Surprise Date Night

This past weekend Belinda and I thought it would be fun to surprise our husbands with a date night. We have a radio station here that picks a few restaurants every week and they give out half price gift cards. We decided on JP Sullivan's Speakeasy. It was very nice and had a modern feel, the food was "normal" but presented in a "fancy" way and tasted VERY good! Where else could you get a Philly Cheesesteak Spring Roll?! The craziest thing though was how many Plasma TV's were in there...seriously, a TV at EVERY booth and then a little bigger TV every 2 ft. clear around the entire restaurant. AND they had, probably, 4 big screen Tv's. Too bad we couldn't see the BYU game! It was a lot of fun and I would definitely recommend the restaurant to anyone.
Our Raspberry Cheesecake was soooo good!

Go Grease Lightening!

We went to NYC again this weekend and it was a lot of fun. One of my favorite things to do there is, of course, a Broadway show! We decided on Grease. Grease was one of my absolute favorite movies growing up so I was really excited that our friends wanted to see it instead of something else. Sorry the pics are a little blurry...not quite sure what happened there. The only sad thing that day was when it started down pouring and we got SOAKED! You can't really tell in the pictures, but all of us were drenched and spend the whole show hoping to dry off. For some reason they had the air on...probably because there were so many people in there...but it was freezing! We were so glad when we walked out after the show was over and the rain had stopped.

Josh & Belinda above and Jaron and I below, during intermission.

After the show was over we still had a little energy left, so we walked through Central Park and made our way to see the Manhattan Temple. Neither of us had ever been there so it was exciting to see our Temple in the middle of all the mayhem. This is Jaron and I in the hallway before you walk in. It was truly amazing how loud it was outside and as soon as you walk through the doors it's quiet and peaceful. We can't for our Philly Temple!

Crazy, Busy, Out of Order

Sorry to those of you who follow our blog...we've been crazy busy the past few weeks and while we've had quite a bit to post, we've been putting it off. I've been waiting to post so that the events will be in order, but I just couldn't resist celebrating and putting the Phillies picture up. So, if you look below there are probably a lot of entries that you haven't read, and there will be more to come in the next few days! Enjoy...

Phillies Parade

It was a pretty exciting season for the Phillies! We only made it to one game this season, and since the cheapest playoff tickets were around $1,000 each we watched the World Series from home! It was a lot of fun to watch though. Philadelphia is a serious sports town, and after 25 years without a national championship from one of their major sports clubs it was definitely their time to shine.

A lot of people believed the city was cursed for building a structure in the early 1980's taller than City Hall, atop which stands a statue of William Penn, the state's founder. This past year the city constructed a new tallest building, the Comcast Center, and on top of this nearly 1,000 foot tall structure, is a small replica of the William Penn statue. Curse or coincidence? You make the call.

I walked down to the parade during my lunch hour at work to see what was going on. It was unbelievably packed with people all downtown! We got to see the team go by as they traveled to Citizens Bank Park to accept the trophy. I'm not big on crowds but this was a fun event!


This is the view south on Broad Street, after the parade passed through the crowds flooded the streets. There were an estimated 2-3 million people who traveled in to witness the parade, which essentially doubled the size of the city. When I went in to work that morning there were Phillies fans traveling down town on my train, and they kept pouring in all day. It was Halloween, and I think a lot of people didn't make it home to trick or treat that night because it was so difficult to get home. My commute is normally about an hour door to door but that night it took me over four hours to get home! I wasn't happy about that but it was a lot of fun to witness the parade and be a part of a team that won the World Series, so it was probably worth the delay!

Dorothy or Little Red Riding Hood?

This week was, as you know, Halloween week. We had a ward Trunk or Treat on Wednesday night and a chili cook-off. All the men in the ward signed up to make a chili and then they were all judged. Jaron took 3rd place, and it was actually with the chili that we posted about a few a months ago. I was slightly annoyed during the night because everyone kept coming up to me asking..."Are you Dorothy?" Seriously, do I look like Dorothy? I thought I did a pretty good job MAKING a Little Red Riding Hood costume. Most of you know that I'm trying to be a good wife and learn to sew, this is the first time I made something all by myself and I was disappointed that everyone thought I was something else. Now, I was Dorothy last year and the dress pattern is pretty much the same...but still, can you guys tell the difference? Poor Jaron, he dressed up as the big bad wolf but since everyone thought I was Dorothy no one knew what he was! It was still a fun Halloween though. Below are some pictures with me and "my kids." Aren't they cute? Danian was a kitty cat and Aspen & Haven were dragons. Above is a Halloween picture from last year so you can see the difference from Dorothy to Little Red Riding Hood.

And of course the evening wouldn't be complete without our adorable witch! Isn't she cute?!

PHILLIES WIN!!!

Together Again!

Pictured here are some of the friends we used to hang out with on a regular basis. The Bernhisels moved to Utah and then the Richards moved to downtown Philadelphia. We were so excited to all get together while Jason & Chelli were in town for the week.
Here is a picture of us all together just after James was born and right before the Bernhisels moved away. Chelli, I think this was your birthday celebration at our house, so it would make it early November 2006.
And here we are together again for lunch at the Reading Terminal Market. This picture was taken late October of 2008. I don't know who the random guy is standing off to the side, but he was in all the pictures! You can't really see the boys very well, but James is right below Jason and Chelli and Preston is right below Dan and Hailey, Bianca had to stay home. It was so fun seeing you guys again, let's do it again sometime!