New York City

"Look at this! "Baby Born with Two Heads"... must be from Brooklyn." -Racetrack "Newsies"

At the beginning of August, right before Adam went back to school, we took a trip to New York City to visit some old roommates. Nathan and Nicki were such wonderful hosts! We had a really great time catching up and seeing NYC for the first time.

New York City is very cool. It is a lot older than most cities I have been too. I LOVED walking around Manhattan and seeing what everything is like (I have always enjoyed downtowns). I like the hustle and bustle and the fun things to do. However, I would never want to live there long term. It smells bad, people are rude (especially when driving), their toll roads are expensive (ok everything is expensive), there is constant noise everywhere you go, most things seemed so dirty I didn't even want to touch them, and while I like cities and lots of people New York had a few too many people for my tastes.

Everywhere you go every thing is crammed together. Even in the Bronx (1 hour via subway away from Downtwon) the houses have very little space around them. I don't think you'd even need a lawn mower, scissors could probably get the job done :-) It was neat (because I love people and being around people) but it gets to a point where you just need a little more space to your self for daily rejuvenation.

The culture is very different in New York vs. all the other places I have been. Parts seemed to line up perfectly with what you see in movies (old Italian men sitting outside their little shops in the evening smoking and talking). Other parts were completely different. There were a lot of cool cultural things I wanted to take pictures of, but I didn't have much opportunity for that.

In the morning Nathan would get up to go to work and Shane was always so interested in what he was doing. He was especially interested when Nathan would eat breakfast. :-)

Shane does this cheesy smile a lot where he wrinkles his nose and squints his eyes.

Shane loved exploring Nathan and Nicki's apartment. He especially liked these little boxes in the bookshelf. They were just his size and he always found something fun inside. :-)

Adam went with Nathan and his ward on a temple trip to the Manhattan Temple. This picture is the ward walking to either the temple or the subway to get to the temple, not sure. I didn't go because Shane was having a rough time sleeping on our trip so I wanted to give him every opportunity to take good naps.

We went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was kind of like a maze that never ends. We loved it, but navigating through all the rooms was overwhelming. Adam could have spent a couple of days there.

This is Nicki and Shane. So cute!
These were on display in the African or Oceanic section (not sure which they were practically the same room). Nicki and I liked this display the most. They were so funny looking! We are trying to make the faces we thought these characters would make jumping out from behind a tree at someone. I think we should work in a haunted house because we are pretty darn scary if you ask me! :-)
This was when we were touring downtown with Nicki. You can't see the statue very well, but this is where George Washington was sworn into office as the first president of the United States.

We got to see both Downtown and Midtown. The two are quite different. Downtown seemed older and has a lot of tourists. Midtown is newer and flashier. I saw a lot of young business people in Midtown, lots of shopping. It kind of felt like old New York vs. new/modern New York.

This is right next to the site of the World Trade Towers. It gives me a more real perspective on the event seeing where everything happened and to imagine what it was like.

Adam and I went on the Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island Tour. Thanks to Nicki for being so nice and watching Shane while we were gone! We really enjoyed it. We especially enjoyed Ellis Island. They have it set up to show what the immigrants went through when they came through Ellis Island. It is amazing what people did and still do just to come to the United States.

This picture was taken on Liberty Island. It is not the greatest picture, but the nice man who took it really was trying.

Seeing the Statue of Liberty was really cool for me. I had never seen it before in person. Being reminded of the founding of our country and what it meant to Americans at the time was inspiring.

This picture is for Adam's brother Morgan. Enjoy! :-)
Slideshow of pictures of the city:


We attempted to get in to a taping of the Colbert Report. We were obviously unsuccessful. It was a bummer. There is so much to do in New York that we couldn't possibly do it all. I figure it just gives us another reason to go visit Nathan and Nicki again (Not that we needed one :-) ).