Taking on the East Coast

Lancaster County


It was so good to be home in PA after an entire year away! Matt hadn't been back East for two years so he was equally as happy. Someone once told me that PA is no longer my 'home' because I now live in AZ but PA will always be home so there. We arrived on a Friday morning at 7am...ughhh I don't know why I book the red eyes. I just do. We arrived just in time for the BYU bowl game. Matt's brother, Kevin, just moved to New Jersey and only lives about 1 1/2 hours from my parents so they came over for the game. Emma had quite a good time with the rabbit, Princess Leah. Friday night we had a family picture taken at the mall! Funny how we took one 3 years ago and nothing has changed! Still Mom, Dad, five sisters, me and Matt. Maybe one day it will change!
Saturday we headed to Amish country...Matt has been begging to go to Lancaster for years so we finally gave in. We had a great dutch feast at a local restaurant and visited a quilt shop located on an Amish farm. The weather wasn't too bad and the scenery was beautiful. Saturday night was new year's eve so Dad made sushi for dinner and we watched the ball drop. Lauren's boyfriend, Jared, came to visit and we had a fun time getting to know him better.
Sunday was a quiet family day and on Monday Crystal flew back to Utah and Jenna and Hailey went back to school. So it was just me, Lauren, Kyra, Mom, and Matt. Monday night I hung out with my bff, Dana. We had a great time eating Wawa hoagies and talking. I received some bad news when I was home....the Sandwich Mill has closed and no one knows the reason. The Sandwich Mill has the best cheesesteaks in PA. Even better than the 'best cheesesteak' joints in Philly. I was SO SO sad when I heard the news.
Tuesday we headed over to Asher's chocolate factory for some chocolate pretzels. Kyra left on Tuesday and then Lauren left on Wednesday for school so it was kind of sad. On Wednesday Matt and I drove to New Jersey to spend the day with Kevin, Cynthia, Emma, and Adam. We love their house and their backyard! We met their two lizards (sadly one of them has passed on since our visit). For dinner they took us to a delicious Italian restaurant with NY style pizza (the best pizza is NY pizza). I introduced them to Turkey Hill peanut butter chocolate swirl ice cream and they were hooked on the first bite! This trip made me realize how many things I miss (mostly food)!!! (wawa, asher's, Turkey Hill, etc!!)
Thursday morning we woke up bright and early to head into NYC. The traffic was light getting into the city but once we hit Times Square it was hideous. We made our way to a parking garage and we missed the early bird special by 2 minutes...grrr...it ended up costing us $50...gotta love NYC. We met up with Matt's old boss Manny at the new Hyatt across from the NYC library. We had breakfast and just talked for a good 2 hours. He then took us up into the hotel so Matt could see some of his old co-workers. After that we headed over to the Hyatt matt used to work at to see the new lobby and then over to the Wall Street Hyatt to see some more old co-workers! It was nice because I had never been to Wall Street so I finally saw that. However, I did not see the bull statue because it was gone! Instead their were two LIVE bulls in its place! haha...I have no idea why. Just a few blocks West was Ground Zero. I really wanted to see the memorial but you needed tickets and I didn't feel like walking down to the visitors center to get them...next time. They did have a little gift shop we stopped in and watched some movies. We saw a Christmas Tree that had pictures of a bunch of the people who died in the towers and letters from their family members. Hard to comprehend what happened that day but I'm glad we were able to go there and I am definitely going back next time I am in NY. After that we decided to leave to avoid rush hour traffic.
Friday we decided to just hang around the house and then for dinner my Dad took us to Bones Grille. Matt loves that place for some reason! When we got home we started a fire outside in their new fire pit. We only lasted 30 minutes because it was too cold!
Saturday was gorgeous. The weather was 58 degrees and we bbq'd hamburgers and ate outside. Dad and Matt tried to go golfing but the wait time was so long because so many people were out! We had to leave at 1pm to catch our flight. We had a great time in PA and are so glad we were able to see so many family members and friends.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Matt received an Air Hog for Christmas and loved flying it around... unfortunately it crashed and broke.

 

Tobey made several appearances but made sure to be out of reach.

 

The Biebs!

 

 

Why is Lauren looking at rings?!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gar

Just found this precious picture of Gar as I was going through some old boxes of stuff. I love this picture and I've actually been looking all over for it! I definitely missed Gar while I was home in PA. We rarely saw any cats while we were home since Jack is always outside and Tobey is scared of his own shadow. Miss you Gar.

 

White Elephant

We've made it a tradition to have a White Elephant party in December....the tradition just started last year but we plan to continue it! We had about 20 people over and we started with a Christmas Movie trivia game I made using Power Point. There were 36 movies and each slide was 6 seconds long so it was pretty competitive! After the movie game we proceeded with the white elephant game. I had told everyone to do 'funny' so as you can imagine there were some very funny moments through out the night. There were a lot of bathroom gifts and some scandalous gifts too! Matt decided he wanted to print a picture of himself, sign it and frame it. He signed it "stay thirsty my friends'. You will recognize that if you have every seen the most interesting man in the world commercial. He wrote on the wrapping paper, To: the luckiest person in the world From: the most interesting man in the world. He thinks he is so clever! haha but everyone did love the gift. It was even stolen once...well twice if you count me...I didn't steal it for myself but for a friend who had to leave early! It is now being displayed in their front entry! The party was a ton of fun and we can't wait for next years party....already looking for the perfect gift ;)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

December 2011

December was a fun and busy month. We saw White Christmas at the Gammage. I was having a hard time getting into the Christmas Spirit but after seeing this show I definitely felt it! We also went and saw the Mesa Temple Lights for the first time with the Hedgecock's. I attempted to decorate this year...I got most of my ideas off of a decorating blog so I think they turned out pretty cute. We also hosted a fun White Elephant party and spent a quiet Christmas together, just the two of us.