oops I forgot!

This is my first video I've ever posted :D haha I forgot I recorded the rain and my mom just said it would be funt o show it! Anyways she was looking through our New York posts and realized I hadn't posted about the temple yet!! We went Friday morning, it was really our first activity in New York! We walked a block to the temple and it was so loud outside, just normal New York and you walk in the first door and it's still loud and there is a security gaurd etc. then you open the next set of doors and walk in to the front desk and the doors close and it's silent. :) It was the neatest thing! So Caitlin and I did baptisms and our cute moms just watched. It was a really really neat temple experience.

mmmhmmm

We walked out yesterday morning to this... awfulness. Well not really, I LOVE the rain but come on not when you are trying to do some 5th avenue shopping!! ;) So the first purchase of the day... an umbrella from a little corner store, $5. Mom put her hood on and she looked like a little martian, a cute little martian of course!

So we had this great day planned out but it was raining so we needed to come up with a different plan when all the sudden Caitlin and I saw this cube just sitting there about to fall! So we, being the brave souls that we are, ran over and held it up all day. :D

Alright so that's a lie... haha but speaking of brave souls, we went and saw ground zero and they were busy at work building a new fabulous building. We went into a church across the street from it where the firemen and others that helped clean up the rubble could go and stay and rest inbetween shifts and there were pictures and a fireman suit on one of the pews there... it was so sad. It really was amazing what they did when they helped save all those people and in cleaning after it happened.

After we left ground zero we went to 5th avenue and walked up the street and saw every single fantastic designer store :D oh it was heaven! We went into Tiffany's and I picked out my wedding ring... haha no but my goodness that was the best store. Anywho so we decided to stop and have lunch at Rockafeller Center and it's a good thing we did because RIGHT before we got there it started DOWNPOURING. I have seriously never seen it rain that hard! Good thing we had our umbrellas. :) So after shopping some more we came home and had dinner and then decided to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. Here's Cait and I about to climb up the rope of the bridge...

This is the view of downtown Manhatten from the Brooklyn Bridge. Gorgeous gorgeous view.

Today we got up at SIX A.M. (I really didn't think it was possible... but we sure did it! By the way that's 4 a.m. Utah time :S) Anyways we got up and headed to go see the Statue of Liberty!! We thought we would have to wait in a bunch of lines but the only line we had to wait in was the second security line at the statue... :) It was great! It was a lot smaller than I was anticipating... but it was still huge! There's mom and I and our new bff Lady Liberty right there!

We were pretty bored in the second security line so we decided to take some artistic pictures... I thought it was kind of dangerous of Lady Liberty to have an open flame with so many people around... so I took initiative and put it out for her. :) Oh and the people behind us saw me taking this picture and just laughed and laughed and asked if I would take a picture just like it on their camera, so I did! (and charged them $20 ;) hehe) No no I took it free of charge because they were so nice. Everyone is so nice here! ESPECIALLY the NYPD officers and FDNY... and they are so cute too! What are the odds..

So on Ellis Island we were upstairs taking a tour but our tour guide was just this cute little Italian man with this great New York/Italian accent but he talked so quiet and we couldn't hear a word he was saying! So anyways Caitlin and I decided to go take some pictures of the view of New York from the window and Caitlin was so impressed I guess she didn't even notice this bar sticking out and ran right into it!! hahaha we were literally on the floor laughing oh my goodness it was the funniest thing!! So here is a reinactment of the comedy.

The Subway, and busses, and walking, oh my!

One thing we knew we FOR SURE wanted to do was go see the play wicked. We only bought our plane tickets 2 weeks ago and the wicked tickets for this week were sold out months ago but we were determined!! After doing some shopping and walking around on time square we decided to stop by the Gershwin Theatre to ask how and if we could get in the drawing for tickets for Wicked for any day we would be there. Don't worry someone had JUST returned 4 tickets for some reason and the guy was like "It's certainly your lucky day, this doesn't happen very often but we have 4 tickets right next to eachother on the floor in the middle section in row J... the 10th row. Whoo!! The play was AMAZING!! I wish we could go see it AGAIN because oh my goodness... it was such a good story, we love the music... it was just so fun!! It definitely gives you a different way of viewing the story of the Wizard of Oz.

This is the stage from our seats. You can see on the left of the stage there are 3 different levels for the cast on the stage and the flying monkeys would fly from all of them and some would fly above our heads! The picture on the right is of course me, mom, caitlin, and ruth.



After the play we decided to take a stroll through Central Park. We found the most beautiful ponds and bridges! We went through Strawberry Fields and got pictures in front of the imagine rock. There were these 2 guys singing John Lennon songs for us while we were there... it was so great!

