Ithaca - The Wedding

On our way down to Ithaca we stopped in Fayette to visit the Whitmer farm. I don't think I took any pictures though. Oops.

Friday night before the wedding we were invited to the groom's parents home for dinner. This is a picture of Nathan waiting to leave the hotel. When we first arrived in Ithaca we ate lunch and then after Emily and Alli arrived we took Nathan swimming. This was the first pool on this vacation where he could touch and was able to show everyone how well he is swimming.

We had planned to meet Tom and Patrice at their house so we could follow them to Ari's house. Ryan took advantage of the waiting time to take a phone call. It started to rain so we gave him this umbrella. As you can imagine Ryan spent quite a bit of time on the phone to keep things going back at home.
This is a picture of the Sage chapel on Cornell's campus. The canopy is called a hoopa and is where the bride and groom stand during the marriage ceremony.


Ari played a beautiful piece on the chello.





These are the bride's maids, Linsday's two sisters Jackie and Marisa and Ari's sister Jenny. Terri gave one of the seven blessings. She did such a good job.
Nathan asked after a bit, "Is this church?" He enjoyed being included and glad to see Lindsay get married. He kept calling her the green girl since yes you guessed it she was wearing a green dress the night before.
The newly weds leaving the chapel.


Here is the location of the garden reception following the wedding.

This is Nathan about weddinged out. This is the point in time I decided to bring up having a babysitter that night. Knowing full well he was tired of the wedding scene I said would you rather have a babysitter tonight instead of more of this. He agreed quickly. In fact when we arrived at Tom and Patrice's which is where the babysitter was going to watch him he hopped out of the car and said bye see you later. I quickly said we'd come in for a minute and his response was "If you want to."



After a bad experience in the Ramada we transferred to the Courtyard. Nathan loved it. He got his very own personal fold out sofa. We made it up before going to the evening reception knowing we would be back quite late. Nathan jumped right in. He couldn't have been more excited. This vacation was so perfect for him. He got to sleep in a new place most every night and was surrounded by family that met his every need. He is a spoiled child, but so very good.



We got quick bit in between the garden lunch and the evening reception. This is Nathan eating his chocolate ice cream. We are trying to convince him not to order the color he likes most but the flavor we succeeded in this case.



Here is a shot of the cocktail hour prior to the dinner.


Patrice made all the flower arrangements for the ceremony as well as the reception. They were beautiful.


The evening reception was in the art museum on campus. This is the only painting Ryan liked.


The dinner was held on the sixth floor overlooking the river. It was spectacular.

After dinner we went down to the second floor for dancing. This is a picture of the bride and groom doing the chair dance. Dancing went on late into the evening. We left around 11:30 to pick Nathan up. The wedding cake was gluten free so we took some with us for Nathan.

This picture is for Amber.

Before leaving Sunday we went to brunch at Ari's parents home. Several members of his family avoid wheat so most everything at these meals was gluten free and Nathan could therefore enjoy most everything including cracks and cookies. That was wonderful.

This is a picture of Lindsay and Nathan at Tom's work. Nathan is trying on a pair of ear plugs. He now is the proud owner of green ear plugs. Emily and Alli grabbed some as well knowing they would be sleeping in the same room as Ryan.

We were also able to enjoy a nice dinner with Tom and his family. This is Emily and Lindsay. We sat right out on the lake. The same lake we had over looked from the dinner the night before.

We decided to take advantage of Grandpa's Marriott points and found a hotel south of Ithaca on our way to the city. Nathan's sleeping arrangements went down hill but he never complained. In Binghamton we put the chair together with the ottoman and he slept there.

The following morning after a late start, the hotel room is so dark Nathan just stuck to Utah time and would sleep until almost 10:00 AM each morning, we headed down to the city. Nathan once again enjoying Alvin and the Chipmunks. He would laugh out loud and it was funny to hear.

New York City the Conclusion of our Vacation

Once getting checked into our last hotel, we headed into the city. It took forever to find a parking spot so we ditched our plan to take the subway to Shea stadium and just had dinner and then drove there. The first picture is of the empire state building from our parking spot. The second is Ryan carrying Nathan to dinner, he was so sleepy. We had dinner at Joshua Tree bar and grill. It was yummy. Nathan was so tired and spent most of the time laying on the bench seat.



After dinner we drove to Shea stadium and were pleasantly surprised tickets were half price that night so we paid $5 to see the game.

This is the new stadium gong up right next door it will be Citi Stadium. Sorry but that doesn't sound nearly as cool.


