Our recent trip started with a tight flight to Utah for a wedding.  We thought all our plans would be down the drain with all the flights filling up, but with only 8 seats on the plane, we managed to claim 5 of them.  We had a wonderful family BBQ in the COLD Utah weather.  We enjoyed all the festivities of Meggie's wedding.  I found a kind friend to watch Mariah outside the temple so I could enjoy the sealing.  As much as we tried, Mariah wouldn't take a bottle, so I was scared to leave her and nervous that she would be bad, but she did great.  She is smiley and happy and goes to sleep fairly easily.

  We enjoyed the luncheon and then headed back to Lehi to be with our kids for a few hours before going back to the reception.

We packed for our trip to NYC, but once again, the flight kept dropping seats throughout the day.  There were only 7 seats left and we were numbers 4-7 in line.   At 11 pm we headed to the airport still not knowing if we would actually get to NYC or if we would be back in Utah with the kids for the weekend.  We ended up getting on, but they bumped Mariah to a lap baby.  I was very concerned because I have never flown with a lap baby, let alone on a red eye flight.  She nursed and fell asleep and we put her on the floor and she slept the whole flight.  The baby sitting behind us, unfortunately, did not sleep . . . at all.  The poor exhausted mother!  But we were exhausted too.  We had a 20 min layover in Charlotte and luckily the gate was close so we caught the next flight no problem.
By the end of this 24 hour period, We were transported by
1. Car
2. 2 planes
3. 3 buses
4. 5 subways
5. bike
6. boat (water cruise around Manhattan)
any other transportation we missed?

Mariah stayed in her carrier most of the time or we held her. We got the NYC pass and tried our best to get to every attraction.  We had a water cruise (after an annoying hour long bus ride through Manhattan traffic).  We went to the MET and saw many amazing art works.  We strolled through central park becoming completely lost.  The trip to the Empire State building was shorter because we had Mariah in a stroller.  We got to see Times square in the day and night time.

We stayed at the apartment building of a friend and so we got to see a glimpse into actual NY life.  This family has 5 kids in a 2 bedroom apartment!  Wow!  We are spoiled out west!  We finally crashed at midnight (9 p,m our time) after almost 48 hours awake.  We slept solidly and Mariah cooperated as well.


We slept in until 9 am (only 6 am our time and ate breakfast with my mission companion and trainer Tiffany.  she is seriously my hero.  She is the kindest, most thoughtful, spiritual giant.  It was so fun to reunite and connect with her again. I am so inspired by her goodness and love.  We headed out for another long and full day in the City.  This day we hit the 9/11 memorial, Wall street, Trinity church, Moma(the art museum was NOT our style, but we liked the rain room!), Rockefeller square, top of the Rock, NBC studio and finished out the day at the wax Museum at Madam Tussard.   The New Yorkers loved Mariah, when she wasn't covered up and sleeping, she was smiling and grinning and happy so everyone loved to look and ooh and aah over her.  It was fun to interact with more people because we stood out with a baby.  Dave was amazing to push the stroller and carry it up and down staircases/subways/etc.  I was nice to have a place to put things so we didn't have to carry them around.  I love riding the subways and seeing the many different people in the city.  This place is so busy, crowded and different than anything you can imagine on the west coast.  I loved visiting, but I'm not sure I could live there. We had a great dinner with Tiffany and her family.