This is mom and I at the Bethesda Fountain at Central Park. Before we took this picture the whole place was FILLED with people because these 2 guys were doing this show where he jumped over 5 people... and took everyones money of course. :)

Sunday after church we thought it would be a very appropriate activity to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The picture above is from the collection of Jeffrey Koons on the Roof. (What an original name, I know) but there was this giant gold balloon dog and this was a big heart and so we decided to take a picture of our reflection from it! You can see all of us and the beautiful reflection of New York City, and Central Park.



This is Cait and I posing like Egyptians at the temple of Dandor in the Met.

Caitlin and I had our first adventure in New York... by ourselves. :) it was SO great. We took the Subway to Colombus Circle and went to the shops at Time Warner and then walked a block and a half to Gap and Banana and some other fun shops and then we found this great little restaurant called Big Nick's and they had the BEST pizza and chessecake... oh my GOODNESS. It was delicious. We had our lovely waiter take a picture of us before we ate. :)

New York!!

We did it! We made it to New York! (Believe it or not) and YES Caitlin and I have matching suitcases! haha we knew it was going to be the best trip of our lives when we saw eachothers suitcases. :) Well anyways YES we made it, but it sure was an adventure!! We had a layover in Atlanta, Georgia and Caitlin and I went to the bathroom and when we were walking out after we just started laughing and laughing because of the conversations other people were having in the bathroom MY GOODNESS we are sure not in Utah anymore... haha! Well the picture on the left here is our Ruthie (Caitlin's mom) and her new friend, Michelle, who didn't stop talking ONCE on the flight from Atlanta to New Jersey... MY GOODNESS!! It was awful. But hilarious!! She started talking about how she went to Utah once and those silly Mormons... whoops. haha The picture on the right is when we flew in, NEW YORK!

Don't Honk. HA! Ya right. EVERYONE honks.

Here is mom and Ruth buying our subway passes for the week.

Caitlin and I doing the dishes at Aunt Marc's house :)

The New York skyline. WHOO!! :) ok I'm being yelled at. :)

TO BE CONTINUED.....

Those Crazy Howell's!

Oh my goodness... where do I even begin?! Me, Mom, Kate, Penny, Daysa, and Rosemary decided to take a trip up to Boise to see everyone. So Thursday morning we all crammed into Mary's small car and we were off! Oh wait we needed to stop for gas first so we get to the gas station and even though I was sitting in the middle I was the lucky one voted to fill up the car. So after climbing over everyone I got out of the car and swiped Mary's card so I could fill up. But her card didn't work. So we tried another card, and another card, and another card. We finally decided maybe it was the pump that was broken so we drove over to another pump. Same thing. So we went to another gas station and FINALLY 10 minutes after we stopped for gas we had finished what we set out to do. NOW we were ready to hit the road! To keep with tradition we stopeed in Tremonton to get some much needed breakfast. We parked and split up between McDonalds and Wendys. I ran over to McDonalds for a delicious fattening breakfast and I start ordering and the lady says to me "Sorry breakfast is over." Are you kidding me?! Was I being punk'd? It was only 10:34... I MISSED BREAKFAST BY 4 MINUTES!!! It's Big Daddy all over again. Seriously. Anyways we had a BLAST in Idaho! We played in Boise Thursday night, rode our bikes with Bryson to the snow cone shack where we got FREE snow cones (it was the last day that snow cone shack was open!) and then went and visited Emily at Papa Murphs. We went back later and got pizzas for everyone. Have you ever had their barbeque chicken pizza?! Oh my goodness SOO good! SOO good! Almost as good as the B.O.'s ;) Anyways the next morning we headed up to Garden Valley to Grandpa's cabin. It was exhausting. The second we got there we got on the motorcycles and went riding. As soon as we got off the motorcycles we went to the river and floated down the river. Got back to the cabin, ate, slept, woke up, and did the same thing again. :) But oh man was it a blast!! On Saturday morning I went with grandpa on a ride and I honestly have never thought to myself "I'm going to die." so many times in one day!! haha that old man is so crazy!! He is hilarious. The night before around the campfire he re-created a weight loss commercial.

Before After

Need I say more?!

The apple sure did not fall far from the tree. Here is a picture of Uncle Bobby singing the theme song from Green Acres. (By the way mom and I came home and found episodes on YouTube... So funny!!)

Anyways I'm happy to report Grandpa didn't tip over once while we were riding! :D A miracle I know. Right after we started riding he turned around and said to me "Now if we tip just go down nice and easy." hahaha :) We rode up the mountain to this view.

Well the best part of floating down the river was actually some hot springs we found. We had to wade across the river that was pretty darn cold but once we got across there were tons of perfectly warm little "hot tubs"

You can see Chele's head inbetween the "hot tubs" and Mom Kate and Penny down by the river.

Anywho the trip was so so fun!! :) The last event of the trip was of course a 1 am wal-mart run to get some milk so we could have milk and cereal for breakfast before we left this morning (don't worry we slept in so we didn't even get to enjoy our beautiful dairy product. :( ) Just 4 and a half more weeks until Emily and I will get to have more adventures together!! :D