Airplane Nursery

Before I post about Jacob's wedding and my family's visit, I want to show off Matthew's room. I've been working hard on it for the last few weeks, and it's most of the way finished. I have a few more touches I want to add, but that will probably always be true.  And if I could decide if I was keeping the purple shelf in his room, I would paint it white. But until then it shall remain conspicuously purple.

Happy Birthday, Anna and Michael

All about Bobs

A few Saturdays ago was a day full of bobs. To start the day, I bought a jogging stroller at a yard sale. It was a BOB Revolution double jogging stroller, which in case you know nothing about jogging stroller is the best of the best. It's really nice. Apparently the previous owner didn't jog much, because it was in perfect condition. I got home and read through the instruction manual that the owner gave me. Since it's a double, it's rather large and takes up the entire trunk. Thankfully, the wheels are really easy to take off and on. I decided to take it for a spin and went down to a jogging path near my house. The path goes up around the resevoir, but I accidentally took the wrong fork and went up a extremely steep hill to the neighborhood  above the Parkway. By the time I got back down, I was low on water so I only ended up running about three-quarters of a mile. But the stroller worked great.

Then in the evening, I finally couldn't take it anymore, and I went a chopped off my hair. I've been wanting to for a while, especially after I saw the pictures of me at the wedding. I decided my hair had just gotten too long. And it has been so hot that I really just wanted to cut it short. So to continue my day of bobs, I got a chin-length bob. It looks cute. I don't think it's going to be my favorite haircut, but it is sure nice having short hair on a hot day. Plus, it's cut so I don't have to style it, which is always a bonus.

Oh, I have one more exciting thing to tell, though it has nothing to do with bobs. Apparently, the church is getting rid of new.familysearch.org, which I have never liked, and I got chosen to beta test the new website! Pretty cool. I have to say, the new program is a hundred times better. Now, I spend all my free time of this new website. If you are related to me on my mother's side, you'll thank me once you see all that I've done.

Matthew in the jogging stroller

Before

After

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