The Mariner's had a brand slam in the second so the Met's were down by three at the bottom of the ninth. Nathan put his rally cap on but with two guys on base the batter struck out and the game was over. But is was fun. Nathan still loves baseball. We got back to the room pretty late and went right to sleep. The next morning we tried to get an early start so we could see a few things in the city before leaving. We managed to check out by 9:00.

This time we found a parking spot pretty easily and took the subway to China town. I got a great Coach bag to use for the baby's diaper bag. Allison was in heaven. Nathan liked the subway most of all.

Since we had such a perfect parking spot and Emily and Allison had to catch a plane four hours earlier than us they took a taxi and we continued on the subway going uptown.

We stopped near Central Park. Nathan enjoyed exploring for a bit on some rocks.

After Central Park we headed over the FAO Schwartz toy store. Nathan had fun exploring there as well and wanted to buy everything in sight. We, to his dismay, didn't buy a thing. When we came out of the store there were dark clouds overhead. We headed to the subway and when we got off it was pouring rain. We hadn't brought our umbrella so every time we got to a street light Nathan tried hailing a taxi. He'd put his hand in the air and yell "Taxi!" It was pretty funny. Later he told Grandma Wagstaff he liked New York but didn't get to ride in a taxi. Funny kid. We got stuck in traffic so it took us over two hours to go the twenty or so miles to JFK. But we had left in plenty of time. So we had no problems. Over all it was a great trip. We got to do a lot in a short period of time. Nathan was an angel and everything went well. I think we have Nathan convinced turning around is part of driving in places of the unknown but for our inexperience traveling in NY I think we did a pretty good job.

The Demolition Derby

We have had the intension to attend the derby every year since we moved to Riverton but have never actually made it. Well, this year we just got lucky. We could hear the music from our house and knew the derby would be starting soon. We hopped on the golf car to see if there were tickets left. By luck there were and we were able to go. Nathan loved it. On the way home he was ready to run our golf car into anything and everything so we had to explain the difference.

We saw some friends from our neighborhood and sat with them. Nathan and Cole are about the same age and enjoyed splitting a very large pixi stick.

It is just pure sugar and you can see the intensity on Nathan's face.

Nathan really loved it. He was so into watching the crashes.

We arrived late so our seats were right up close to the action. There was lots of steam coming from the engines of these cars. One even caught fire. It was pretty fun to be a spectator.

The Simple Joys in Life

Saturday we went to visit one of Nathan's little friends at Primary Children's hospital. After our visit Nathan was asking for pizza. Ryan's cousin had sent an email regarding a pizza place downtown that offered a wheat free crust. We tracked down, thanks Angie, and Nathan got a full pizza. He was amazed that he was able to eat the whole thing. And he has he even had it for breakfast the next morning.

Honey, Oh the Mess!

So last week I went to put my IKEA purchases in the trunk and found the gallon or more bucket of honey my mom had given me had opened and was all over my trunk. I closed the trunk and headed home trying to think how I would clean such a mess. When I went up to WY the week before I was talking with my mom about food storage and how we are working on it. My mom has always been really good about having food storage and with there now only being three of them at home said she would be glad to share. She gave me a bucket of honey, a large bag of oats, a bucket of wheat, some apple slices and potato pearls. Since then I had added a large bag of rice. But no that was not all I had in my trunk. Since Nathan started T-ball I have kept a blanket, chair, and his bat bag in the trunk so we will always have them for his games. I had an emergency car kit and a few other miscellaneous items. Seriously a mess. Well the pictures don't even do it justice. I ended up using a spoon and trying to get it all into a bowl. This was the creamy thick honey otherwise I think the mess would have been even worse. I used a warm rag to clean everything. I am hoping honey doesn't clog drains the way grease does since a lot of honey ended up down my drain. I did manage to save everything except the honey. It took a couple hours. When Ryan came home I just told him not to ask. Nathan kindly announced I was cleaning the honey out of my trunk to any neighbor within ear shot. Lesson learned. Don't carry around a bucket of honey in your trunk for over a week!

Visit to Wyoming

Over Memorial day I took Nathan to visit Grandma and Grandpa Scherbel. My mom had both her knees replaced and I was hoping to be able to help in some way. We left after work on Thursday so we had several days to spend up there. Nathan enjoyed playing with his cousins Kaleb and Nikyli. I enjoyed spending time with my mom watching movies and chatting. Christy and Dan came to visit as well which was really fun.
Kaleb and Kyli's uncle Lucky was there and played games with the kids and took them outside and to the park. It was so nice. I was able to spend time with my mom and not worry too much about Nathan.

I took a box of corn elbow noodles and I think Nathan had either mac n cheese or spaghetti every meal we were there.
Christy colored her hair dark and it is really cute. The only reason I even put this picture on. I hate myself in it.