July 4th...a little late

To end the marathon vacation post, we wound up in Amarillo where John and I went to pick up Drew. He had a great time visiting his Grandmommy and Granddad. From what we hear, he watched some Sesame Street, visited Great Grandmom and Pop every day, spent Saturday with Great Granny and Papa, and generally had the run of the place. My folks have moved to a new house in the country with a few acres, so I'm sure Drew will take full advantage of the space when he gets to the tricycle-riding and baseball-throwing phases.

Here he is with Great Grandmom and Pop, who just light up when they see him.

Here is Drew playing with his favorite toy - the box. Of all the toys that Grandmommy got for him to play with, he seemed most fascinated with the big box.

I just love this picture. My sweet baby with his 90-year-old great grandfather. And look at that face - does it get better than this?

We celebrated the 4th as all good Americans should - with explosives. Drew was afraid of the booms of some of the larger ones, but liked the lights and colors. I'm sure in a few years he'll want to be out there with his Daddy setting them off.

Vacation's over... back to real life. Boo.

Vacation Post 3: New York City

We took the train from Philadelphia through the Pennsylvania and New Jersey countryside to New York City. We took an obscene number of pictures (at last count, we had over 400), but I promise to only include the highlights.

We arrived at Penn Station, which unbeknownst to us, is underneath Madison Square Garden. We took a cab to our hotel, which was in a fantastic location, a few blocks north of Times Square, a few blocks south of Central Park, and a couple blocks west of Rockefeller Center. The first day we got our bearings and did some sightseeing. Here's John at Times Square.


For dinner, we went to the Bubba Gump Shrimp Factory in Times Square. While in New York, we tried to eat at non-chain restaurants. I think this is a chain, but it doesn't count since there isn't one in Dallas and I'd never been before.

On our way back to the hotel, we stopped by the Times Square Toys R Us store. It was enormous! It was 4 stories tall, with a 3-story ferris wheel. Of course we bought a few things for Drew, and we marveled at all the cool stuff, including this enormous (must have been 15-feet tall) Statue of Liberty, made entirely out of Legos.

We did some more walking around and saw Radio City Music Hall and Rockefeller Center. I love this photo, with the neon reflecting off the fountain.

We wound up at the NBC studios at Rockefeller Center right at sunset. We decided to take the elevator up and do the "Top of the Rock" which had amazing views of the New York skyline.

Here's my favorite view, looking south at the Empire State Building.

The next day, we got tickets for the double decker bus tour. It took us to all the big tourist highlights. I'll spare you the details, but we pretty much went throughout the city to see all the different neighborhoods, major landmarks, and movie settings.

John and I hopped off the bus in Soho and walked around a little bit. There were lots of cute shops and a ton of artist-type street vendors. We went to Lombardi's Pizza in Little Italy for lunch. John wanted to do a pizza tour of New York, so we hit a different pizza place every day. Lombardi's was my favorite because they use a coal-fired brick oven, which makes a sort of crispy crust, and there was fresh basil on top of the cheese. Yum!

We hopped back on the bus and headed downtown. We saw Ground Zero, then walked through Battery Park, from the North Cove Marina (featured on Hitch) to the tip of Manhattan. Here we had a great view of the Statue of Liberty (below on the left) and Ellis Island (on the right). The weather was fantastic -- probably low 80s and just a little cloud cover.

We winded our way back through downtown, stopping at Wall Street, the New York Stock Exchange, and then the city park. John wanted to walk the Brooklyn Bridge, so here he is as we started our trek. An interesting Brooklyn Bridge fact - it was built for horses and carriages, so it's not tall enough to accommodate buses or trucks. It's cars and vans only allowed. We caught another tour bus and did a tour of Brooklyn. We went back to the city and had a fun dinner at a Chinese place.

The next day we hit the sights of uptown Manhattan. Again, we took the tour bus and saw all sort of cool things, like where lots of celebrities live and where some of our favorite shows were filmed. The bus went through Harlem, so we saw the Apollo Theater, which was jammed with people writing tributes on the wall to Michael Jackson. We also saw the office in Harlem, where Bill Clinton conducts his affairs. (Get it? Affairs? Hahaha) We hopped off the bus on the Upper West Side and got a hot dog from a street vendor.

We wandered our way through Central Park, which was full of people on the beautiful Sunday afternoon. We walked all the way around the reservoir and got some fantastic pictures of the skyline.

Next we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They have 57 Monet paintings, which were my favorite. It was crowded but we enjoyed wandering around, feeling cultured.

After the Met, we headed to another pizza place, Famiglia's, for a quick bite to eat before we went to see the musical "Wicked." We got a great deal on the tickets and our seats were wonderful. Neither of us had seen it before and were thoroughly entertained. I think now I might even be able to convince John to go see one of the Dallas Summer Musicals with me.

