1st full day of vacation in NYC

Yesterday I met Kent and Erik at the Penn Station in NY and we easily made it to our Hotel up on the upper West side of Central Park. I had checked into the hotel earlier in the day so I knew exactly how to get to the hotel via the subway. So this morning we took the subway over to the NY Museum of Natural History. If any of you know Kent and cameras it will not surprise you to know that I downloaded his pictures to my computer he had taken around 225 pictures for just today! I'm saving each of you from the pain and I have just put a few of them on the blog.They had so many cool exhibits in the museum. There were 4 floors of exhibits to look at. We took a short 1 hour tour of the museum to give us the highlights and then we walked around for another 3 or so hours. After the museum we went over to Central Park. If you recognize this bridge it was used in the movie Enchanted. It was really beautiful there but it was pretty warm today and very humid. This fountain was also in Enchanted. It was used during the finale of their big musical number. Tomorrow we are going to the Statue of Liberty at 12:00 P.M. Of course we got tickets for around the hottest time of the day and it's going to be 93 degrees with more humidty. I guess we will see how we do.

Throughout Central Park you can find these large rocks that have marks on them from where glaciers came through. I guess they had "global warming" long before we were around. LOL

New paint!

Since my mom moved up to Sequim I thought I would take advantage of some of the space by repainting rooms and moving furniture. This is Erik's old room and it was very very green. I fogot to take a picture before we removed the top strip of wallpaper. It had jungle cats on it.

I wanted to make the room a good room for guests and since my mom left her queen size bed here I decided to put the bed up in this room. Of course Kent always ends up having to do most of the work......When we first started painting I really didn't like the colors I had picked out but in the end it turned out really good. The bed is pretty big in the room but it will be nice for people to have a large bed to sleep on.

Now we have 2 rooms set up with beds!

Family visits

One of Kent's cousins, Agneta, and her husband came for a visit last weekend. It was so much fun because Jennie & Sophie were already here and then Kent's 2 sisters came over also. We had such a great evening with everyone.


Agenta and Valter went to Florida first and then came to Washington. Donna, Laif and Ann showed them around in Seattle, Sequim area and Victoria. They went down to Chehalis to see Janet and her family.

It was so fun to have Janet, her 2 daughters and some of her grandchildren!

This is a great shot of the four siblings.

Of course Sophie has to be the center of attention.

Everyone enjoyed just sitting around visiting and catching up with each other.

Mark & Janet sharing great times.

Jennie & Agneta enjoyed getting to know each other.

Girls everywhere!

Lots of guys too!

The Joy of Sophie

I love that Sophie has such unbridled laughter!

Sophie & Jennie came up to visit last weekend. We had several fun events over the weekend. Sophie loved playing the piano and singing at the same time. She would sit at the piano and sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star! It was great.

Sophie has a great laugh and often makes herself laugh just for attention.

Looks like she went to the zoo but it's actually her great-grandma's bed.

Fun in Oregon

So I had a 3 day business trip in Oregon this week so I stayed at the fabulous Hotel Olson. The cost to stay there is very small (just a little kid time is all). So last night I was going to take care of David, Anna & Katie while Steven and Janet went out to eat. A really cool thing happened though, Anna had just gotten a message that she had won a bike from Applebees. She had put her name down several times when they ate there and she won! So I got to take the kids out to dinner and pick up her bike. She was so excited she could hardly hold still! They were really good though. David took this picture of Anna while we were driving. You can see how happy she is.

When the manager took the bike down to give to Anna the customers clapped and cheered for her. I think she felt pretty special.

After dinner the kids wanted to show me their school so walked over there. Katie road the skooter all by herself and she was really proud of it.

David is a great bike rider and was really zooming around fast! I had a great time at this special hotel!

Quilting Retreat

This last weekend I went on a Quilting Retreat with my mom and sisters. I'm not much of a quilting kinda person but I had a quilt that needed to be finished so it was nice to be able to work on it. People had great ideas on how to finish the quilt. This picture doesn't really do the quilt justice. It's got very cute patterns throughout it.

Donna & Diane mostly worked on a quilt for my mom's bed. It turned out really nice.

Fun in Salt Lake

I got to go to Salt Lake this weekend and play with my girls! Sophie loves to go to the swimming pool. Jennie has been teaching her to swim and she is really good at it.

Such a big girl helping in the yard!