Az Smiths Family blog

I know it's been forever.... so I want to catch up of course... Tanner had a really cute little program at school, called " Character Matters" About a bunch of fairy tale characters who are angry because things don't go their way and they learn how to "take a breath, count to ten, walk away, and it's ok..." It's a cute program and I wish more parents would listen to it... Tanner was one of Cinderella's mice...

Here we are painting Easter Eggs. It was a very last minute thing. I only like to do a egg hunt on Sat. and the little kids stopped by for a few so we did a quick trip to the store and let them color eggs and then we hid them. Chloe loves to help do this and fill eggs and hid them. And everyone like to hunt for eggs, and my kids like to color them also...

The day we colored eggs was the opening day of Baseball for Hayden. So we went to the fun ceremony and everyone got their faces painted...

Had to get a picture of the kids in their souvenir t-shirts from NYC...

Hayden getting his bobcat.... Such a cute boy...

We just got back from New York City. What a different planet NYC is. But we had a great time. We got in about 11pm on Thursday night into Newark and Jeff had called and reserved a super shuttle to meet us there, only they hadn't gotten there. We had to wait for about 2 more hours for it to arrive, but in the mean time we met the nicest people. One young man was from London and was in town to visit his girlfriend and then we met a family. The man was from Turkey and the woman was dutch, and they lived in Malta, which is a small island off the coast of Italy. They had a 11-12 year old daughter and were the nicest people, we all rode the shuttle together, and the craziest thing in the next day while were in Time Square we ran into them again. Now that is a small world.

The first day we met up with one of Jeff's friends he worked with in NC. Good to meet him, and then we hit Time Square and Rockefeller Center. We rode to the top and had a great view. It was also FREEZING... and we walked all over.... We also walked to the Temple, that is the strangest thing how you are walking on yucky sidewalk and all of the sudden it changes, to this nice granite sidewalk. You can just feel the difference. I wonder if anyone else notices as they are walking by, that the building is different then the others.

Day 2 we went to the Empire State building and went to the top of that, again FREEZING.. but fun view, crazy how many different languages you hear around you in NY. We also went to the Metropolitan museum, Very big. There is so much history in NYC. And I rode the subway ... which I have to say I was not to excited about, but after walking all over, riding was much nicer. You still had to walk and walk and walk....

On Sunday we went to the 9/11 memorial... I have to say that was a very sacred experience. Everyone should go there. It was powerful. We had a couple of tour guides who were volunteers and who were impacted by the events of 9/11. The first guide was an ins. broker whose corporate offices were on the 93-99 floors on the north tower. The first building hit and the plane hit those floors, they lost hundreds of people that day. The second guide was a firefighter who was in Staten Island that day to take his daughter to school and by the time he got down town the tower had just fallen. 343 Firemen were lost that day. We forget but we can't. It was so powerful to me. The memorials were where the towers stood and they are these waterfall features 30 feet deep and then in the middle of the feature is another one, representing a void within a void. All of the names of the victims are etched around the memorials. It really is amazing. And there is a tree( the Survivor Tree) that survived the attack and they transplanted it to nurse it back to health and then it survived Hurrican Sandy and then they put it back on the grounds. It represents all those who survived and have to go on. It really is powerful.

Then of course the best part of the visit was Haley's concert at Carnegie Hall. They did a great job and it was really fun to see them there. What a great experience for these kids to have. I am so glad we were able to go, and it was so great to be with Jeff. I rode the subway( oh one story of the subway was a couple got on the subway and I swear she was in labor. I gave her my seat and asked her if she was ok or needed anything, and her boyfriend kept giving me the evil eye, so I quit asking her questions.... he was a little scary...)

and a taxi... Yikes... It was a great little get away and I will always remember it.