Our Trip to New York, Philadelphia & DC!

Hurray! I'm finally sitting down to take the time time to blog about our amazing trip back east! Usually the trips we take are work related but we decided to take a vacation and explore these amazing cities without work! Of course Justin still had emails and master classes to worry about but that definitely did not stop us from having a wonderful time! This was my first time out east and Justin hadn't been there since he was little so needless to say we were super excited! I know there are a bazillion pictures but I'll let them do most of the talking.. I promise :)

We flew into Baltimore, MD, picked up our rental car and drove straight to New York, New York! Because our little buddy refused to sleep on the 5 hour plus plane ride over after waking up at 4am, he pretty much crashed on the way...

We arrived in NY and stayed at the Holiday Inn about block away from Time Square and of course we had to stop by and see the craziness of this place for ourselves. We were actually trying to find our hotel and ended up driving right in the heart of this place! It was so cool!

Of course we had to stop by the huge Toys R Us store while we were there and Ethan was so good at pointing out any and all Toy Story characters...

and there was a plethora of Buzz Lightyear toys that would have kept Ethan entertained for pretty much a year....

He was also very impressed by the huge dinosaur there... this place was a little boys dream!

The M&M Factory was pretty cool but man were those M&M's WAY overpriced! We barely filled up our bag and only did because we felt like we just "had" to since we were there and everything :)

Ethan was more than willing to hold our M&M bag for us... oh and, check out that sweet hat hair...

Ethan and daddy trying to take one home...

The next day we headed out early and took the subway to the Staten Island Ferry to go see Lady Liberty herself... We didn't have time to actually go out to the island but I think we got some good pictures of her anyways.

We also became pretty good at managing the stroller up and down the subway stairs. I'm sure we were quite the sight to behold!

View of Manhattan

After that we headed over to Ground Zero. I guess I never realized what a huge impact 9/11 was not only to NY but to our country. It was really neat to see this memorial, the fire station and St. Paul's church where the base of operations took place for Ground Zero. I got teared up a time or two realizing how many people lost their lives on this tragic day, including those brave firemen and others who lost their lives while trying to rescue others. Very touching.

The new trade center they are building..

St. Paul's church located right by ground zero

a little memorial remembering a few of those that died..

Graveyard located right behind St. Paul's church. I don't remember who was buried here but there were some really old gravestones....

After that, we took the subway down to Washington Square located right by NYU. This is a historic area located in the Greenwich Village area. There were lots of NYU students there and while they were mostly a little err... odd... this was really quaint, quiet park area. Cool bit of history: this park area serves as a mass grave where thousands of bodies were buried when the Yellow Fever hit NY. All the poor people that couldn't afford graves were thrown in here and buried. Crazy!

We let Ethan get out and burn off some much needed energy at a little kiddy park here as well

Then we headed on over to the Rockefeller Center to go to the Top of the Rock. Justin wanted to take the Subway but I wanted to walk and didn't think it was that far since I could see the Empire State Building from where we were. Turns out it's a pretty tall building and just because you can see the building, doesn't mean that you are close to it and we ended up walking.. oh.. about 30+ blocks to get there :)

On the way we stopped by Macy's just to see what it was all about. It's huge!

And we found a cool picture spot for the Empire State Building.. not a good picture of me but a good one of the building...

We finally made it to the Rockefeller Building and we wished we would have had more time to explore it! It was really cool and I loved watching the mini documentaries they showed on how it was built. We would totally recommend doing this maybe even instead of the Empire State Building. You get an awesome 360* view and it's a little cheaper.. still expensivo though.

Central Park down below...

The famous ice skating rink where they show the huge US Map during election time and I'm pretty sure it's been in a movie or two..

After grabbing a bite to eat at the Rockerfeller Center, we walked over to St. Patrick's Cathedral. I love to see old architecture like this right in the middle of cities like NY. This place was beautiful inside!

The next day was our day to head down to DC but before we left, we spent the morning in Central Park. This was maybe my most favorite thing we did in NY. I don't know if that's because of all the leaves changing colors or the nice, peaceful break it is from the city but I loved it and thought it was absolutely beautiful! If I was a New Yorker, I would totally go running here everyday!

