Boomer Sooner

Yes, I am one of these types of dog owners now...It's silly I know. But I couldn't help it! It started out with me looking at Halloween costumes online and then the bright idea came. I couldn't help myself. Introducing our little mascot:

WET ariZONE-a

So, last weekend we had some pretty crazy storms come through our area. Lots of lightning and thunder and TONS of rain! We took some pictures and video of the wonderful wetness and even played in it some! (When the crazy lightning wasn't happening). Our area in particular got a lot of water. The wash that is behind our house was running to the brim, and the huge park that we play in...completely under water! It was a LAKE. It was really a sight to see! Wanna see it too? Okay, just scroll down! (sorry for the poor quality pictures - it was dark and we only had our cell phones).

Along with rain, there came thumb nail size hail.

Then the heavy rain!

James was at home taking the above shots. I unfortunately had to drive home from work in this storm. It was so loud on the car! I was hoping that I wouldn't drive through the hail and get chips and dents on the car. I think I did, but I came away unscathed. This is what I came to when driving into the neighborhood:

If it's hard to see, look on the left side of the picture at the street - it's under about 4 inches or so of water running towards me. Not running...flowing. And flowing fast! Here's the video I took (yes, while driving. I know I'm bad. I slapped my wrists okay?)

Then, I had to get a shot of the park completely submerged.

I came home after shooting this video and immediately got James and Boomer into the car to take them to see it. We had a good time watching it and then we got out and played in it :) It was FREEZING! The temperature dropped to low 70s. Well, after having a day that was almost triple digits, a drop of 30+ degrees is COLD. :)

 

We had so much fun though, that I left my headlights on while the car was off. Good thing we were playing in the part of the park that was next to our home teacher's house. He and his wife came over and helped give me a jump. He gave James a hard time for letting his wife drive around in a car that dies all the time. (It doesn't really die on me all the time. Just when I'm careless and leave lights on. It was pretty funny though.)

 We came home just in time as another storm cell came through. While we still had power, because I didn't know if we were going to lose it or not, I filled up some spare water jugs, got out the tea light candles and put our two flashlights from down stairs all on the counter. It felt good to be a little prepared.

 

 

Luckily we didn't lose power. I knew some people though that did. One of my co-workers who lived up in town actually lost her power for 12 hours! We were very lucky. I love it when it rains here in AZ. It happens so rarely that I feel refreshed when it happens. And the desert smells so good afterward - a good, "wet dirt" smell. I love it. It rained again today and I left my sliding door open to enjoy the sounds, smell and cool temperature that the rain brought. I'm looking forward to the nights of sleeping with an open window and snuggling under warm covers! I love fall!

We'll Never Forget

I remember sitting in my American History class, just a few weeks after my Junior year started at Royal Palm Beach High School in Florida. Mrs. Burns, my teacher, had just left us with a worksheet and went to see another teacher. All of the sudden, she came bursting in, wide-eyed and very concerned, and said that the World Trade Centers in NYC had just been hit by a plane. We turned on our TV that was in the class room and watched. We saw the buildings burning just after the second plane had hit. I was young at the time so I don't remember being how I was emotionally. I just remember that it was a very somber day. I saw many flags put up that day, our school's flag even went to half mast. I remember sitting with my family watching the President address the nation. For the rest of that year I don't ever remember not seeing an American flag hung somewhere.

James: I was on my mission in Venezuela. We left our apartment that morning, in Tariba. We walked to our first appointment which was with a co-worker of one of the members in the ward. Just around the corner from his house, some person in a white car, called out to us and asked if we were Americans. We answered yes and he started going off about something that had to do with the Pentagon, the White house and the Twin Towers in New York City. We were confused at what he was saying so we left and continued on to our appointment. As they opened the door and they looked at us with stunned faces and we knew that something had happened and was wrong. We went into their room that had the TV on (probably CNN International) and we just stood there. Stunned. We were pretty inefficient the rest of the day. We had our Mission President interviews that night. Since we'd been out all day, not to mention, missionaries in a foreign country, we were concerned about our future as missionaries. The Mission President wasn't expecting us to be sent home. But the days that followed, the most anybody wanted to talk about with us was if we were from NY and if our families had been affected. It went on like that for about a month.

