Vacation Part 6: New York City

On the last day of our vacation, Mark, Michael, Anna and I went into New York City. This was my third visit, but Mark and his siblings had never been. I didn't want to overwhelm us trying to see everything, and we wanted to make sure we got home in time to see his grandparents again, so I planned a manageable route near Times Square. So we saw Times Square, Rockefeller Center, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Saks Fifth Avenue, Grand Central Station, Chrysler Building, New York Public Library and Bryant Park. Right next to Bryant Park the road was closed for a street fair. It was like being able to go shopping in Chinatown without actually going all the way down to Chinatown. I got a super cute purse, which is a knockoff of something, but I can't for the life of me figure out what. I really wanted something that was big enough to double as a diaper bag, but stylish enough to be a nice purse. Also, we bought a nice picture for our living room. It wasn't until we got back to Princeton that Mark's dad pointed out that the picture is of San Francisco. Haha. I still love the picture though. I just won't tell everyone I bought it in New York.

We also got to go to a play on Broadway. Michael and Anna went to Newsies, which they said was really good. Apparently the choreography is amazing, which it even won a Tony for. Mark and I decided to go see Mary Poppins. I'll be honest, it was good, but not great. They changed the story line, which was fine, but they changed the lyrics in the songs, but it wasn't always easy to understand what they were singing. The children needed to enunciate better. Oh well. Afterwards we met up with Anna, Michael and Michael's friend for dinner. Michael's friend was doing an internship in the city, but had accidentally reserved us dinner at a restaraunt across town. So we randomly chose a place, Daniela Trattoria, and it was not only delicious but also suprisingly affordable. All in all, it made for a good end for our trip.

Times Square

That's us in the top left corner

Mark, Anna and I at Rockefeller Center

New York Public Library

Awesome Italian restaraunt

Vacation Part 5: Statue of Liberty

While we were in Princeton, we took advantage of our proximity to New York City. We spent one day visiting the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We took the ferry from the New Jersey side, which ended being really nice because not as many people visit from New Jersey. Our ferry was no where near as packed as the New York ferries. We got mixed up trying to find the departure point - we accidentally mixed up locations and followed the signs for a different ferry dock. We had already purchased our ferry tickets which specified that they were only valid for that specific ferry. So when we finally arrived at the right place, we ran to make sure we didn't miss the ferry. Afterwards, we realized that running was very unnecessary. The lady who scanned our tickets barely glanced at them. The 10 am ferry didn't end up departing until 10:40. The New Jersey ferry takes off from an old train station. The terminal was built with the ferry docks on one side and all the trains coming out the other side. The terminal is still used to sell tickets and for security. But the loading platforms for all the trains is fenced and is completely overgrown. It was like being in the movie "I Am Legend."

Our ferry first landed at Ellis Island. I'm so glad they restored the building there. It is gorgeous. The museum was interesting. You can get free audiotours, but I didn't feel like it. It was really interesting to learn about the history of immigration in the United States. I was particularly interested in our discrimination of Chinese immigrants and the evolution of our immigration laws. I don't have any ancestors who came through Ellis Island. My most recent immigrant ancestors were Anton Meissner and his wife Barbara Donhauser. The did come from Germany to New York, but in 1888, a few years before Ellis Island was created. Next we went to Liberty Island. The Statue of Liberty was closed for renovations, so we couldn't go inside. But it was fun just walking around it. And we took some good pictures with the Manhattan skyline in the distance. You can see the new World Trade Center building in the background - it's the tallest one and is still under consruction.

Ellis Island

The Hospital Wing at Ellis Island

The Great Hall

Statue of Liberty

Mark and I

Mark and I                                       Michael and Anna

Mark

Me

Michael

Anna



Vacation Part 4: Princeton, New Jersey

After the wedding, we drove out to Princeton, New Jersey to visit Mark's grandfather. He is a retired mechanical (?) engineer from Bell Labs. He also taught at the university level. Grandaddy and Hazel live in a retirement community outside Princeton. It was nice to finally meet them and to introduce them to Matthew. We would visit with them in the evening and during the day, we left Matthew with my in-laws and Mark, Michael, Anna and I would travel to New York City. Matthew seemed to really enjoy this arrangement. I'm told that both days we were in New York, he slept all day long. Matthew got along really well with Grandaddy. Grandaddy had an "Easy" button from Staples that he would react to whenever Matthew pushed it. Matthew quickly figured the game out. He would get the easy button and then stare pointedly at Grandaddy when he pushed the button to watch for Grandaddy's reaction. We also met Mark's uncle Doug, who lives nearby. He was a really fascinating person and extremely intelligent. He's a physicist, I think, but he works in an experimental lab working on cold fusion. Apparently, they have been able to get a sustained reaction for 5-10 seconds.

One more Matthew story. One night we all ate dinner at the dining room. It's apparently the grand event of the day for all the residents. It's like going to a resteraunt - your party is seated and waiters serve you off a menu. But the menu doesn't have prices (all the residents have already paid). Anyway, we ate dinner there, and Matthew was in a good mood, but didn't want to sit still. So everyone alternated taking him out in the hall to walk around. We had been one of the first groups to arrive, so the hall was full of senior either waiting for other people or waiting for a table. Matthew just charmed all the residents. They don't see many babies, and he was in a good mood so he would give everyone a big dimpled smile. So in the hall we would walk around saying hello to all the residents. At one point near the end, I carried him back to our table at the back of the dining room. He was perched on my shoulder like a parrot, and all the people at the tables we passed we smiling, or waving or saying hello. He was quite the celebrity.