Here is Ethan & Daddy with Alice and friends

Cool castle that we didn't have time to go explore....

You can see the ice skating rink to your bottom left...

I loved all the bridges and architecture there. I wish we would have had time to explore the whole place but we only got about half-way through it- which is still huge!

And of course what would Central Park be without guys like this??

We said goodbye to New York and made our way down to DC that afternoon. We decided to stop by Philadelphia and see some of the historical sights while we were passing through. Might as well, right?!

We saw Liberty Bell...

and the remnants of where Ben Franklin's house used to be. Apparently they didn't understand the importance of who Ben Franklin was back in the day and demolished his house. So sad. Those are original cobblestones though and they have also unearthed some remains of his house like the toilet hole and such but you can only look at it in the ground through a small pane of glass...

We also went and saw Independence Hall where the Declaration of Independence was drafted and signed. We took the tour but Ethan had had enough by that time and we played outside while waiting for daddy to come out.

I don't remember who this is a statue of but I thought the trees behind it were beautiful! I miss the fall colors!

We also went and saw the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers from the Civil War...

So we saw and did a lot in the 2 hours we had to spend in Philly. We left there and headed down to good ole' Wilmigton, Delaware to meet up with the Kapfer family. It was so good to see these guys again! Thanks guys for taking the time to meet up with us. Let's do it again sometime!

*For those of you who don't know who they are, they were our upstairs neighbors at BYU. Justin and Steve traded off watching the kids during the day around their own school schedules, while Ashley and I were gone all day for school. Steve and Justin were the Mr. Mom's for those 2 semesters :) They were also our game buddies on nights that we didn't have anything going on. Justin and Steve also worked together and became good buds as well.

Little Maggie and Molly, who aren't so little anymore..

We arrived late that night to DC and stayed with my very good friend, Alicia, who I have known for forever and I have posted about her before. The next morning we took the metro into DC and stopped at the DC Basilica. If my memory serves me right, this is one of the largest basilicas in the world! It was gorgeous inside!

Alicia and I..

After a quick tour through there, we hopped back on the metro and arrived at Union Square to get off and see the Capitol and the Library of Congress...

Here we are in front of the Capitol building

Alicia was kind enough to watch Ethan for 2 hours while Justin and I went inside and toured the capitol. Turns out they don't let you bring in any water bottles of any kind, empty or not, or any food. I wasn't about to throw away my $15 water bottle that goes everywhere with me or our PB&J's that Alicia slaved on that morning so Alicia volunteered to have some good one on one time with Ethan... what a sweetheart, eh?! Luckily he was a good boy for her (so she says anyways) :)

The office of Nancy Peloski

We went into a room full of statues of different people and any of you have any guesses to who this man may be??

Yep, it's good ole' Brigham Young! We were excited to see him there!

Ethan in front of the Library of Congress

Inside the library. Luckily Ethan slept through this tour or else it would have been impossible to do! I wouldn't have minded living inside the library as much as I did at BYU if it would have looked like this though!

After that, we got a quick bite to eat at a nearby Subway and then headed back to the mall area for a guided tour of all the monuments/memorials. We did the "DC By Foot" tour and I would highly recommend doing this! We had a retired high school history teacher as our guide and he was AWESOME! We learned SO much and had so much fun doing doing this. The best part? It's for free! He just accepts donations at the end. For those of you who live in DC or are just visiting, this is a must!

Because we did the tour at night, we didn't get the best pictures of everything but they still turned out ok..

In front of the Washington Monument..

WWII Memorial. We got to see all of the memorials there and my favorite one was actually one of the lesser known ones, the Korean War Memorial. I don't have a picture of it but the tour guide told us some really cool things about it and I just love it, especially at night..


The next day we woke up well rested and ready to tour again! Although, our feet were hurting us by this time with all the walking we had done in the past 5 days.

We started out by going and seeing the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. What a pretty location this memorial has right on the Potomac River..

We then headed over to the old post office of DC and went to the top to get a 360* view of the whole mall area...

Here you can see the CIA Building below with the Washington in the background

Lincoln Memorial

WWII again

and The White House...

