JoeBro

Three years ago today my best friend was killed in an accident. People say men and women can't be "just friends" but, I'm proof that they can! He was my best friend, the brother my sisters and I never had. It's been hard without him but I know that I will get to see him again. Love you Joe.

Senior Dinner dance after party

 this picture says everything about Joe!

One lucky man!

 So this week my soon to be brother in law was buried alive in an avalanche. Luckily he was wearing the vest parachute thing that saved his life! Here is the link to the story. So glad he's okay!

 http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=19340414

New York

I love New York during Christmas and I really really wanted to go before we went home for Christmas. Luckily Mike was in NYC for work and I didn't work the weekend so I took the bus down so we could spend the weekend! Lucky for us we have some very generous friends who live downtown in Battery Park. They let us crash there for the weekend! It was my first time in a New York City apartment. I loved it, so cute and small. They have an amazing view from there roof deck see below....

A.M.A.Z.I.N.G

So I got there Friday night, Mike picked me up and we headed to Soho to meet Brian for dinner. After we just went back to the apartment and went to sleep. Saturday we walked outside to see a gazillion Santa Clauses. I guess it was Santa Con, not too many people can say they were in New York during Santa Con. Haha actually, it was kind of annoying, every street corner there was a drunken Santa. We took the subway to the Brooklyn Bridge and walked halfway across.

View of Manhattan from the Bridge

We then went to China Town. It actually felt as if we were in China. A group of Chinamen were playing some Chinese instruments and another Chinamen singing along. haha funny sight. Another group of people were up doing some ti chi. We walked around a little while longer then headed to Hawkers for dinner! Of course we had to eat at Hawkers duh.

The food was okay, best part about it was we got 15 percent off for having the last name! Next we went to Magnolia's bakery in the West Village. Mike had been raving about the banana pudding all week long so of course we had to go. Well he had every right to rave about it. OMG it was amazing best I have ever tasted. It's famous from Sex and the City. They would go there all the time in the show. MMM just thinking about it makes my mouth water. I have to tell you the West Village is were I would LOVE to live. It is so beautiful in a New York City kind of way. It's were all the famous and insanely rich people live. Like the Carrie Bradshaw neighborhoods. Next we went to Washington Square I had never been before and I really wanted to check it out.

Then off to Rockefeller to check out the tree!

So much fun! I fell in love with the city this weekend. Thanks to my husband who knows his way around, otherwise I would never see as much as I have! He's the best!

FRIENDSSSS

Yay! Mike and I have been waiting for a year now for some friends! Finally a bunch moved into the ward all at once we were so happy they are the best! We have had so much fun with them and are so happy to get some new friends!

White Elephant/ugly sweater party! Sarita and Jesse were kind enough to host this shin-dig. We had lots of fun.

Duck Pin Bowling. Yep, We weren't very good at it but we plan to go a lot so we are all pros!

So happy to have friends in Lil Rhody

Thanksgiving at Disney World!

A while back Mike traveled to Orlando for work and stayed in a Hilton Resort. Well they called him after his stay and offered us a 3 nights stay for $100 if we went to a 90 minute timeshare shindig. Well we couldn't pass up a vacation to Florida. So we decided we would go Thanksgiving weekend since Mike had the weekend off of work and had no other plans. We flew into Orlando Tuesday morning ahhh can I say it was so nice to be in 80 degree weather in November I am not one for cold weather! We headed to the hotel got right into our swim suits and went to the POOL! We spent the afternoon in the sun and it felt so good. I'm terrible at picture taking and failed to take one at the pool oh well... Wednesday we had to go to our timeshare meeting blah blah blah they work really hard at trying to sell you these luxurious timeshares. I have to admit he sold me on it but I've got a penny pincher husband who keeps me on track and we said uh NO! The rest of the day we spent shopping at some nearby outlets and just hanging out in the amazing Florida sun. We went to Downtown Disney for the night, luckily our hotel was right across the street!

MMM I LOVE ME SOME PRETZELS

Now for Thursday, the day we had been waiting for for months was finally here! DISNEY WORLD!

It was a little overwhelming at first. I've only ever been to Disneyland and Disney World is HUGE! We also didn't know that Thanksgiving weekend is the busiest weekend of the year yikes. This proved to be true. It was packed. Some rides were a 2 hour or more wait. So we picked which rides we really wanted to ride and waited in these insane lines. It was worth it though.

ARRGG

I wanna go back!

Ohhh Verizon.

