First day of school

Today is my last first day of school. Ever.  I can't decide if I'm excited or sad about it.  Last night I realized that I have never not been a student....since I was 5.  It has been a large part of my identity.  After this semester I will be done with that and then moving on with an entirely different chapter of my life.  One that I am very excited about.  Still, there is a small part of me that has no idea what life will be like without school or work.  I am hoping it is as enjoyable and fulfilling as I always thought it would be.

Riley did the honors of taking my last first day of school picture.

Lovely, right? I didn't even wear new clothes. Or put on make-up.  I think that says a lot about how I feel about this semester.  Riley and I noted the hoards of people making their way to campus in their newly purchased clothes to impress their classmates.  It kind of made me sad that I didn't even decide what I was going to wear until this morning!  Riley (serafine) and I used to make clothes people and pack our backpacks the night before.  I used to love the first day of school!  Don't worry, I did make a lunch for this handsome man last night!  He has a full day of classes from 9-4:30 and then has a meeting for work.  This morning he told me he had the same feeling he gets when he has a test that day.  It's going to be a challenging semester, but I am fairly confident that he will do great!  

In other news, Riley has officially stopped working at the MTC.  I think he will miss it more than he will admit.  But now he has plenty of time to research and TA! (for the sweetest professor at BYU- seriously, he called me this morning to tell me how great Riley is and wish me luck with my studies this semester)

Wednesday will mark the 24th week of this pregnancy!  I've been feeling a lot better lately.  Every night I dread taking my prenatal vitamin because they make me feel so sick. And they smell like dog food.  On wednesday I have a doctor appointment and will be addressing the vitamin issue.  I would love some that are a little easier on my sensitive stomach.  I've still been pretty tired...and I am sure our three day backpacking trip didn't help that! 

Riley packed his backpack for the trip on Wednesday.  We weren't supposed to leave until Friday... I could tell he was SO excited.  We woke up on Thursday and Riley made me breakfast in bed (for copsicus!) and then asked, "Are you excited to go backpacking today?"  I gently reminded him that we weren't leaving until the next day... Then I suggested we cancel work and go a day early.  You would think he had just won the lottery!  He jumped up and started getting everything ready.  So off we went.  

We headed to the unitah's.   I never realized how pretty it is up there.  Very different from the wasatch mountains that I am very used to, but very pretty.  The hike wasn't long or hard (thank goodness) and we found Merrill/LouJean/Andrea without any problem.  

The only thing I don't like about backpacking is that you have to sit on rocks.  My poor bottom hurt so bad after two days of that.  Oh and sleeping really isn't that much fun.  Other than that the trip was very pleasant! 

Here are some pictures to prove it.

 My backpack was very light. Riley's was not.  He was nice and carried my sleeping bag and mat, and most of the food. All I had was clothes and my pillow. That's what you get when you go backpacking at almost 6 months pregnant! 

 See those rocks? Those were our chairs. Ouch. 

 Ok, is that not the cutest picture?

The Big Trip... Wilson style Part II

Day 3:  We finally got to see Erin, Bennett and Elsie on the first morning there!  It was so good to see them, and meet the new baby.  We took the morning easy (thank goodness) and then headed into downtown Baltimore to see inner harbor.  

 The 9/11 memorial in baltimore

 This elephant head had two trunks.  It was at Ripley's believe it or not.  I chose not to believe it.  

That evening we relaxed, watched the olympics, and chatted with J&E.

Day 4: Washington D.C.  We got off the Metro and suddenly we were there.  

 The Capitol

 Washington monument

 World War II memorial

 Lincoln. My personal favorite.

Justin and Bennett were kind enough to show us around for the day! They were troopers in the heat.  At one point Bennett (who was probably so tired) just started singing as we walked down the street, just belting it out. 

 we thought the police on horses was pretty sweet.

Korean war memorial

 Cute, Bennett. 

 MLK memorial.  We couldn't figure out why it is carved out of white stone...

 Jefferson.  We didn't make it to that one.  

 The White House

 The first garden.  

 The National Archives.  This was really cool! We got to see all that old stuff that they talk a lot about in school.  Much better to actually see them.  I guess they wouldn't mean as much if we didn't know anything about them.

At the Air & Space museum.  Kalen offered to take us here and then back to J&E's.  We couldn't pass up the opportunity to stand on our feet for another hour or so.  This is Riley and Kalen in front of one of Amelia Earhart airplanes.

