the internet in our hotel was terrible. I had lot's of time to blog, but I couldn't load pictures, I was very frustrated. I got these few pictures loaded so I'm now going to tell you about them.

I went to the M&M store it was big and cool, I was so hot and sweaty, I stayed for a while to cool off.
This was my first day, I walked down to central park. Being alone I took a picture of myself in front of the cool rocks that were all over the park.
This was 2 days into our trip. We had eaten and we were sitting on a fountain talking and watching people. We noticed people going into a building across the street, we wondered what it was. We also talked about how far down Rockefeller Center might be. We finally walked across the street and read the plaque in the front. It was Rockefeller Center! About a 3 minute walk from the hotel.
We were also on a street that had FOX news, CNN, and this sports news channel. This is a horrible picture, but Mike's face is on the left side of the black banner.

oh man......

I'm stuck in my hotel room this afternoon. There is a huge storm here in New York. ton's of rain thunder and lightning and tornado warnings in surrounding areas. I went on a tour bus today, and when I got off and came back to the room it was pretty dark. I assumed it was around 5:30, it had been overcast all day. But when I got to the room it was just after 2:00. I ventured out into the rain, with my Amsterdam umbrella and got Mike and I lunch from the street vendor. they have chicken or lamb
gyros or salads. We had the chi ken gyro it was yummy. I can see that cart from my hotel room and it always has a line, at night a very long line! But in the rain I walked right up and didn't have to wait in a line.

I drove through Time Square, past the round building at Madison Square Garden, past the Empire State building, China town, Wall Street, Brooklyn Bridge, Statue of liberty, Waldorf Astoria, and got off at Rockefeller Center. All in 3 hours. Oh and my camera battery died so I did get pictures of everything. Now I'm stuck in the hotel room soon to read a book I just got called "The Hunger Games." So far I'm really enjoying the book.

I'm so bummed that I can't upload my pictures and really blog about each day. I don't love going back and filling in the days I missed.

I am enjoying my little vacation i have to admit:-)

I'm trying....

I want to blog about New York. I want to put up lot's of pictures. But our hotel connection is lousy and I can't upload even 1 picture! Technology is so great and so annoying at the same time!

Wow, I'm behind... a month in review.

Super exciting Nathan got his drivers license this month. He was very happy and I took his picture. He stayed cool and didn't smile.


but I wanted to take another shot just in case and his happiness was sneaking out onto his face. He had to cover it, so nobody would see:-)

Then on Erin and Jon's 6th anniversary they went back to the temple and took some family pictures. Little Elizabeth didn't quite know what was going on.

Jon and his girls.

The princess got her hair fixed at a salon and she looked darling.

Then they brought the girls to me to babysit while they went out and had a couples massage. I caught Issy being precosous!

But she went into a trance when I told her I wanted to take a picture of her and her sister. As soon as I took the picture she said, "all done?" so I told her yes, she was tired of taking pictures and I didn't blame her.

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Then came the weekend. It was Stevens 20th birthday, and Mike's sister drove in and brought Mike's dad for a visit. My father-in-law was only going to be with us 2 nights so all of the kids were there both nights. Jon made a bubble tent for Issy. It was very large when he was done.

All of the guys played in it with her for quite a while:-)

Then Steven got to blow out his candles.

Then sweet little Elizabeth just snuggled with her Uncle Steven.

Steven, Aunt Keven, Erin, and Elizabeth. It was nice to have Keven stay with us for a while. She has only come to our house for 1 night or a couple of hours since we moved up here. But now all of her married kids have returned to Texas so she had time to spend with her friends and extended family.

Last week Erin and a friend went to a small lake for a picnic and invited me. It was fun to be with the girls. It's a fairly new place so the shade trees are very small.

So I got sunburned and Erin got sunburned, but the girls did not. Issy had me push her in the swing, she said "up, down" the entire time. Even with the sunburn I had fun with the girls.

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Then last Friday night we had a family dinner it was the 24th of July. Pioneer day so it was fitting to have a family gahtering and enjoy the state holiday.

