! We could go once a year for the next 50 and still never see everything that city has to explore. We probably can't get out there that often, but I think we'll definitely go out again and maybe take the kids out. In shifts. Like 2 at a time. As they get old enough to walk all day and not make a scene on the subway. And not complain when they're hungry.

(Hmm, Maybe I'm not old enough to go to NYC!)

Albuquerque Turkeys