So probably about the beginning of September my phone started being weird. It was telling me my storage was full and I needed to delete some apps. Well this was weird because I barely had any apps. So I took it into the Verizon store they had no idea. He told me to reset my phone and that should solve all my problems. Okay so it helped the notification to go away but now I can't receive any text messages. How annoying. So I just left it like this for about a week because I was going home to visit for my Birthday. So, while I was at the mall I just asked one of the guys at the kiosk. He also had no idea and told me to call support. I didn't want to so I went to the actual store, he reset my phone once again and still nothing! So he tells me he was going to order a new one for me. Good news to me it's always nice to get a new phone. Plus he told me they didn't have mine in stock so I got the brand new Incredible 2. Wahoo! Awesome I was excited about that. He tells me I will receive it in 5 days so I flew back to RI thinking my new phone would be there but nope not yet. I waited another day still nothing, next day.. still nothing. Hmmm so I call verizon she tells me to wait another day it should be here the next day. Nope still nothing. UGH really?  I call Support I wasn't on the account so my dad had to call, he gives me the tracking number it says its in Rhode Island and has been for quite some time. I call the post office to see whats up. Well, turns out they lost it have no idea where it is and I probably wont get it. I start freaking out because I DO NOT want to pay for this phone being lost. I call support and they tell me I'm not responsible for it fewww. So she tells me I can order one again and have it sent to me. I  reassure that she is sending the Incredible 2 she says yes. So two days later I get my new phone! I open it up and to my surprise i'ts the exact same one I already had. No way was I going to take this one when I was told I would get the new one! This may sound selfish but I had my hopes on the new one. So once again I call and tell them they sent me the WRONG phone. She tells me that's the one that was in stock so that's the one I get. No No No I told her I was originally suppose to get the new one. She asks around and gets the OK to send me the new one. So I think its all over right? Wrong! The very next day I get my new phone in the mail, open it.... can you guess yep wrong one once again! By this time I'm thinking they are playing some kind of joke on me! This is nuts. I called again and tell her once again they sent the wrong phone. Haha so she reorders me the Incredible 2. I'm happy to say fourth times the charm and I got my new phone today!

Labor Day Weekend

So for Labor Day Mike and I and some friends from DealerSocket went camping up at Lake Champlain in Vermont! It was a lot of fun. Usually you wouldn't here fun and camping in the same sentence come out of my mouth, but it was! We don't have a lot of friends being out here in Rhode Island but Mike has made good friends with some guys in his company. The only hard thing about it is everyone lives all over the country! Lucky for us  the East is very small. So, the 7 of us who live somewhat close got together for the weekend. Mike me and Nate got to Vermont about 11:30 Friday night so we set up camp and went to bed. Saturday we met up with everyone else in Burlington. I've been wanting to go to the Ben and Jerry's Factory for a long time so we all went! I was just a little disappointed. I've heard you get to make your own mixture and play around with flavors, but it was just a walking tour and it was a Saturday so you weren't able to see the factory workers or the ice cream being made. We still had a great time though!

NOT THE BEST VIEW OF THE FACTORY BUT HERE IT IS! BTW VERMONT IS GORGEOUS. PRETTIEST  NEW ENGLAND STATE BY FAR!

Sunday we woke up made some breakfast and started to get ready to go to the lake. Well black clouds started rolling in and before we knew it it was pouring rain and I mean POURING. So we hopped in the truck and drove to a little covered campsite( I think it was called a lean-to?) and played games. The rain passed so we headed to the lake!

I SUCKED BIG TIME AT HORSESHOES

THE MEN IN LAKE CHAMPLAIN THE WATER WAS FREEEEEZING

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monday we packed up. It rained the entire night we lucked out big time with weather because ever since Monday it has been cold and rainy so I think we were pretty lucky! So we had a great time Vermont is Amazing except for ALL of the spiders! I've never seen so many spiders in one place ever! Everywhere we went even restaurants just spiders spiders spiders and they were huge I wish I would have gotten a picture but there was no way I was getting that close.

THE DEALERSOCKET CREW AND ALL THEIR GEAR

On the drive home we passed through Sharon Vermont where Joseph Smith was born so we thought we'd just go check it out since we probably never would be there again. We went to the visitors center and learned a little.

THE MONUMENT IS 38 AND A HALF FEET TALL FOR EACH YEAR OF JS LIFE

PICTURES JUST DON'T DO IT JUSTICE BUT THIS PLACE WAS GORGEOUS

 Once we were done we headed home, we drove through the teeny town and were able to see some of the damage from Hurricane Irene. It was so sad to see. The missionaries at the visitors center were saying a farmer lost 25 cows! How sad is that.

THE WHITE RIVER I THINK? BROKEN TREES LINED THE RIVER BANK

THIS WAS A LITTLE RESTAURANT YOU CAN'T REALLY SEE BUT THE WHOLE INSIDE WAS WASHED OUT FROM FLOODING