Now ten years, later, we were able to visit the sight of the future 9/11 Memorial. I'm very exited to see it when it is all finished and completed. It's a way to show us that we can rebuild ourselves. We are strong. Here's a link to the 9/11 Memorial in New York City: www.911memorial.org. Also, go to http://newyorkwtc.com/newwtc.htm. This one also has great concepts and pictures of what the memorial is going to look like.

We'll Never Forget.

Labor Day Fun in the Sun

We spent Labor Day up in Mesa with my parents. It was fun to just enjoy a day outside swimming in the pool and watching the boys show off. Dad did a great cook out on the grill too with mom making other yummy foods.

 

I "heart" NY

Well, we've been home for 2 weeks now so its about time to blog about our NY vacation right? Right! I'm trying to make a book out of it too so its also becoming a project :) I warn you, this is a long post. Feel free to just look at the pictures :)

We had a fantastic time in NY. Our whole purpose in going was to see one of James' best friends, Bronson, marry his sweet bride Lori in the Manhattan, NY temple. I can honestly say, the first two days of our vacation, which were pretty much spent at the temple, were the best ones of the whole week we were there. I loved being in that temple! So peaceful! And the ceremony was very sweet and special. Congrats Bronson and Lori!

 It was also fun for us to see friends we've not seen in a long time. Rolf and his wife Kristi also came (Rolf was another best friend of James and also was my home teacher when we were all in the same ward together). Kristi also had their beautiful baby girl Evangaline with them. Such a precious lil thing :)

 One of the funnest parts about the reception was the DJ played the Alicia Keys (I think it's her song) song "New York" and it was a blast bustin' a move with this in the background. Nice!

 The morning dawned bright and beautiful and the temple was a great experience. We then ate sandwiches in Central Park.

After seeing Bronson and Lori off and saying bye to our friends, James and I went off to officially start the "Vacation" part of our vacation :) First stop: the Empire State Building. (And just a word of caution to you future NY goers...don't do the ESB on a Saturday night! Waaaaaay busy!)

  The following pics are fuzzy but they were taken with our cell phones. While we were on the 85th floor, some nice person gave us tickets (that had already been paid for!) to go up to the the 102nd floor observatory. So nice of them! It took a long time to get up there but it was fun to see NYC lit up at night. The first pic is of Times Square. The next one is the Chrysler building.

 I love how the ESB is lit up at night.

Stop #2: Times Square (another no-no on a Saturday night but we did it anyway.) :)

 How could I not get a picture of this! ^ (the line in red)
The MnM World store was a lot of fun too. Look at all the different colors of chocolate-y goodness!

 This section was pretty fun. It was all NY based. For example, they had a mix that was yellow, white and black and it was called "Taxi." There was one that was grey, blue and white and was called "Homerun" (Yankees themed). They had some for the Jets, the Mets, the Giants, the FDNY and the NYPD as well.

 Ah...the Disney store. And I found my princess dress, just 6 sizes too small...(I love Tangled)

 Here is all the official Disney Princesses, and in order of their appearence. Can you name them all?

Stop #3: MoMA (The Museum of Modern Art)
The lovely Monet:

Abstract:

 Lookie! I found where all the Rapunzel lanterns landed!

I thought this was hilarious:

 This is the choreography of brushing your teeth. For a second I felt like buying it to hang in all my offices. But just for a second...

 And this is the kind of art that made me feel like I could totally be an artist. It's a bunch of candy, wrapped and also just the wrappers, piled up into the corner.

Stop #4
An official NYC hot dog in Central Park - the Bethesda Fountain to be exact.

Stop #5
Ground Zero Contruction/Memorial
I don't have many pictures of this but the new Tower is looking great. The memorial building we actually went to on another day but it was a very sobering visit. I couldn't get out of there with dry eyes, it was impossible. I can't wait for the memorial to be done. I'd love to take another trip out there to visit it.

This is what the Tower is supposed to look like when finished.

 Names of those killed on 09/11/01 are on the stripes of this flag.

Stop #6
The infamous Ed Sullivan theatre where the Late Show with David Letterman is filmed. We actually were able to score some tickets to the Monday filming of Thursday's show. It was fun to be in the audience and it was a great show too. The guests included Paul Rudd and the drummer from Santana.

