Saturday, March 03, 2012

Major Bonding Time in New York

A fun looking painted sign on the front porch of Mom & Dad's house.

 Our family spent 11 fun filled days in New York last month.  
I can't thank Laura enough for hanging with us on the planes and at the airports on the way to New York.
Even though Laura has a boyfriend, Tyler has stolen Aunt Wawa's heart.
Aunt Wawa offers Tyler some words of encouragement during 
his first of many rounds of the "Don't Feed the Gators" board game.
Mom and Brian played too.
It got intense at times when the gator would "eat" the game pieces.
Tyler would get so upset and let out a horrible, anguish-filled scream.
"Gator's got'cha!   Ahhhh!"
My brother, Mike is awesome and read some great stories to my boys.
Too bad his trip was so short and that his wife, Alice couldn't come too.
 I insisted that we take a sibling shot.  That's 4 of the 8 Hallstrom kids right there.
 (This was taken the day after Emily's wedding, so we are missing Emily in this shot.  
Emily was enjoying sunny Florida with her husband by then.  Lucky!)
 Laura (23), Lisa (29), Mike (28), Ryan (15)

Sibling Love - Laura & Ryan

Brian, Uncle Ryan, Aunt Laura, and Tyler
Family Snuggle Huddle

 Sam surprised me with these pretty flowers and took me to Applebees for Valentine's Day.

 Lindsay and I have been friends for 14 years.  
We first met at Girls Camp back in 1998.  
I was her Girls Camp Counselor. 
We've done a pretty good job keeping up with each other's lives through blogging.  
I'm so glad that we could get together for a couple hours and have our kids play. 
 Our boys are about the same age as her boys.  She has a adorable baby girl too.

 My brother, Ryan and I played a few rounds of my favorite old school video game, Uniracers. 
It's a super easy game for even someone like me who is so not a big video game fan.
And I'm quite good at this game, if I do say so myself.

I went on a Mommy Daughter Date with my mom.  (Katie stayed home with Sam.)  
First, Mom and I went a special band performance at Ryan's high school.  
There was a slideshow going and various narrators telling of 
Abe Lincoln's time as the President of the United States. 
The Ithaca High School Band is amazing!
The song they played while the slideshow was going was touching.
Mom then took me to the Ithaca Bakery for lunch.
There was a fun atmosphere there.  
The menu was so big (written neatly in colorful chalk on boards that 
wrapped around the whole front of the bakery.)
Mom ordered the Reuben Sandwich and 
I ordered Laura's Sweet Surprise (a yummy pulled pork sandwich.) 
Next, Mom took me to see Dad at work.  I'd never seen the new store. 

 My dad works full time as an Optometrist at this America's Best office in Ithaca.  
It's located about 15 minutes downhill from his house.
Dad gave me a quick tour of the place.  It's very nice and spacious.
Here is Dad is in his office:
 My dad is usually a pretty serious guy.  
He let loose and LOVED playing with my kids after church.
It was very entertaining to watch.
  Thanks, Mom and Dad for letting us bombard your house for a few days.
Thanks for feeding us well, for spoiling us, and for all the fun.
 And this picture right here makes all the hard work of 
traveling across the country twice completely worth it:
Our kids with their Grandma and Grandpa Hallstrom.  
Tyler (4), Katie (21 months), Brian (7)

2 comments:

Giles Fam said...

oh how fun! Glad you had a good time with your family!

Kristy E.B. said...

I'm behind on your blog. What a fun trip to New York it looks like your family had. That's awesome that your kids got to be with your grandparents. And exciting that your sister got married.