Swim Meet, School Party, New York City ~June 1st to 10th 2012

July 24, 2012

We love home made pizza! Although we don't make it very often in the summer heat. So sad!

AJ participated in his first swim meet at the YMCA. He was nervous for his 2 races, but he did his best and had a good experience. The water was so cold and he was freezing most of the time, but we kept him wrapped up in towels and Audrey kept him company whenever possible.

AJ worked on this Lego airport for several months. He is very creative and loved inventing new airplanes, parking lots, bus terminals, emergency vehicles, and indoor facilities for the people.

AJ's class had an end of the year party with outdoor games and ice cream. He has had an amazing year with the best behavior record in the class. I have loved being with the class a few times a week tutoring and joining AJ for lunch. We have made lots of great memories with his class and Mrs. McConaughey. She loved AJ and taught him so much. He made posters throughout the year for her, the class teacher aide Mrs. Criggler, other classmates and even the principal and secretary. They all enjoyed each other and had special friendships.

AJ and I made special trophies for the 3 classmates who had received the most jokes of the day. AJ had the privilege of getting the joke of the day from the secretary after lunch and then telling it to the whole class. He made a chart with all his classmates and kept track of who got to keep the joke paper after he read it. He wanted to be fair and really cared about his classmates.

Audrey and Rylee are playing with bubbles and climbing on rock in the yard. They are super cute together most of the time.

WE LOVE NEW YORK CITY!! To celebrate AJ's great school year, and because we could, we spent a weekend with just AJ in NYC. He had not returned since we moved away from there when he was 4. He still loved NYC and his room is decorated with pictures from NYC. So we planned the weekend around him and reliving some great memories of when we lived there.

These first few pictures are of the beautiful NYC library. It was actually the first time we went into this particular one and wow was it amazing. Not kid friendly but great for research.

AJ's favorite building in the whole world is the Empire State Building. He was too young to remember going there before, so we went again. He loved it and couldn't get enough. He got excited looking at the big city and all the cool buildings. He was thrilled to be so high in the sky.

When Aaron stays in NYC for business its almost always at the Omni Hotel. He earned a few free nights and that's where we got to stay for the weekend. After playing all day Friday we enjoyed chocolate covered strawberries (my favorite) and "water in a glass" (AJ's favorite) and cookies that were complimentary treats in our room when we got there. We also had a pizza picnic while watching the Yankees play on tv. Next AJ took a shower in the "glass" shower and drew many pictures on the steamy glass. When he finished came out in one of the white robes smiling from ear to ear. The robe was so soft he asked to sleep in it. He played on the ipad for a bit and fell asleep in the robe.

I had the sweet pleasure of having breakfast with 2 friend whom I adore. The one of the left is Allyson who recently moved to NYC with her 4 kids. She was one of my favorite roommates from BYU. On the right is Shelly. I met her when we were living in NYC and served with her in the Relief Society presidency. It was a high light of the weekend for me.

The next several pictures from FAO Schwartz are posted because AJ is a candy fiend and gets incredibly excited about anything titled "worlds largest". He also loves collecting rock, especially crystals.

When we lived in NYC Central Park was our favorite and almost daily place to be. AJ was to little to climb these rock then, but not now! We also visited his favorite park that has water running through the whole structure, plus sprinklers! We also went to our favorite slide that's made better by sitting on a paper bag or piece of cardboard.

AJ was very excited to rent his first remote control sail boat. There wasn't much wind, but he loved it!

I love this part of the park. The fountain is beautiful and there are usually good performers playing music or singing nearby. Its also a fun treat to go on the row boats and look for turtles while going under beautiful bridges and drooping trees.

AJ was obsessed with subways when he was a boy. Not much has changed. Just look at his face!

Our trip would not be complete without a Yankee game. It is also the first game AJ watched without getting bored and resorting to a DVD like we had to do when he was younger.