We were hoping for one more day in the city, but Dave had some pressing things at work that he HAD to be back for and since flying stand-by is so unknown, we tried to get home a day earlier.  Unfortunately, the flights were SO full.  We tried looking for connections through every major city we could think of (even if it was out of the way).  the only route that looked good was through Charlotte and Dallas.  We are always hesitant to do connections because of so many things that can change the outcome of the flight, but that seemed to be the best option, so after only 3 hours of sleep we woke to pack, get a taxi to the airport and started our journey.  The first flight was an easy one to catch, but once we got to Charlotte we found that the Dallas flight filled up and we already knew that most every flight we had looked at was completely full and overbooked.  We started to panic a little.  We listed on several different flights and hoped that people didn't show up so we could have their seat.  There was one seat left on the Dallas flight so with a minute to decide, I took the ticket and ran down the jet way with Mariah.  Once I got in my seat I started to realize that I was alone, with a lap baby, without a binky (I LOST IT!!) and was headed to Dallas (not my home).  I was very nervous and scared that we shouldn't have split up.  Fortunately, Mariah nursed fell asleep and I was able to lay her down and I FOUND the binky.  I could not have felt happier than at that moment.  The binky made all my fears disappear and I felt calm and slept for nearly 2 hours.  When I landed, I found out that Dave had made it on to the flight that was overbooked to Phoenix!  They bumped someone to the next flight and gave him a voucher, and when another person didn't show up for the flight they had one seat open.  When the stand-bys in front of Dave didn't show up, he got it! I was so happy.  He wouldn't have taken the seat if I weren't safely on my way to my destination, so I was glad we chose to split up.  Now, I had the option of flying to Phoenix for free on US airways or paying $15 on American to fly straight to SLC to get my kids.  After a stressful time trying to list on the flight (Dave was in the air so he couldn't help me),  I was listed and actually got an empty seat next to me so I could take the car seat on!  It was wonderful!  I really didn't like my experience on American Airlines as much as I've enjoyed US Airways, but maybe it is because that is what I am use to.  Mariah once again slept the entire flight!  She is SUCH a good baby!  Getting to Utah and seeing the kids felt great.  The day went better than we planned (with lots of stress in the middle).  I was so happy we got to see NYC (Dave's first visit) together.  We sure pack a lot in a few hours and I love that we are both happy to travel that way (we get more trips in but they are much shorter).

I was thinking that Mariah is going to have a crazy life.  She has already been to Hawaii, New York and Utah 4 times and isn't even 3 months old.  I bet most full grown adults haven't been to all those places.  We sure love the benefits of this job . . . even if it does shorten our life because of the stress :)


Thanks to my mom and dad for watching our toddler and pre-schooler.  We kept thinking how difficult life in the city would be with little ones.  Thanks to my in-laws for hosting us and taking us to the airport.  Thanks to Tiffany for feeding us and finding us an apartment to stay in.  Thanks to US Airways for flying us across the county.  I feel very blessed! 

 This is at the Dr's office for Mariah's 2 mo. appt (early June)  Jackson and Hallie would not leave her alone and I finally embraced the moment and snapped a shot.  Poor third child!
 Swimming at Mesquite Groves.  It was only 104 that day but the water felt great!

 Daddy reading scriptures with the kids.

 We went to the Children's museum twice one week (US Airways employees got in free) luckily, I got to spend time with another US Airways wife/friend and also Sandra was in town for the day!  So fun for the kids and for mom too!

 We threw a Mr. Incredibles party for dad.  Partly for his birthday (late) partly for Father's Day (early) and mostly for the kids.  We played 'golf (pin the ball in the hole), basketball (dunk, dunk, hoop), airplane standby (musical chairs), volleyball (with balloons) and watched the Incredibles and ate ice cream cake.  It was such a fun night for our family!
 For Father's Day Jackson gave dad a kid shaving set so Jackson could shave with Daddy.
 Dress ups are ALWAYS happening in our house.  This was a particularly unusual day :)

 Jackson loves cuddling his sister.

 We were planning a trip to Utah to take Dave's nephew from Houston to see his Grandma.  We realized that much of my family would be together.  We also realized that having a blessing in Arizona in July or August would be no fun at all.  So with only a few days to plan, we decided to go ahead and have Mariah's blessing in Utah at my parents home.  My brothers Shane and Ryan were able to attend, along with Carly and Doug. . . who announced they are expecting again in December! Dave's parents and brother, Tom were also able to be there.  We missed Michelle who was nursing a sick husband and a sick self as well.  We also really missed my sisters who are serving missions.  It will be a long couple of years without them. 



We are still waiting to know what Mariah will be like.  She is a pretty normal baby, not too fussy, not too perfect.  She is sleeping 7-9 hour blocks at night which is pretty amazing.  She sleeps fairly well during the day too.  Since Hawaii, I have let go of my strict 3 hour feeding schedule and just fed her when she seems fussy.  sometimes it is after an hour, or 2 and sometimes it is 5 hours between feedings.  She just weighed in at 13 lbs 2 oz at her 2 month appt -85th percentile, I think she is growing just fine.  Her length was 24 inches, in the 95th percentile.
Jackson and Dayton haven't seen each other in a while, but they had fun together.  We wish we had more time with them!


How Jackson feels about being sick . . .