A pleasant surprise!

Last night I headed down to Herald Square to check out a few sample sales. While in the area I though I would stop by what is usually one of my least favorite stores, Macy's. I'll admit, I do go there once in a while to check things out, but I almost always leave empty handed and overwhelmed because of the crowds, and the size of the store. Well last night at 7:30 it was actually pretty empty which gave me time to really explore without being forced out by the chaos. The reason I had headed there in the first place was because of the dress commercials I had seen on t.v. I had been skeptical of what I would find, but my friend Emilee assured me she could have walked out of there with 10 dresses. So, I thought I would give it a chance. I was amazed. They have practically devoted an entire floor of the mammoth department store to some of the cutest summer dresses I have ever seen! Although most of them were sleeveless and strapless, which don't really work for me, they were all adorable and I ended up trying on about 8 of my favorites. I checked online for some pictures of the cute ones, but they weren't there, so I'll guess you will have to go to a store to see for yourself. There was one I particularly fell in love with but they didn't have my size. Too bad, even so, it is definitely worth checking out their selection.

SO, this is a little weird

First of all I have to say that I would consider myself an open minded person, and my personal belief is that everyone needs to make their own choices in life that are best for them, and stand up for those choices. SO, on that note I feel really hypocritical writing this post. However, ever since I saw a t.v. special on this family about a year ago, I have wondered, WHY?

Meet Jim Bob(who really has this name) and Michelle Duggar, and their 17 kids (one is on the way) whose names all begin with the letter J. Seriously, Joshua, Jana, John-David, Jill, Jessa, Jinger, Joseph, Josiah, Joy-Anna, Jedediah, Jeremiah, Jason, James, Justin, Jackson and little Jennifer Danielle along the way. Now I ask you again, WHY? An article in the most recent issue of people magazine said they spend about $2,000 a month on groceries alone. Can you imagine the cost of feeding, housing, clothing, and educating that many children?

Now I must say, I love kids, and like the Duggars, I think children are the greatest blessing there is, but I DO NOT think it is healthy for their social,emotional and personal development to try to raise 17 children at one time, don't even get me started on the mom basically being pregnant for the last 20 years. the kicker is they waited four years to have kids, so they could have had 21 kids by now! They say in interviews that they plan to have more. I can not imagine how exhausted that mom must be, and as a side note, Jim Bob served in the Arkansas House of Representatives from 1999 to 2003 and was a candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2002.

This image totally reminds me of Dan's Parents! I think his dad even has a red swimsuit that he wears sometimes, and I can just imagine little Dan playing a trick on his napping Daddy! Check more of these out at this blog which I was tipped on to by martawrites, another design blog I love to read.

Elder Creer

We were in North Carolina this past weekend for my cousin Katrina's wedding. It was fun to see some of my cousins who live all around the country and check out the great state of North Carolina. I have more pics of our trip to post later, but I had to share these pics (mostly so our family could see) of what was maybe one of the funnest parts of our trip. Dan's younger brother James has been serving his mission in Raleigh North Carolina and since we were in the area, we thought we would drop in and surprise him, it took some thoughtful planning but we managed to pull it off. We showed up at his ward on Sunday for Sacrament meeting, and as you can imagine he was shocked and little surprised to see us there. We lucked out because as it turns out, he was speaking in church that Sunday and we got to hear his great talk. We could not believe how much he has grown up in the last 2 years! He is about 3 inches taller than Dan and so mature! It will be fun to have him back with the family when he comes home in August. It was great to see him in the missionary role out in the field. We wished could have spent some solo time with him, but as all you former missionaries know, you are pretty much attached at the hip to your companion. We went to breakfast the next morning with James and his companion, and their other roommates. We can't wait for him to come home in a couple of months and come visit us in NY!

Home sweet home

Our visit in Utah over memorial day was filled with lots of fun, but the highlight was probably seeing all the nieces and nephews. They are all at ages where they are changing so much and it was fun to see how much they have grown in the last 6 months since we have seen them. Dan and I can never resist taking lots of pictures of them, and they love it too, here are just a few from our visit.
Jonas devouring homemade strawberry icecream! Yummy!

Harrison, Weston, Isaac and Sam goofing around

Me holding darling little Amanda Jane who is a true princess!

Samuel who gets cuter and cuter every time I see him!

Amanda Jane peacefully sleeping. I would kill to have her eyelashes, they are amazing

Dan and I in his dad's notorious Ford Falcon. We love to take this to drive in movies and for shakes at Hires!

