Finally a Girl!

For those of you who know my side of the family, I have three sisters and one brother. Between all of us together, there are 11 rambunctious grandsons for my parents to enjoy. For a while it was somewhat of a race to have the first girl and now the race is over!

After five weeks of bed rest and one week in the hospital, my sister, Erin, delivered the first grand daughter, Carlie Marie McSpadden, yesterday morning at 1 am. She was only 25 weeks and 2 days along (about 99 days early) but is doing amazing so far! She came out breathing on her own and had an apgar score of 9 - amazing for a preemie!

Because this all happened in Spokane I don't have any pictures, so look at my other sister's blog here (thanks Mindy!).

I must say how proud of my sister I am. This was her third and, by far, her hardest pregnancy. There were lots of complications and moments of frustration along the way. I don't think I would have been strong enough to endure what she has; she has been a great example to me of strength, patience and love. I have to give credit to her husband, Jeremy, too for being there with her the whole way and for big brothers Avery and Boddee too. Love you , sis!

(I know, I am still going to post pics of the second half of my NY trip...I haven't forgotten!)

If I Didn't Have Any Children...

I would live in New York City! I loved every minute of my time there. Even with children, I decided upstate New York would be a wonderful and beautiful place to live too (pics of upstate NY are for a second post, though...)

Here is what we were able to shove into 48 hours:



After only two hours of public transit from JFK with two suitcases, two back packs and a child in a stroller (and only one minor detour...) we finally reached our destination. This is the outside of the apartment in Queens where we rented a room for two nights. We loved our experience there and would do it again any day! (don't worry mom...we had our own bathroom)



Our first stop in Manhattan was Times Square. No picture taken can do this place justice! It was so fun to see experience at night.



Katie with our water's stop/go sign at Bubba Gumps Seafood (in Times Square). Delicious!



Of course we made a stop at the M&M store in Times Square.



Logan helping himself.



Katie and Logan while waiting in the subway. Carrying a stroller up and down the stairs of the subwaysgot old really fast, but other than that, traveling with a child was really not bad at all.


Ground Zero. It was all just a huge construction zone, but nevertheless, very solemn. Those two huge posters on the building across the construction zone are plans for the reconstructed buildings.



The fire station right across the street from Ground Zero (ironically located on Libery Street) had this memorial on the inside of their garage. Check out the liberty street sign hanging in the upper right corner.



The fire station got a call when we were there so we got to see them gear up and head out. I loved their truck. The whole feeling in the area was very patriotic and reverent.



This memorial around the corner from the station speaks for itself.



Logan and me in Battery Park (very southern tip of Manhattan). This is as close to the Statue of Liberty as we got because of our time constraints. Good enough for us!


We stopped in Little Italy for lunch to eat pizza at Lombardi's. Can you tell Logan was more than ready for lunch that day? He was a trooper!


We took a stroll down Wall Street


The New York Stock Exchange... when we got back my friend asked if I could see if crumbling...


This was the part I loved most about New York - the history! It was so cool to see these beautiful historic buildings right next to the gigantic sky scrapers.


The Manhattan temple. It was under construction while we were there so we couldn't see the visitor's center.


I loved Central Park! I could have spent hours and hours there. This was one of the famous walk ways there.


Just a photo to commemorate our good friend, the subway map. We never really got lost thanks to the many kind New Yorkers who stopped to answer our many requests for directions.



This is a store that Ralph Lauren's daughter, Dylan Lauren, opened. This 3-story candy store made me feel giddy and like a kid all over again. The store is very nostalgic in that they carry almost any (American) candy you can remember along with all the modern candies.


Just a glimpse of their tasty selection upstairs.



We stopped at Serendipity 3 (from the movie, Serendipity) for dinner. It was a quarky little restaurant with a stingy "NO STROLLERS ALLOWED" rule. We ditched Logan's stroller a few doors down inside an apartment building while praying the whole time that it wouldn't get stolen.

They are famous for their frozen hot cocoa and after drinking that whole thing by myself I can see why! Can you tell Logan was wasted at this point?



This is a subway stop in Queens, close to the one we got off to go to our apartment. I have some friends in my ward that lived right by 61st in Woodside and so I took this pic for them!


St Patrick's Cathedral. Another part of history that I loved experiencing.



Our last memory in New York City (besides driving our rental car across Manhattan on our way out of town...during rush hour traffic) was going to the top of Rockefeller Center to their observation deck.

This pic is looking south at the Empire State Building.



This pic is lookng North right over Central Park. The funny thing is that we saw someone we knew from Spokane while we were on the Top of the Rock...what are the odds?
It was incredible to me how stuffy and packed it looks from this view, yet once on the ground, NYC is really not all that bad! Thanks for letting me borrow the sling Megan - it was wonderful to have!

New York Part II soon to follow...