Memorial Day Weekend: Part II

Sundays have become a game changer! I've gained a new found respect for the pioneers, and my day isn't even  t h a t  hard. We take an hour bus ride to our church building and then an hour bus ride home, which makes the whole church-going experience 100 x longer than our two minute walk back in Utah. Not to mention Henry is two weeks shy of nursery and during that second hour I'd donate my right leg to speed up time -- Ahh! Can't he go early?!

We are really enjoying our ward though; everyone is so welcoming and genuinely happy that we're there. My Relief Society president is straight from heaven and I'd like to be her best friend. The ward itself is really different, with lots of different cultures and tons of investigators, so it makes for a breath of fresh air in comparison to my Utah ward. (And I  l o v e d  that ward!)

Also, spaghetti has become a born-again Sunday tradition. (Growing up my family always had spaghetti on Sundays!) We're just so starving when we get home and spaghetti is the quickest to make. We walk through the door and Jake immediately starts boiling water. I love it. Being here on the East Coast already reminds me of Germany and adding that Sunday tradition makes it feel a tiny bit more like home. So Sundays have become a game changer in both bad but also good ways.

Monday morning, Memorial Day, we got ready to head to the Central Park Zoo, Annabelle was so excited. It takes a long minute to get everyone out the door, but we did eventually get down to the bus stop and only to realize the buses weren't coming on schedule. And then we started hearing loud drums and trumpets -- we had come out just in time for Weehawken's Memorial Day parade. Hooray! It cut two hours (!!!) out of our morning, but it was a fun little parade. 

We finally caught a bus into the city and walked our way to the zoo. We passed a yummy smoothie truck on our way there, so I decided to get one. It was an $8 little cup of blended fruit. It was good, but not  t h a t  good. So if you ever pass one of those yummy-looking smoothie trucks in NYC, just keep walking ;)

We also passed a cute book market and got the kids Eric Carle's "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" (our last one got destroyed by a little boy named Henry) and a fun children's book about the sights in NYC. It's already become a bedtime favorite.

Once we arrived at the zoo we quickly realized how our great idea had been everyone else's too: It was SO busy. And while we enjoyed being outside together, the zoo itself was kind of disappointing. I was expecting "Madagascar's" lions, zebras, and hippos, but instead they had a lot of different types of birds and a snow leopard. Haha. Their main attraction saved the day though and had both Annabelle and Henry riveted: the sea lions! They were really playful and kept doing fun tricks. Henry was barking at them and Annabelle wouldn't stop calling them squirrels. Ha! I need to find them a real zoo.

We walked outta there with dippin' dots and popcorn and the sorest legs in New York City. Seriously. The bus ride home could have lasted five hours and I would've been happy.

We ended our night with a modified version of our Memorial Day pie: Strawberries with a cheesecake filled center and topped with blueberries. Oh. Em. Gee. You've gotta try it!

It was a really great weekend and today both boys napped for 4 hours straight -- it wore us all out, even the tiny babes that were carried everywhere. Haha. 

Now we're so excited all the splash pads have opened!!

Summer, let's do this!