Matthew with Hazel's cane

Mark, Matthew, Diane, Grandaddy and Hazel

Matthew and his great-grandaddy

This is the "trick" we taught Matthew. He showed it off so many times during our vacation that he got to be quite efficient. Whenever you said "What" he knew exactly what he was supposed to do. This video was taken pretty late the night before we came home, hence the whining at the end.

Vacation Part 3: Benjamin's Wedding

Yay for weddings. Benjamin and Jess got married on June 20th at the Washington, D.C. temple. To be honest, I took no pictures, so all of these are taken from Facebook. But the wedding was nice. The only problem was that it was hot. Very very hot. The ceremony itself was nice. Jess was a beautiful bride. Picture taking was miserable though. Poor little Matthew was sweating so much that his hair was matted down to his head all day. And then we lost our diaper bag, which not only had diapers, and milk and food for Matthew, but also all the toys we brought on the trip. We left it with all the other stuff at the temple entrance and after taking pictures it was gone as was everything else, so we figured someone from the wedding party had grabbed it. Afterwards, we drove to the reception and the traffic was terrible. The beltway was stop and go the whole way. Luckily we followed my parents because we would totally have missed the entrance to the reception site. We are driving down this gravel road when my parent's car turns into a gated field and then proceed to drive through an orchard to end up in a field with cars parked. Apparently the sign wasn't up yet.

Once we got to the reception site, things improved. We got our diaper bag back, and had lunch. It was still very hot, but at least we were inside with some A/C. The reception site was really pretty. It was a really nice house where the owners also run a bed and breakfast. Benjamin and Jess also had a ring ceremony which was nice. Mark and I didn't end up staying for the reception. It had been such a long day with Matthew that we really just wanted to get him back to the hotel. Aside from the heat and the traffic, the two things that they couldn't control, the wedding was really nice.

Benjamin and Jess Pingel

Matthew in his pin-stripe suit

Jaclyn and I



Vacation Part 2: Smithsonian Annex

After Cincinnati, we went up to my parents' house in Cedarville. I hadn't been home in a year and a half, so it was fun to see all the changes. The trees in the yard have gotten so big - especially the pine trees. It was also fun to see our cat Princess. Matthew really enjoyed her. She did remarkably well with my energetic little boy. She quickly reached a point where she wasn't thrilled about the baby, so she would just walk away whenever he walked toward her and she would usually ended up laying down just out of reach under the car. Next day, we drove to Washington, D.C., for Benjamin's wedding. The drive went really well. There was just one 15 minute stretch where Matthew started screaming. But he was crying with his eyes closed, so we knew that he was on the verge of sleeping. Other than that, he did fine. It helped having my Grandma Groves in the backseat to entertain him.

On Tuesday, I had arranged for everyone to go to the Smithsonian Annex for our family outing. It was only 15 minutes away and was indoor - a plus since it was really hot outside. The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum is downtown, but since space is limited downtown, they have an Annex in Chantilly, Virginia. The star of the museum is the Shuttle Discovery which arrived a few months ago. It was amazing to see it. Aesthetically, I think the shuttle look great. The weird thing is that up close, the white parts of the shuttle actually have black writing all over them. Apparently all the pieces are clearly labeled. Up close, the shuttle definitely looks like its been to space and back about 30 times. The museum also housed the Enola Gay - the plane the dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan - and an SR-71, which is just an awesome plane.

The Shuttle Discovery

Enola Gay

SR-71

Jaclyn, Steve, Benjamin, Dad, Me, Mark with Matthew,

Mom, Melissa, Ayden and Grandma Groves

Vacation Part 1: Robison Family Reunion

So, I'm finally posting about our awesome vacation. We started off by flying direct from Salt Lake to Cincinnati. Mark's brother and sister also were on our flight, which was handy. Matthew actually handled the flight just fine. He didn't have any trouble with the pressure difference and he did remarkably well being contained to sitting on our laps. About halfway through he fell asleep, which made life so much better. In Cincinnati, we had a family reunion with Mark's family. Cincinnati is about halfway from his parents house in Kent, Ohio and his oldest brother's house in Nashville, Tennessee. We rented some lady's house for the weekend, and it was pretty cool. It was a 5 bedroom house with a gigantic indoor pool. Apparently she did swimming and diving in college and then taught diving for a while. So she had a full length pool with a full diving board. The blessing and the curse about the pool was that it was heated. I enjoy heated pools, but this one was just too hot. It made it hard to stay in very long. We really didn't do too much while we were there. We did make a visit to IKEA. Mostly, it was just nice to visit and to see all our nieces and nephews. We did have a fun mustache party for Father's Day since my father-in-law has a mustache.

Oh, and for my family, here's a quick cheat sheet of Mark's family so you aren't so lost with all the nieces and nephews.

Elwin and Diane
-Peter and Becca Robison - Lindsay and Kate - Nashville, TN
-Stephen and Sara Robison - Christopher, Garrett and Amy - Columbus, OH
-Mark
-Anna Robison - just graduated BYU
-Michael - BYU
-John - serving in the Houston South Mission

Lindsay and Kate

Mark with Kate and Peter with Lindsay

Christopher and Lindsay

Matthew pushing the cart around IKEA

Amy and Matthew

Kate

Mark and Garrett

Christopher, Lindsay, Matthew and Kate

Amy

History of Flight

I put my first bit of decor in Matthew's room. His room is an airplane theme, so I did a grouping of frames above Matthew's dresser. It turned out really well, except now the lamp I have in his room is driving me crazy. It's too big, but it's the only lamp I have. Oh, well. I'll eventually replace it. But I framed some airplane photos for him. I have two historical photos -  the Wright Brothers' first flight and Charles Lindbergh with the Spirit of St. Louis (first cross-Atlantic flight) - and two family photos - Mark and Matthew in front of a P-51 Mustang and my Grandpa Pingel in front of his embassy plane when he was in the Air Force.