Dan and David swimming in the pool! David is one of the happiest babies I have ever seen!

Dan and I with Harrison, Weston and Sam.

Some of the highlights of the visit included:
Jonas saying our names
Cafe Rio
Golfing for Dan at Glenwild and Old Mill
Seeing Friends
Watching the Jazz/spurs playoff games
Going out to eat with my mom and dad
Meeting little Amanda Jane
Hanging out with Missy and Caitlin Barker
Sunday dinner in the back yard at Dan's parents
Cruising in the falcon
Hires
Shopping at the gateway
Driving to Park City with Kathryn
Eating at The Dodo! yummy Tollhouse pie
Playing tag with the boys in the pool (which basically ended with them almost pulling my swimsuit off! oops!)
Getting bumped from our flight and getting $1200 in delta vouchers
Shop n Go
Seeing Laura's demolition which is soon to be her new kitchen!
Driving down the familiar streets and feeling home!

Another one bites the dust...

I have dubbed this year the year of weddings since there seems to be one after another. I haven't loaded my pictures from NC yet so I'll update on that soon, but for now I wanted to share some of the most exciting news in my week, one of my best friends from high school and in life is getting married next month. Congratulations Erika and Kurt! Due to trying to coordinate family schedules, Erika has about 7 weeks to plan her wedding and being the organization queen that she is, I am sure she will get it all done.

What can I say about Erika-she is the best. She is one of the most caring and thoughtful people I know and she has this amazing smile that just makes everyone around her light up. I have so many great memories with her from high school and college and especially Senior year when we were in student government together. She is the greatest!She and Kurt are finally tying the knot after about 2 years of dating and I couldn't be happier for them since we've all known they were made for each other for quite some time!

It will be great to sneak in another visit home to hang out with the posse and have some serious friend time before Erika joins the club of married women and Molly becomes a mom! Yikes, we are all growing up!

Oh the places you'll go!

So I know that title is a little cheesy, but I have been feeling a travel bug lately for far off places and it seemed to fit. Dan's parent's hopped on a plane to Peru this morning and they are off on a South American adventure for the next couple weeks. Their prime destination is Machu Picchu (which I would love to go to someday!) but they will also be going to Bolivia (where Dave served his mission) and we are all so jealous. Can't wait to see all their pics and hear their stories.



On that note, I had to post about the coolest thing I saw on the discovery channel (one of my new favorites) the other day. The show I was watching was about this lake somewhere in Micronesia called lake Palau, where hundreds of thousands of jellyfish live. At one time there was some sort of underground tunnel connecting this lake and the ocean that the sea creatures could swim through. When it collapsed, all the creatures that had migrated from the ocean were trapped there, and thus began the evolution of the Jellyfish. Because they had no predators in this lake, over time they lost their ability to sting, so today you can scuba and snorkel in this lake with thousands of jellyfish. Doesn't that sound amazing? I bet it would be so weird to get up close to them, almost even gross. If I am brave enough maybe someday I will have to try it!
click here for more information.
A couple of weeks ago, when we were flying back from Utah, Dan and I ended up getting bumped from our flight and getting a significant amount of flight vouchers from Delta. We are now in the process of deciding where to go with them. We have been wanting to go to Thailand for a while, so that is a definite possibility but I would love to hear from any of you about cool places you have been on vacation that you would recommend.

I am a total sucker for wedding photography and since Jill told me about Jonathan Canlas I haven't been able to get enough. I love the editorial feel of his photos and how his shots capture a lot of personality. I would definitely recommend checking out his website. Some of his work has been featured in The Knot, one of my favorite wedding magazines and I know some of the people whose weddings he has photographed which makes browsing through the images even more fun! If Dan and I were to get married all over again. I would definitely use him as our photographer. The best part is, he even has his own blog!!!

I absolutely love the look of sunlight reflecting off of these mirrors. This would be a cool idea for a hallway or just a big empty wall that needed something to fill it up. They are selling mirrors identical to this at Crate and Barrel right now.

A baby on the way.....

But NOT mine! Our good friends Molly and Adam are having a baby and they found out what kind yesterday! They are going to be the cutest parents! I am trying to get Molly to start a blog so when Baby Jones comes I won't have to miss out on all the fun! I don't want to spoil the surprise of what they're having for my friends who read the blog but haven't heard yet, but I am very excited! Molly is the first one of my close highschool friends to have a baby so she is paving the way for all of us!

