New York Birthday!!!

Sunday night for my birthday we headed over to the east side of New York where Kevin usually is for work. He showed me his favorite pizza place and we stumbled across this awesome milk and cream shop that crosses cereal with cream and creates a unique ice cream for you. Kevin fell in love with the shake he created.  We walked across the Brooklyn bridge at sunset and it was glorious. Lots of people were there too but it was so pretty with the setting sun. We ended the night getting a delicious Italian dinner and they even put a candle in the creme brulee and sang to me. It was wonderful. 

Monday was a rainy day just as it forecast so we spent our last full day in New York at the Natural Museum of History. It was the most amazing place ever! The place just kept going on and on and on with so many different exhibits. All the dinosaur bones and the huge whale hanging in a two story part of the building was incredible. My favorite part was the special mummy exhibit that they had there. It's incredible to read all the different things they were learning about mummies from MRI scans and x-rays. We also stumbled across the best crepe place to eat at. Kevin said there's one over on the east side but it's closed most the time he tries to go there but this time it was open over where we were. It was delicious.

For dinner we got to go to the gato which is the restaurant owned by Bobby Flay, if you've ever watched him on the Food Network. We were both really excited to try out the restaurant. It was delicious and full of flavor but the portion size was extremely small and the price over the top. We left poor and hungry. Kevin was thrilled that I was up for the walk over to get him another shake from the milk and cream shop. I ended up with some cheesecake that we'd gotten at Magnolias earlier in the day. It wasn't the best but it was fine.

The flight home was not as smooth as going over. Emerson wasn't wanting to nap and was a little more difficult. He wanted to be entertained instead of just self entertaining. After about five and a half hours I handed him over to Kevin and told him it was his turn. Overall he was really good being just six and a half months old. Thankfully our luggage made it safely and are snap and go stroller did too! I still can't believe we didn't get our stroller until the night before we came home from New York. Seriously crazy we never got to use it the entire trip!

Once home we went out to dinner with Grandpa and the kids.  They were so excited to see Emerson, Mom and Dad. Quickly I remembered what it was like to have 5 kids talking at you at the same time wanting your attention. It's a lot to intake! Sure love my kids but it was great to be away for awhile.

This week the boys got haircuts and Rowan won out mom and got a buzz cut. He loves his haircut and matching his brother. Glenn loves to call them twins. It's super cute though I still miss his moppy hair. Rowan also ended up getting sick the morning we got home. Kevin was up with him 4 a.m. through the early morning. Poor boy! He was telling dad and Kaila who got up with him saying that he was full and needed the sink.

Kaila spent a lot of time with her friend Isabelle this week taking turns spending the night at her house or our house. Isabel was sweet and invited all the kids and myself over to swim at her grandpa's pool. It was a lot of fun and Rowan had a blast jumping in with his floaties and swimming around. He's come a long way since swimming class a couple weeks ago not wanting to put his face in the water.

Saturday we went to the Gresham car show and the kids love looking at all the old classic cars. They got their face painted and jumped on the bounce houses in the kids zone. Their favorite was getting to sit inside a race car.

Hawaii and too much RAIN

Hawaii was amazing.  It was great to get away and connect and make memories with Kevin.  The kids did great back at home with everyone that was watching them.  I'm glad for that.  I was told how great Rowan is.  They knew I talked about how wonderful he is but that he REALLY is that wonderful.  He's a pretty laid back easy going baby and it's a huge blessing in all our lives.  

Some of my favorite things that we did in Hawaii was going surfing, watching the surf competitions, and our ocean front beach house. We went to Pearl Harbor and it was a real sobering experience to think of all the many lives that were lost that day and all the remaining lives that were changed forever.  I'm glad that we went but it was really sad being there and reading all the names that were lost.  

One AWESOME thing that happened while in Hawaii was watching the Portland Timbers on TV win the CUP!!!  They made it to the finals (we were bummed that we couldn't be there to watch the game but hey...we were in Hawaii which wasn't too bad). It was so exciting.  They scored a goal in the first 17 seconds of the game and another in the next few minutes.  It was NUTS!!!  I'm so excited for them and for Portland to have a winning soccer league!!  Kevin and I just ordered a sweatshirt for Christmas with the 2015 Champions on it.  I can't wait to get it.  Mine has all the players names on it in the shape of the Portland skyline.

This week Addie is student of the week.  We totally forgot about it and will be quickly putting a board together tomorrow morning before taking her to school.  She's so excited for all her extra jobs she gets to do at school too.  

Tonight was the Stake's Christmas Choral, instrumental, and live nativity presentation.  It was amazing!!! We got a babysitter for the little two and I took Glenn and Kaila with me.  It was great.  Kevin and Pa were able to sing in the choir.  They loved it!  I was really impressed with how everything went.  There was an amazing turn out too.  The entire chapel, gym, and seats on the stage were filled!  It was awesome.

Here's it's been crazy with weather with TONS for rain, flooding, and even Kane road right by Mount Hood Community College and the Institute building collapsed the whole way across.  That happened while we were going but it's going to take awhile to fix, I'm guessing a couple months.  Sadly our fence in two sections fell over too.  We get to take care of that this week.  Kevin thankfully got a job that started Friday.  It's so nice for him to get a job right before Christmas especially since we need to buy a new refrigerator since our's is going to die any day now (that's our Christmas present to each other this year).