It was very enjoyable to have so many of us together. I really didn't take many pictures. So my blog is lacking there. It also showed us that we are all getting old, because there were 4 grand children there.

Everybody was busy and having a good time.

/s400/IMG_5618.JPG"> R>Issy decided to share Ginna's cake. When I say "share" I mean eat the entire peice!

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Sean, Ginna, and Erin

I didn't realise how much these two resemble. They look like they could be mother and daughter. But they are aunt and neice. We enjoyed Ginna being here, she lives far away and we don't see her very often.

After the dinner everybody left and Elizabeth stayed with Gamma, Papa and Aunt Keven. she was very sweet, but I got nothing done because I held her most of the night!:-)

Now I'm getting things squared away here at the home front because I'm going on a trip. Getting enough food to feed these "grown men" and everything else squared away is a job.

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color=#000066 size=4>But in the mornign I'm of to New York with mike. He has a show at a hotle in the middle of many fun places. so I'm going with him. I will read, and wonder around exploring Manhattan. I'm excited!

My Princess is growning up!

This is Issy when she and Nate where younger. I adored her at this age, as I do Elizabeth. Whom I believe is about the same age Issy was in this picture. At this age they are squishy and fun. They give you big smiles and the are still very venerable and dependant on you for everything. I loved this. But I would tell Mike I couldn't wait for her to recognize me and be excited to see me. I pictured her running to me with her arms out, saying Grandma! This is Issy now. She sees me and runs to me with her arms out and says "Gamma". It is awesome.

Well today was another happy Grandma moment. I talked to Issy on the phone. I have done this many times. She is fun. She says "Hi". Then I ask if she is having fun, being good, what ever

she is up too. Then she "shakes" her head yes. I ask if she is reading a book or playing with toys, she takes the phone over to the book to "show" me. Or if she is finished talking she just walks away from the phone.

Today she ,"Hi Gamma, Momma something something." I said, "really." She said, yes and gave me two other statements. Is I continued to talk to her. It was a real conversation. She was happy to talk to me, and she wanted to tell me a few things. Although I wasn't sure what she said. We had our first conversation! It was so exciting to me. I love being a grandma!!!

I missed 123456789 and a stinky little visitor.....

For two second this week we hit 123456789 in our time. That was so cool, yet I missed it. the first one 12:34:56 7/8/9/AM I was sleeping. The second 12:34:56 7/8/9 I was watching a movie with a friend in her theater room. I wasn't even clever enough to know it was happening. I read it after the fact. But it was fun to know it happened.



Earlier this week Chris turned on the front porch light and then opened the front door. He was shocked to see a baby skunk up on the porch. He grabbed the camera and got a picture, he said it was smaller than our dog. But it stunk the entire house up. I got up the next morning and thought what is that smell? Maybe it's the trash. But it was a baby skunk that sprayed my porch a second or two before Chris opened the door! Erin went off with a friend for the friends 25th birthday. They idea was to do 25 random things on that day. They didn't make it to exactly 25 but they did a bunch of fun things one going to Baskin Robins and tasting 25 of their 40 flavors. But I watched the older princess while her mom went off to play.

We went out to my garden where I was soooo excited to see some pea pods I had not noticed before.

I picked one and gave the princess a bite. She really liked it and decided to pick a few herself.

Here she is showing me what she picked. To cute, especially now that she calls me Gamma. I love it!

So she and Papa were watering my garden and then some spots on the lawn when they decided to spray the dog. Mike ask her if they should spray Bea and she said "yes". If you look at the picture closely you can see that Bea is running off as the first drops hit her. I caught her in mid-jump! But Papa turned the hose on me and then on the princess. It was a pretty and warm day, but a breeze blew up and she came over to me and said "Gamma, I cold." We snuggled in the sun and warmed up.

Then Thursday Erin wanted to go to a book signing of an author she enjoys, Shannon Hale. She ask me if I would go and help her with the girls. I ask Mike if he wanted to come along, he said sure. We got to the bookstore and Erin had company and was running late. So we sat down and listened to her explain where the ideas for some of her more popular books came from and her writing process. We actually enjoyed it she was a fun speaker. But the funny part was Mike was the only man there. She hadn't noticed him coming in, then saw him and they bantered a little it was fun.