I had to share this image. I love the little baby toes. I stole this from a great photo blog that is just getting up and running. For more details check out http://www.wallinphotography.blogspot.com/

more from spencer and sarahs wedding

Here are couple more pics from our trip to Maryland/D.C.
Dan and I were obsessed with thes pretty fields on the way to the wedding dinner!

Our no name fish

Saturday night when I came home from running errands the first thing Dan said when I walked in the door is, "I have a surprise for you, we have to go up to 86th street tonight to get it." I was a little confused wondering what the surprise could be, but we made plans to go to dinner and then go get the "surprise". After a fun dinner at a sidewalk cafe ( I love sitting outside because there is the best people watching) we headed up to 86th. Dan was a little shocked I hadn't guessed where we were going yet, since surprising me is pretty much impossible, but really, I was clueless. We kept walking and he kept asking me if I knew where we were going, but I was so confused. Finally, we stopped at the corner, and Dan said, "We're going to get a pet!" I looked up and sure enough the letters P-E-T-C-O were staring right back at me. I was still confused, but let me explain. I love dogs, absolutley love them, and I have had a dog most of my life, or at least as long as I can remember, until this past year when both of the dogs I had grown up with died within a couple of months of each other. Now, I think it is cruel and inhimane to own a dog in New York and keep them locked up in a tiny apartment while you are gone at work all day, but I would love to have a dog to take on walks in the park. Anyway, we obviously weren't there to get a dog, but Dan did think it would be a good idea if we got a pet fish. So after about ten minutes of browsing, we decided on a good old beta. He is purple and blue and so pretty! The problem is, we are having a really hard time thinking of a name for him, do any of you out there in the blogging world have any good ideas?

Happy Birthday Jill!

So, this birthday post for Jill is actually two days late, but since I was too lazy to post on the weekend, I thought I would do it today. Jill is the best, not only is she a designer extraordinaire(she is currently getting here masters in interior design at NYSID)but she can whip up awesome smoothies in seconds, find great deals all around the city, and make everyone around her feel included. We have loved getting to know Jill and Brad since we have moved to NY and Jill and I are especially excited since we both just got called to be counselors in the Primary presidency in our ward! Little rascals here we come! It will be a fun new adventure and I have no doubt Jill will have lots of creative ideas and tricks up her sleeve to charm the little ones! Happy Birthday Sweetie!

SO Cute!

More pictures from our visit to Utah are on the way, but I had to share this picture of my toocuteforwords nephew Jonas. He has always been adorable but Dan and I were shocked to come home and find this guy walking and talking up a storm! The last time we saw him we was barely walking and babbling and now he is running all over and he even knows our names, DA and Caikin(his pronunciation). While we were visiting we saw a picture of Dan around the same age and he and Jonas look exactly alike! I miss little Jojo already!

The Sisterhood Returns & Happy Birthday Camilla!

It made my day this morning when I read this on one of my favorite blogs, A Little Sussy

"So I chose to come to Oia, Santorini because I saw the amazing location in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (which is a cute teen movie if you haven't seen it.) It's ironic that the exact week we are here, they are shooting the sequel. SO, America Ferrera and Alexis Bledel are running around the island. Yesterday, America and the blond character, Brigette, crashed their mopeds while filming and the shoot had to wrap at noon. We're running into all sorts of people here and I have so many stories to blog about later!"

Maybe confessing that I LOVE the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants reveals my true dorkiness, but I thought all the books and the first movie were amazing! And, if you haven't read the second book, I think it is even better than the first (mostly because Kostos and Lena get a second chance) so I highly recommend it!

I have been wondering for quite a while if they were going to make the second movie so I am ecstatic about this! Yay, another chick flick!

Part of why I love these books and the movie is becuase I love my friends so much and I had such an amazing group of highschool friends and we are all still close!
It just so happens that today is one of their birthdays!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAMILLA!

Camilla is without a doubt one of the funniest people I know! She can make me laugh like no one else, and some of the things that come out of her mouth you really wonder where she came up with! I remember when we first became friends in Mr. Meinerich 8th grade french class. We are pretty sure he would look at pornography on the Internet while we watched Mary Poppins and Babar in French, but he was a nice old man.
But back to Camilla! I love her! Camilla you are the sweetest, funnest friend and I am so glad we have been friends for so long! I hope you have a wonderful happy Birthday!