New York New York

Put on the breaks for a minute...let's take a quick stop in Colorado first. So as many of you know Rob and I took a trip to New York. One to visit Rob's sister, two to visit my cousin, three to go to stew's wedding, four ummmm to go to New York? Anyway, so we left and took a quick stop in Colorado to drop Elizabeth off with my parents...good deal right? So we go there and my mom had gotten her all kinds of toys for the week including this Princess bike/push toy/boom box/monstrosity eye sore that Elizabeth loves! (BTW I'll apologize now for strange and blurry photos, my camera was being so weird and then died...so there's hardly any pics! :( what can you do?)

Then we headed out to get her some food for the week at the grocery store and she had her first horse back ride! She was a natural. And I don't even know what this smile is...adorable, I guess that's it.

And this one...

Then we finished off the day with a nice family dinner where Elizabeth was excused from the table for throwing food.

The next morning we were off to New York. As we were standing on the curb in New York both of us were struck by the chaos and flavor that is The City. Both of us have been there, more than once, but it still strikes us every time. New York is amazing. The different cultures, sights, sounds, and oddities that some how find a way to live cohesively in such a small space. The sheer size of the city and it's huge buildings is enough to blow the mind. But then you start thinking about all the people swirling around you going about their lives with all their trials and triumphs and how their story is so vastly different than yours. I just wish I could stop people in the street and ask them what they're about, which of coarse would lead them to believe I'm hitting on them or crazy (as Katie assumes when someone talks to her :). Anyway, so I didn't strike up any random conversations but I still couldn't help myself from smiling at everybody. I never realized I did that so much! :)

So the first night Katie and Jeff treated us to a great dinner in the village...they're so sweet. It had an in house bakery so of coarse the bread was killer. Rob got some delicious fried chicken and I got (no surprises) lamb, which was delectable. The we went back to Katie's to get settled in.

The next day we met my cousin and aunt at the Manhattan Temple. I was so excited (and got no picture! I really can't express how enraged I am). The temple was beautiful and really small! First floor entrance, elevator up to rent temple clothes, I think the baptismal font was the next floor, sealings must have been the floor up from that, and the endowments were the top. The endowment room probably held about 30 people. It really was beautiful and so fun to go with my family. It was so neat to see the different people who had traveled from all around New York and further to come. A few of them gathered outside the session afterwards to greet each other and talk. They introduced themselves to me, asked where I was from, what I thought of their temple, and told me a bit about themselves. So friendly and open. It was night and day from the streets of New York in many ways.

After that we accompanied my cousin to go to the hospital upstate to see her little baby Anthony, AJ. He suffers from hydrocephalus (fluid on his brain) and is going on I believe 3 surgeries at two months old. My cousin seems to be doing so well and being so brave. I think I might fall apart seeing my tiny baby in an incubator where I can't hold for weeks at a time. It was so sweet to be able to see him and share that moment with my family and we keep them in our prayers.

After our visit with them we walked about the city for a while. It actually turned out to be quite cold so we borrowed some winter coats! We walked around Madison, park, and 5th ave making our way over to central park. Robbie had actually never been there (or didn't remember) in all his visits to the city. He was blown away by the size of this oddity and respite in the middle of one of the biggest cities around.

It really is amazing that the park has stayed this way. I hadn't ventured up to the north side of the park much and it's practically like a forest...amazing. We walked through the zoo and as Rob satirically mused all day long, we saw Jason Bateman filming some moving which will surely come to light in a year or two.

That night we went to a great local jazz show (my fav) where we heard a new band and a favorite of Jeff's called the Bad Plus. We then went to a funky little Malaysian restaurant called The Fatty Crab. Loads of fun.

The next day was actually beautiful outside so we headed out to Brooklyn to do some shopping in a cute town called williamsburg. We took the subway of coarse...and I'm not sure why I'm looking so sassy in this picture that I'm pretty sure I asked Rob to take. Haha!

We went to a great little place called Egg for brunch, walked around some vintage shops, went to a couple really cute baby stores, and stopped for an ice cream at Penny Licks. We then headed back and stopped to go to this fantastic Indian market that has every thing you could ever imagine and then hundreds of things you couldn't. I was in heaven of coarse and wished I could just pop down there once a week to cook with some new and crazy ingredient I've never heard of.

That night we cooked some pizzas at Katie's (which has started my now pizza craze/mission to create the best homemade pizza). The next morning we took off at 7 to head to Maryland for the Stewart/Archibald wedding. I was so excited to go inside the Washington DC Temple. It was a beautiful sealing that we were so happy we could be at.

We spent the in between walking around Bethesda then driving around Congressional to feed Rob's golf appetite for the weekend. We then arrived at Ashley's house in Potomac which was an absolutely lovely area that I'm quite sure I could live in. Their wedding was beautiful (as is not evident by my ghastly pictures, again my apologies). We had such a blast dancing and sharing that special time in their lives with them. Thanks for the invite and being such gracious hosts!

We made our way back to NY by about 2 AM and majorly crashed. We woke the next morning to a relaxing day we just spent with Katie and Jeff around the city. Something you must know about Katie and Jeff is that there could not be a more perfect couple for me to spend time with. I love it. Katie shares my passion and talent for cooking and food. Jeff shares my love of all things music. So that night Katie made us some great Indian food and Jeff made us some sweet sweet music! Haha...really though, Jeff is amazing! They have a little recording studio in their living room and upon finding out I'd attempted to write some songs he insisted we record something! It was really so much fun, he had Rob going on the bass, me singing and playing guitar, and he was on the drums. After we recorded it he would play it back and grab an instrument. You want to lay down some trumpet over that? Some piano, some (actually good) guitar? No problem Jeff will just improv you some beats. We had a blast and were so sad to leave the next day. It was so kind of Katie and Jeff to have us stay in their sweet Harlem nest and we hope we're invited back sometime. :)

We headed back to Colorado after that for a few days which I will post at a later date partially because I don't have the pics and partially because this is the longest post of all time.

PS-The Neilson family band sings second rate Sarah originals coming to a store near you soon. Thanks for coming along on our trip with me!