I waited in line, Erin was a few people behind me with her sis-in-law. So we all were talking and having a good time. Everybody was enjoying Mike with his granddaughters. They knew he was a fun guy from his little conversation with the author. Then when we got up to her he handed her a book and said "could you sign this book to my daughter, Michael." We had a good laugh. But she did sign a copy of Princess Academy to Mike. That will be fun for him to read on a plane:-)

Papa getting lot's of sweet baby kisses from our tiny princess. She really enjoyed her papa this time too. I think she is starting to figure out grandpas are super cool!

Erin in line with Stephanie, while Issy and her cousin were off checking out all of the cool books. The book signing was held in the children's section. Issy was thrilled, she loves to read.

And this is Papa and little Elizabeth. Mike loved this picture of her.

Wow! It's been a while.....

Well this week was pretty nut's. I started out last Monday waxing my kitchen floor, on my hands and knees. That is the way I have always done it. My floor looked great, even the boys noticed. Well a few hours later I started getting very bad pains. Mike took me to the chiropractor, he worked on me a bit. We went home and I got even worse. I got stranded in the "restroom" and all I could do was cry, I called out to Mike, and he had to help me out. So he took me to urgent care and I finally got relief. They told me that I had stretched a muscle out for a long time. And then when I was finished and sat for a while that the muscle locked up on me. I was having severe spasms in my hip, back and front, and the big main muscle in the back was shot. Mike had to dress me, he had to lift me and set me down, and even had to lift my leg into the car. It was awful. But Mike was great and took great care of me. Plus the steroids, muscle relaxers, and pain pills weren't bad either!

I was able to have my book group over on Wednesday and it was so nice. Mike cleaned the house and One of the ladies brought the food. So it was a very nice evening.

Then on Thursday they kids all had a blast. I have shown you Jon's big cool display wall for his work. Well he had a video game party after work, and it was awesome on the big screen. This is Jon's floor I think the sign is very pretty:-)
These were the people playing and having fun.

This is a shot of the screen 16 high def TVs, perfect for a LAN party.

Issy loves to be around everybody, she was very happy that night.

And Grandpa held Elizabeth, they had a nice time together. Actually it was the first time he held her and she didn't cry, he was thrilled!

Then Friday Erin had an appointment at a spa. So we watched the girls. Issy saw my bike that is supposed to be hanging on the wall and had to ride it. She tried to peddle it and everything. the handlebars are close together because you hang it on the wall . So she was so funny each hand grabbing one of the handles. (Oh, and Erin had a friend come into town and she gave Issy her first hair cut. I love it)

Grandpa took a few shot of Elizabeth and I thought this one was fun. she looks like she is cheering us on!

Then Issy helped "papa" mow the lawn. She loves to ride with him. And I just deleted there picture.

Then grandma let her watch a little to much TV. But she cracked me up

watching it on the arm of the couch.

So on to the 4Th of July. We went to Mike sisters for a barbecue. they have a gorgeous back yard that has a river behind it.

And lot's of trees and greenery, to make you want to stay out there forever!

The bearded ones! Steven and Uncle Guy.

The guys being cool on the 4th.

They took a picture with Aunt Kristen to prove they had come to celebrate.

So yesterday they kids came over and we all celebrated Jon's Birthday. The guys were outside and Issy just had to get out there. So Uncle Steven helped her water the garden.

Elizabeth was such a scrawny little baby when she was born. Her skin just sagged on her little body. But she has filled out now. She is a sweet squishy little chunk now. I love to hold her and squish her and kiss her!

And so does her mom:-)

This is a sweet shot of Elizabeth, or Elle as Erin wants to call her, or Bella as Jon wants to call her, or Beth as Issy calls her. One day they will figure out what to call her. But for now I call her sweet!

This picture cracked me up. Issy still hasn't got all of her teeth. She is still learning to smile, so this picture is awesome. She is flashing her smile for me!