 

Stop #7

The American Museum of Natural History
This one was my favorite museum of the three we went to.

 They had a section on Forests around the nation. One of them was in our own back yard - literally. They highlighted the Saguaro National Forest in Tucson, Arizona. We easily spent 20-30 minutes here. We would point stuff out to the other visitors that stopped and looked too. Honestly, don't you find it funny that we cross the country to see these museums but spend the longest amount of looking time on something we look at every single day.

 Go Cougars! (er...mountain lions...)

Stop #8
Carnegie Deli

Can I have some bread with my sandwich please? And I think I ate the entire cow!
(That burger was as big as my face!)

Stop #9
Liberty and Ellis Island

Stop #10

The Brooklyn Bridge

Stop #11

Coney Island
This roller coaster was so fun and soo rickety! It would shove you down what felt like pure free fall drops and then ram you up the next ramp and then shove you down all over again. So awesome!

 This was called Soarin' Eagle. You'd climb up into these thingers and you'd be vertical. Then they would drop you forward till you were horizontal. You rode the ride on your stomach! It was great! Throw in a couple of barrel rolls and it was a FUN fun ride!

 And the beach. Good ole' Atlantic ocean, good to see you again.

Stop #12 and #13
Washington Square and Jekyll and Hyde Club Restaurant

 We ate at this restaurant when I was a kid and we'd come to NY from FL. They take you in to the restaurant and it's like the Haunted Mansion at Disney. You meet your "guide" and you stand in this room where the ceiling starts to drop on you and you have to scream to get out :) Then, when you've screamed sufficiently loud, you're taken to your tables :) The kid's menu is themed (ex: Fang's Hamburger) and you have characters that will come around and interact with you. Also, they have pictures on the wall where the eyes are constantly moving, masks that will talk, a high maintenance mummy (he ordered a latte and put a curse on James!) and lots of other fun things. The food was delicious too. I think that place is a must for any time NYC is visited.

Stop #14
Metropolitan Museum of Art
This place was HUGE. There were a lot of things in here thought that I studied in my Art History class at BYU. It was neat to actually see the things that I'd studied.

 I told James I want one of these bookshelves...

 These stained glass windows came from some Brooklyn dweller's apartment!

 This is a Commode - pretty huh :)

 A gorgeous piano with Mother of Pearl keys

 Our favorite Monet - we have this print now, a smaller version of it, hanging in our bedroom now

 Degas - he's famous for highlighting dancers.

Stop #15 & #16
Minskoff Theatre and Lindy's
We saw the Lion King on Broadway at the Minskoff theatre. It was fantastic. The things they did to make the animals move and the masks were very fun. We really enjoyed it!

James got the strawberry cheesecake and I got a brownie cheesecake. It was delicious!

 Stop #17
Rockefeller Center

Stop #18
Yankee Stadium
 We were very lucky to be able to go the new Yankee stadium and see the 3 Grand Slam Yankee's vs. Oakland A's!! Yankees kicked tail too! 22 to 9! It was amazing!

 Stop #19
Hoboken, New Jersey

So, a little bit of background for this visit. I'm not sure if you've heard of the TLC show Cake Boss, but he's based out of this little town in New Jersey. His father started and owned Carlos' Bakery Shop on Washington street. So I wanted to try and get into this bakery and taste some of the goodness that comes out of it! So we hopped on a PATH train and headed across the Hudson to Hoboken.

 We waited in a long line - it was about an hour and 20 minutes before we actually made it into the bakery.

 We got to look and decide on what we wanted while we waited another 1/2 hour before our number was called.

 Red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, a freshly filled cream-filled canoli, and a lobster tail (a pastry with cream inside shaped like a lobster tail). The other box was 10 differently decorated shortbread cookies. Soooo good!!

 Stop #20
China Town NYC

 We made a brief visit to China town for lunch. It was delicious authentic Chinese food. And looking at all the shops was fun.

This was the most we saw of Little Italy :)

Well, that was our NY trip. We had a fantastic and fabulous time!

Congrats on finishing yet another Tucson Hall loooooong post. Go eat some pie :)