Snow White

Rich has been working on a project to put all our movies in a digital format to access on the tv's without having to actually put the dvd's into the dvd player...
So anyone that knows us well knows we are a Disney family.  Rich turned on Snow White to check the quality of the digital format he had it in... to our surprise the kids had never watched it!  How that happened and we never showed it to the kids- I have no idea... :) They've seen scenes from it, but never actually watched the movie.  Now I know what movie we'll have to do for our next movie night!  We own it, so I don't even need to go out and rent it. lol

Games we like

Our kids love to play games, board games, card games, any type of games.  At times it is great, other times I'll admit to being "gamed" out and another game of go fish (in any shape or form- Book of Mormon, Dora, Princess, Mickey Mouse, etc" just seems like too much to ask for a mom to handle...
About a year ago Alex had the game Farkle added to his stocking at christmas.  It has been sitting in our game closet that whole time, I think un-used.  I was introduced to the game when Rich and I went on a cruise with friends almost 2 years ago...

Tonight I pulled it out and taught the girls how to play it.  Another bonus is it get's them to do math without them thinking about it.  The girls were trying to add the numbers up faster than each other and even Angie can do the basic math of it.

Alyssa happily won the game- always a great game when younger kids have the same chance at winning the game as older kids.

So I think Farkle will become a favorite game for the moment.  Other favorites the kids always want to play:
Uno
Uno Attack
Phase 10
Skip Bo
Risk
Go Fish (in any shape or form)
Alhambra
Life

We have a game closet full of other games as well... I think we forget we have them at times because we get stuck playing the same ones all the time.

Chocolate Chip cookie time

There's nothing better for me than spending time in the kitchen baking... cooking dinner is fine, but baking is just my favorite thing to do.  Pulling out the ingredients and whipping up a favorite that I know everyone will love will always put me in a happy place... :) 

Happy Valentines Day!

I hope everyone had a Happy Valentines Day yesterday!  :)  I'll let you in on a little secret... I don't really like valentines day.  I feel it's just one more thing to go and worry about, stress over having the right valentines for the kids at school, and have sugar induced craziness during school parties and after school and at bedtime.  Of course also the societal stress of giving your valentine something special for the day...

It is just probably my least favorite "holiday" celebration... :)  I don't get excited for it, or really go all out celebrating it at all, and it's not because I have had bad experiences with Valentines day... I've had very sweet ones, but it just isn't high on my favorites list of days. :)

So why am I posting flowers here then??  Because Rich sent me flowers last week... when I had a bad, no good, terrible, horrible day- I got flowers the next day, and those flowers mean more to me than valentines day flowers just because it's Feb 14th.  We did go out for dinner last night and we did have a lovely valentines day, but as we were driving home we talked about it and if we hadn't done anything for valentines day- that would have been just fine. 

I'm not against valentines day. I hope everyone had a wonderful day and celebrated in the manner they wanted to celebrate it. :)

On an added note... next week will be the 15th anniversary of Rich and I's first date... and that's a fun story to tell...  lol!

New York- Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island

You have to go and see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island when you go to New York... you just have to. :)  It was windy and cold- but great to see this historical landmark.

Looking back at the city from the boat.

One thing that struck me as we pulled up to Ellis Island is that even here the architecture is amazing.  This was just an immigration place- and yet they made it beautiful with the architecture they put on the outside of the building.

This is the big room all the immigrants would go through and be processed- they would make the decision if they needed medical attention or had enough money to support themselves or a place they were going to.

This is the island around 1910 close to when one of my ancesters immigrated

This is what it looked like when they first started processing immigrants on Ellis Island

That big room was partitioned off into benches that people sat in lines while waiting.

They have a library that you can look up names and see if/when they may have gone through ellis island.  My grandma's father immigrated and I think I may have found the records on him-

We walked down around ground Zero afterwards.  All the tickets to the museum had already been taken for the day so we just walked around, and observed.  We also went by Wall Street.

We had a wonderful time.  Saw some great shows and thoroughly enjoyed the whole trip.  Thanks to our great friends that took care of our kids and allowed me to be able to go on the trip! :)

 

New York- Rockefeller Center

Some pretty flowers at the MET

The architecture in New York is amazing... I could spend days just walking around looking at all the beautiful buildings.

When Rich asked me what my "to do" list was- one of the items was ice skating at Rockefeller Center.  :)  It was a beautiful day and I was surprised that it wasn't colder.  My legs were so sore I had to keep stopping and taking breaks, but I loved it and had a great time! :)

New York- Empire State Building

We had read that you can stand in line for up to an hour to get tickets to go up to the top of the Empire State Building.  Those reviews weren't written about Febuary crowds... there were no lines really... just walked right in and bought our tickets and went right up to the top.

The views are amazing... so so cool... and so so COLD! lol! :)

New York- More MET

The paintings... really the paintings are just undescribable- the pictures can't do them justice at all.  I think this is the first time I've really gone through an art gallery- it was a wonderful experience.

The famous painting... it's HUGE!  The frame is a duplicate from the original, but this is the original painting.

Here is their open storage- pieces they don't have on display- just lined up on shelves and rows so you can see additional stuff that isn't out in the galleries.

A favorite of mine.

Ok this is cool... up close it's all these people standing on the wall... but from a distance this is what the art looks like-

And sometimes I just don't quite get modern art...  Trying to figure out why these two are so wonderful to be on the walls of the MET??  Sure it's neat, but I just don't get it... :)

The egyptian exhibits always fascinate me... the stuff they built out of stones and carved all that into walls- just always gets me to slow down and look more closely...

We are notorious for taking vacation pictures and not getting Rich and I in them- so I made sure I got him in a few pictures. :)

Just amazing details

This one was massive!!  Much bigger than a lot of the other ones on display.

And the outside is a masterpiece in itself...