The next morning we started with a tour of the NBC studios. We got to see the sets for the NBC Nightly News and the CNBC studio, the Late Night with Jimmy Fallon set, and Saturday Night Live. I was really surprised at how small the SNL set was, but the guide said that they use a lot of wide angle lenses and other tricks to make it seem larger. After our tour, we headed uptown. We saw some commotion at The Plaza, where Mariah Carey was filming her new music video. She's super skinny in person.

Then we wandered over to Serendipity for ice cream (which was actually a big disappointment), but I almost ran straight into Diane Sawyer on the street. That might have been embarrassing. We stopped by FAO Schwartz, then headed across town. John wanted to find the restaurant they used to film the Seinfeld shots at, which was in this cute neighborhood. As we were taking this picture, a lady who apparently lives nearby, warned us not to eat at the restaurant, as the food was "horrible." We took her advice.

That evening we ate at John's Pizzeria, which was recommended to us by several tour guides. Then we hopped back on the double decker bus for the night tour. We went all around Manhattan and Brooklyn to see the sights at dusk. Here are a couple of our favorite shots - of the Empire State Building (lit up in blue, I guess for July 4th), and the view of downtown Manhattan from Brooklyn.

On our last morning in New York, we went back to Rockefeller Center to watch them film the Today Show. We got to see all the anchors, and Al Roker stopped to shake our hands and take a picture. We were even on the Today Show as they panned the crowd. It was really fun just to see how things run behind the scenes.

That afternoon we headed back to Dallas, ready to be back in Texas, where people are polite and there aren't a million people everywhere. Next stop was Amarillo to pick up Drew.

Vacation Part 2 - Philadelphia

A few days after we got back from Fort Smith, John and I headed off to hit the last three states of our vacation - Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. Drew stayed with my folks, so it was just the two of us on vacation. (We felt like honeymooners. It was wonderful!) Here are some of our favorite memories from the Philadelphia part of the trip.

The real purpose of our trip was to go to Philadelphia for John to take his board exam. The board has two parts - physical and written portions. For the physical, all the students have to go to Philadelphia, where they see 12 patients (people who are assigned symptoms - much like that Seinfeld episode where Kramer has jaundice). They examine the patients and write up the chart, all while being videotaped. They're then graded (pass/fail) on their patient interaction, such as asking the right questions, having good bedside manner, and proper diagnosis. John scheduled his board the same time as two of his friends so we could all vacation together.

Here are the girls - Shawna (Jared's wife), Nicole (Josh's wife), and me at dinner. While the boys took their board exams, we girls went to see The Proposal. The first half of the movie was great; however, the theater lost power so we didn't get to finish the movie. Bummer!

Here are the boys (Josh, Jared, and John) after their grueling, day-long exam. The day after the test, we all split up. Josh and Nicole headed to Washington, DC; Jared and Shawna went to visit family in Wisconsin; John and I headed to New York city. Before catching our train, we stopped to see the sights of Philly. There aren't many sights, hence the few photos posted below.

John in front of Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was signed.

The Liberty Bell. We listened to the docent tell the story of the bell and the crack. Without droning on and on, it was a bell, they rang it and it cracked. They tried to fix it. They rang it again and it cracked more. They don't ring it anymore.

Here I am enjoying an authentic Philly Cheese Steak. I know it's authentic because I bought it from one of the street vendors in downtown Philadelphia. It doesn't get more authentic than that!

Vacation, Part 1: Fort Smith

Our two-week vacation started a couple of weeks ago. John's grandmother celebrated her 90th birthday, so his family all got together to throw a party. It was Drew's first time to meet this great grandmother, and we got to see lots of family that we hadn't seen in years.


The night before the party, we had a family-only barbecue. It was great to see all the family, including lots of babies born since we got together last. It's always amazing how fast the kids grow. Here is Drew meeting his Great Grandmother Foster for the first time. Even after the 5-hour car ride, he was a happy kiddo.

All the families stayed at the same hotel, so after the barbecue, we had a little pool party. It was Drew's first time swimming. John carried him into the pool (which luckily was really warm, like bath water). He did ok getting wet.

Next we tried the floaty. As you can see, Drew was not pleased.

John then took him out of the floaty and ... poof! Happy baby again!

The next day was the official party. We had a chance to get some great family pictures, so I'll share a few:

Another four generation picture. We now have a complete set of 4, showing Drew with all 6 of his great grandparents. John and I are so lucky to still have our grandparents around.


Drew and Nonnie

I think Drew was the hit of the party. Here is Shannon holding him while Tyler and Jack play with him. When the Moellers moved from Texas to Virginia, Jack was still a baby. I'm amazed to see how he's grown up! Tyler just loved Drew and carried him around all the time.

Here's Maw Maw blowing out the candle on her cake. I think Jack offered to help her make a wish.

After the party, we tried another dip in the pool. This time I got the honor of taking Drew in. We had a great time, but once the big kids came and the splash from their cannonballs got on Drew, he decided that he was done with swimming.

Next stop: Philadelphia! Stay tuned...