Believe it or not, Ethan did fabulous for the whole week we were there! He spent so much time in his stroller and probably ate more goldfish than one human being should consume but he was for the most part so happy and made our trip so easy! he did have a few meltdowns though as shown below...

But who can blame him when you are two, not in your own home for more than 2 weeks at a time, trying to adjust to time changes and going non-stop with your parents from sun-up to sun-down? :) He was such a good little trooper!

After that we ran over for a tour of Ford's Theater where President Lincoln was shot. We learned some really neat things and here we are in front of the box office where Lincoln was assassinated.

The we headed over to Arlington Cemetery. This place is so incredibly beautiful and the colors of the trees definitely added to its beauty...

The Kennedy's.. John, Jacqueline, and two babies that died at birth...

Ted Kennedy's grave

We of course had to stop by and check out the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. If you want to learn how intense it is to be one of these guards you should Wikipedia it. Talk about some dedication! We are so grateful though for those men who serve and have served our country! Thank you!

Jeff and Alicia then took us to a nice restaurant called Chop House(?) there in DC. It was so fun to chat with them and to get to know Jeff a little better.

Thought we were done for the night? Of course not! After dinner we headed down to the Washington National Cathedral. This place is SO beautiful even at night time! We didn't get to go inside but I was satisfied with just seeing the grounds. So peaceful and romantic!

We were finally done for the night and crashed pretty quickly once we got back to Alicia's place. The next morning was Saturday, and we had half a day to see more things before I had to take Justin to the airport so he could catch his flight to Cancun for work ( I know, poor guy, right?) So we decided to hit up some of the Smithsonian! First stop.. The Air & Space Museum! We had been telling Ethan the whole week, "Ethan, if you are a good boy, we will take you to go see some airplanes and rocket ships!" and boy, did this place have both! Needless to say, I don't think Ethan left very disappointed!

This was an Apollo ship but I don't remember what number..

Lilianthal' s airplane

and of course we had to see the Wright Brother's airplane!

Ethan unfortunately wanted to get inside and drive every airplane we saw so we were lucky when the kid's play area had one for him to play in!

We then headed over to the National History Museum where a lot of Night at the Museum 2 had been filmed.

Ethan loved the dinosaurs!

And I loved the Hope Diamond :)

We were sad that we had to blow through those two museums so fast when we could have spent seriously a day in each, but I guess that is why we will just have to come back again! This picture is in front of the Smithsonian Castle...

So we dropped Justin off at the airport and Ethan and I headed back to join Alicia and Jeff in their weekend adventures. We went to a Halloween party that night where they dressed up as the wicked witch from Snow White and her mirror...

and Ethan and I went as ourselves.. there just wasn't enough room in the suitcase for a costume I guess!

Alicia and I probably stayed up way too late at night chit chatting but I had so much fun talking about old times, the present and future. I love that girl!

The next morning we went to church and then Alicia and I took a drive to see the beautiful DC Temple! The grounds on this temple were amazing!

The view from the freeway...

Pretty beautiful huh? I couldn't stop taking pictures!

We then had a chill night at her apt talking, laughing and watching Ethan be his crazy self! That next morning Ethan and I took off for the airport for the long flight back to PHX. I'm sure I was a funny sight with trying to carry 2 suitcases, a stroller, a car seat, toddler and my huge diaper bag full of plane goodies. When we got to the airport I found out that my flight was delayed to Houston and that because of that I wouldn't have made my layover to PHX and would have to spend the night in the Houston airport. Luckily the lady was nice and pulled some strings to get me a one-way flight to PHX on a different airline! Sweet! The only problem? She put Ethan in a middle seat across the aisle from my middle seat.. hmm...yeah. not cool! So I was stuck with carrying an ancy two year old in my lap for the whole 5 hour flight. Oh and did I mention that I had the middle seat? Luckily I was seated next to 2 people who were younger and didn't mind Ethan crawling all over them. He even sat on the guy next to me's lap because he wanted to see out the airplanes window. Like I said before, considering what all we have put this little guy through, he did SO good! It was an awesome trip and I hope we can go back to visit the east coast soon! A HUGE thanks to Jeff and Alicia for letting us crash at their house! You guys rock!

Whew.. long post I know. But now I can move on with life and start posting about other things! Thanks for reading!