Illinois

I finally made it home! It feels great to be back in Cedar and be somewhat back to normal! The week and a half before I came home I was in Champaign visiting my sister. Laci and Nate left after a couple days and went to Cancun and I stayed there to tend Bladen. It was so much fun hanging out with the little man! This is what our days consisted of; sleeping in until about 9:30, watching cartoons until noon, get ready, have lunch, then either go to the park, swimming, to the animal farm, or to the mall! While I was there I was trying to potty train him! He did pretty good... probably because everytime he went he said "I go pee pee, I get a snack!" Another cute thing he would say to me is that we were best friends! He would say it in such a sweet little voice it made me want to cry! I am so thankful I got to spend that one on one time with him! Here are a few pictures



Every night we would eat out back and he loved to color with the sidewalk chalk so we wrote everyone's names

We went to a water park one of the days and he was in heaven!

Playing at the park- don't worry that it was like 90 degrees with like 100% humidity.. I was sweating to death

Best friends :)

Sorry this video is turned but I couldn't figure out how to flip it! I just wanted everyone to see how cute Bladen is when he dances to his favorite song "Boom Boom Pow" We had to listen to it everytime we went somewhere!!

*Washington DC

On my mom's last few days here and my last few days living here we decided to tour DC. Annie came along with us and we had lots of fun!! On the first day we got on the metro and went downtown. This is us waiting for the train

The first stop we made was to the White House. It was so cool and I thought the flowers and everything around it was really pretty.

The First Lady's garden

Me kissin the Washington Monument :)

View of the Lincoln monument and WWII memorial

Me and Annie

Lincoln

I have always wanted to see this. It was one of my favorite things

Me and my mom by the Koren War monument

The Capitol

We sat on a park bench by the Capitol for a while and talked and I was surprised how active it was around there. There was a ton of people jogging, playing baseball and doing other active things right there on a huge lawn downtown. It's crazy how this kind of scenery is normal to them!

Smithsonian

Our second day downtown we went to the Holocaust museum. It was awesome but really sad. It's hard to believe stuff like that really happened.Our last stop for the day was Arlington Cemetery. My mom went on the church history tour a long time ago so she has been to all of this stuff but can't really remember so it was fun to go and refresh her memory:)

JFK's grave

It was so fun having my mom come here and visit and see where we live. We had such a great time and saw a lot of neat things! Our adventure is not over yet though... we flew out the next day to my sister's house and I said goodbye to Virginia/Washington DC forever! We will be in Champaign for the next week and a half spending time with Laci, Nate and Bladen and then they will leave for Cancun and I get to babysit! More to come later:)

Our trip to NYC*

Let me just warn you now that this is going to be a LONG post! Me and my mom have been quite the traveler's for the past 2 weeks. I picked her up on Monday the 3rd and we stayed the night in Philly then woke up at 4:30 am to catch the train to downtown China Town in Philly to catch the 7 am bus to New York! And when I say bus I don't mean just a regular bus station that everyone is familiar with.... we were walking around in chinatown which is scary enough trying to find our stupid bus that everyone we asked seemed to know nothing about! We finally found this guy that has seen others like us walking around with papers and confusion on our faces! He told us that we get picked up by that little yellow sign with Chinese on it........... ya scary! Here is my mom sitting by our "bus station" hahaha

Other people starting showing up so we weren't so scared anymore. We met a lady and her son that helped us out a lot on our journey to NYC.

This is us on the bus almost to New York

My mom in the park where they do "Good Morning America" She loves this show!

After getting off the bus in NYC China town and getting on the subway.. we finally made it to where we got on our tour for the day! Let me tell you we looked like real dandies trying to get around on the subway.. it was hilarious!!!

View of the Empire State Building

Ground Zero

There are all of these statue of liberties that stand around so I thought I would go get a picture with one.. little did I know it was like 5 bucks just for a picture so I said no thanks but my mom happened to snap a few shots without them knowing :)

Me and my mom on the ferry to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. We standed in line for probably 2 hours for this! It was so hot and we were carrying all of our get ready crap and clothes in a backpack because we weren't able to go to our hotel yet.

View from the boat

Me on top of our tour bus

United Nations

My mom by the Rockafellar Center

Times Square

Madison Square Garden

Macy's:)

View from the top of the Empire State Building. We waited probably over an hour and a half in this line too.. It was ridiculous how many people were there! We were so beat!

Central Par

As you can tell since we look like beauties that we were so sweaty and tired from walking and touring all day

We finally made it to our hotel... after getting lost on the subway... and got some dinner in a little street cafe right by our hotel. Our hotel was hilarious, it was nice but it was so tiny! Right when you walked into the room you basically hit our bed! We were so tired we didn't really care! The next morning we slept in a little then woke up and got ready for Mamma Mia on Broadway. We got lost again on the subway............... haha

On the way to the play we stopped and got some lunch and saw some more fun things

Infront of the Winter Garden Theater

Us in the theater getting ready for the show to start. The play was definitely the highlight of the trip to New York. It was amazing and I would see it 20 more times if I could!!! The singing was awesome and it was just so entertaining!!

Me and the M&M factory

Me and my mom sat in Times Square for a while and just people watched. It was so crazy and busy it was fun to just sit there! After that it was time to make it back to the bus to head back to Philly. And let me tell you it was quite the adventure in itself! We asked probably 5 people how to get to the subway before we finally found it. After we got off in China town we probably walked a couple mines trying to find the dang "bus station" Once again it was infront of a random chinese shop! Haha we were so ready to get out of the city by then!!