Time Square Dinner

After the boat tour, we were all starving...

We made our way over to Time Square looking for a place to eat. It was crazy busy, but what did you expect on a Saturday night in New York City. Finally we found a place at a Rudy Tuesdays. It was packed but the food was great and company fun.

Thus ended our first full day in New York City. We got home about 11pm or so...tired!

June 27th - Boad Tour

Since the Empire State Building took less time then anticipated we ended up with some extra time. Grandma was interested in going on a boat tour. So with our handing map and some help from a local we made our way to the piers. It was kind of stressful for a while there, but we made it (just barely) onto the last 3 hour tour...very relaxing.

They had a gentleman describing what we saw and told stories about the area.

We went by the Intrepid. Someday we're going to go back and actually take a tour of it. How COOL would that be?!

It rained hard, but breifly and then we were treated with this lovely view.

Melanie informs me that we went under a total of 27 bridges during our tour. The most notable being the B. M. W. (Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg)


I would recommend a boat tour, or at least a ride on the Ferry to anyone who visits NY.

June 27th - Empire State Building

After the temple we gathered the rest of our group and headed out to the Empire State Building. We bought our tickets online to try to save time, but we given an even greater break because we were with Melanie's grandma. Grandma couldn't walk well and standing in line would have been really hard on her so they let us go ahead in line. What was expected to take SEVERAL hours only took us about 90 minutes.

It was impressive. The view was amazing. Looking down was almost enough to give you vertigo.

Looking down...

Looking up...

Looking out...

Good times! I felt like I could fly!

June 27th - Temple

We were all going to go to the temple, however due to traffic and delays at the airport, most of our party didn't get to sleep until 3 or 4 in the morning and the idea of waking up just 2 or 3 hours later was too much. Valory, Melanie and I prepared ourselves to go and made the trek into Manhattan. Jeremy our shuttle driver told us there were three food things we need to enjoy before we left New York City

1) a street vendor hot dog with everything

2) cheesecake from Juniors

3) Pizza

We added that to the list of things to do :)

I love the Manhattan Temple. It's an oasis of peace and calm in a busy city. It was amazing to step inside and forget that you were a few blocks from Time Square in one of the largest metropolis in the US. It was beautiful inside and unique outside. You could miss it if you didn't know what you were looking for. Of course you would think that the Angel Moroni on top would be hard to miss but not many people look up.

June 26th - Congratulations Melanie!!!

Waking, once again, at an early hour Valory and I headed up to Vermont for Melanie's graduation.

I never realized how beautiful Vermont is. I guess I should have known, but I haven't seen many pictures. The other thing that surprised me was the number of 'rolling hills.' I loved it.

Another thing I never realized is how small Massachusetts is. I mean seriously?! It's about 53 miles from bottom to top. Less then an hour. Amazing no? I guess that's the West Coast girl in me. Growing up in California where we had to drive 53 miles to get to church and you can drive 4 hours and still be in the same state.

The graduation itself was wonderful. Short and fun. I'm so proud of Melanie. She's amazing!

After graduation we went to the Sugar House, a small hole-in-the-wall diner. The food was great! They had real VT maple syrup. After feeding our tummies we made a short stop at Sharon VT, the birth place of Joseph Smith. The sister missionary there suggested that we all take our pictures touching the top of the monument. Fun no?

The monument is a foot for every year of Joseph Smith's life.

after our short stop we headed down the New York. We ran into some really bad traffic from some trees blown down by the storm. Some people said it was actually a tornado that went through, but I was never able to confirm that. Finally we made it to New York City (Queens in our case.)

Valory had the foresight to take a nap :)

June 25th - Connecticut here we come!

In DC you have basically two options when going on a road trip in order to miss traffic. Leave at o'dark hundred or about 9:30 am after traffic dies down. Since Valory and I tend to be morning we went for o'dark hundred route. Leaving about 6:30 am we made great time...getting just outside of NY about 9:30 am. We decided to go for the Palisades route instead of going through NY and the George Washington Bridge. We wondered through small towns NY. It was beautiful! although a little frustrating since we had to deal with traffic lights and not finding a gas station, but we found out later that it was a better option. Apparently traffic horrible on the George Washington Bridge. We arrived at Aubrey's house about 1:30 pm.





I love Aubrey! It's been several years since I've seen her last. She hasn't changed much since we were roommates at BYU. I love her kids. Tyler is 5. Ashley is about 4. David is about 2. I wish we had more time, but we have fun with the little time we had to hangout.

Let the Adventures Begin!

On June 24th, Valory flew in to Ronald Reagan National Airport to mark the beginning the Grand adventures of June 2009.

Here's a brief schedule

June 25th - Drive to CT, visit with Aubrey
June 26th - Drive to VT, go to Melanie's graduation, Drive to NYC
June 27th - Temple, Empire State Building, 3 hour boat Tour
June 28th - Church, WTC, Trinity Church, Central Park
June 29th - Ellis & Liberty Island, Phantom of the Opera

I personally took over 300 pictures. Obviously I can post all of them, however I'm going to go day by day of our June Adventures and give you the high-lights.

Let the walk down memory lane begin!