The Loud Crowd

Bailey and I escaped the Texas heat and Nate's long work hours for a few weeks this summer. I wish Nate could have joined us, but we took his sister Emily with us instead for the first week. Our adventures began in New York City. My apologies ahead of time for the picture overload.

Bailey spent a lot of time in this stroller. She was a trooper!

She loved sleeping on the Subway.

We tried to make the most of every minute of every day. We spent the first day going to the Natural History Museum, walking around Times Square, and seeing Matilda.

At Matilda! We had to see it in shifts, so someone could watch Bailey.

Natural History Museum

This is the dinosaur at the front of the museum. Not quite like the movie. In fact, one of the curators told us the only museum artifact that was actually used in Night at the Museum was "Dum Dum"-see below.

Teddy? He looks different too.

More fun walking around Times Square-lots of people watching.

Day two included the Statue of Liberty, the 9/11 Memorial, Central Park, Harlem and more.

We took a ferry over to the Statue of Liberty.

At the 9/11 Memorial there are two fountains where the Twin Towers once stood.

They are also working on a new Trade Center.

Below is the "survivor tree". Workers found it in the rubble after the attacks, badly burned, but were able to nurse it back to health and transport it back to its original location.

Texas?

It was strange to see the temple in the middle of all the tall buildings. It kind of blended in.

This is Tera, one of my old mission companions who lives in NYC now. She took us around Central Park and then to Harlem where she lives.

We of course had to experience Times Square at night.

Bailey loved yelling at everyone in Time's Square. She was the only baby so everybody stopped to talk to her.

The next day we drove to upstate New York. It was a long car drive, but Bailey did fairly well. In upstate New York we went to Niagara Falls and several church history sites: The Sacred Grove, Palmyra Temple, the Joseph Smith Farm and Hill Cumorah.

You could walk down below in ponchos and get soaked by the waterfall.

We also did an Eerie Canal cruise:

The Sacred Grove-It was neat to walk around the Grove and feel the spirit that was there. The gravel was really bumpy, so Bailey ended up having to be carried because she would cry when we put her in her stroller.

Joseph Smith House-I was surprised at how small it was. Joseph shared an upper room with most of his siblings.

Palmyra Temple

Building where the Book of Mormon was first published

Hill Cumorah Pagaent-The play was put on by people from all over the United States, who had just gotten together the week before to learn their parts and rehearse. It was amazing the way they recounted the story of the Book of Mormon. They had really great special effects as well.

New York was a blast! More pictures to follow of our adventures in Utah and at Bear Lake...

Bailey really has been such a great baby. The first couple of months were rough, but that could have been partially my fault too since I had no idea what I was doing. But these last couple of months have been so fun! Not that there aren't moments where I'm exhausted and counting down the seconds until Nate comes home, but there are also moments that are just so fun that make me never want her to grow up. We spend lots of our day taking pictures and so here are a few fun events from the last month in no particular order (mostly because I don't remember what happened when).

1. Many more Sunday outfits and Bailey helped me celebrate my first mother's day. The last two weeks she has been awesome at church and actually just let us sit and hold her instead of making us pace the halls.