 This is one of the only things I remember about DC from when I was 6.  I'm not sure why it stuck with me.  I think we have a family picture in front of it.  

 Did you know that there isn't a single picture of Neil Armstrong on the moon?  He was the one with the camera so the only proof that he was actually there is the reflection of him in his picture.  He is one of the white thing on this guys face.  Crazy, right? 

 We made a quick stop at the DC temple!  It was gorgeous. The view from the freeway is just incredible.  The church did a fine job on location.  Kalen drove us by the University of Maryland (very pretty, by the way) and then a stop for dinner at Potbelly's.  It was SO good.  If we end up in Maryland next year, I will eat there often.  We went back to J&E's for the night and enjoyed some more.... olympics! 

Day 5:

 Just before church on sunday.  Sunday was so pleasant! Church was neat, Justin taught a great lesson,  I got to hold Elsie,  we played Dominion, had a delicious dinner and hung out.  It was really a great day!

Day 6:  Science Center

 Erin, Bennett and Elsie took us to the science center in downtown baltimore.  It was a lot of fun! We could have spent hours.  There was a lot to do.  It was fun to see Bennett run from place to place doing all of the activities.  This is Riley on a bed of needles.  It looked painless but really it was quite uncomfortable. 

 We went outside after and there was a Seinfeld truck there. They were handing out soup, black&white cookies, candy bard, t-shirts, key chains, water bottles, etc.  It was so random, but made our day! 

That night we went to a really delicious BBQ place.  Andy Nelson's, I believe.  I could go for one of those sandwiches right about now! We also stopped at Wegmans.  Best grocery store. ever. 

 We had to grab a few pictures of all of us before we left! We are so grateful J&E let us crash their dining room for a few days.  They were so nice to show us around and let us play with their children.  We really had such a great time, thanks guys! 

Day 6:  Started at midnight.  Justin drove us to the bus station (thanks again!!) We took a bus back up to NY.  We didn't get to sit by each other for the first half of the ride.  I sat next to a fella who was half on my seat.  He was watching anime on his laptop.  It was very awkward and I didn't sleep a wink! The bus arrived at 5:30 am... then we got on a subway to get the the next bus to get to the airport.  I know. It was about as exhausting as it sounds.  We caught our plane and had to relive two hours (thanks to the time change).  I didn't sleep much on the plane because I was busy talking to a 91 year old man who was on his way to visit his son in Denver who was dying.  He was incredibly kind and we had a nice, but long, chat.  THEN we had a 7 hour layover in Denver.  We had a really fun time!  I finally got to take a nap, and then we talked and wandered around.  Finally we got on our plane home.  They barely had time to serve drinks before we landed.  Kelli picked us up at the airport and suddenly we were home!  It was really nice to be home.

Special shout-out to Riley who never complained about me buying lemonade, or having to sit down every so often.  He is easily the best person to travel with! We had a lot of  fun :) 

The Big Trip....Wilson style

This week we returned home from our long awaited trip back east!  In all honesty it was like a mini-big trip.  It wasn't three weeks long and we didn't see any church sites, but it reminded me of the long days of humidity and traveling.  We also saw some of the same non-church related sites.  So... here is the trip, mostly in picture format.

Day 1:  Wake up early to catch our 8 am flight out of Provo.  The plane was small but the flight was short. We switched planes in Denver and landed in New York at around 5 pm.  We had to take a bus (through Queen's) to get to a subway station, then we headed straight into Times Square.  

 Just in case you forget what year it is, go to times square and look up.

 We made it onto the giant screen thing.  But we are in the corner and I can't rotate this picture.

Next stop... Toys R Us

 This is where we found a dollar bill on the ground.  We thought we saw the lady who dropped it so we followed her and asked her.  She denied it.  Two seconds later we found another dollar bill.  Surprise blessing for choosing the right? I think so.

On to Rockefeller plaza

Mom, it is hard to tell from this picture, but that is the building with that restaurant that has a view of the today show.

We ended the day with Grand Central Station.  It was pretty awesome.  It also had a nice view of the Empire State building.

We headed to our hotel, which was surprisingly clean!  We got there at like 9 pm new york time, but we were exhausted!


Day 2:

We woke up, had a lovely continental breakfast (with the best bagels ever...) and headed into the city.  First stop (of a gazillion) was the World Trade Center memorial.

 This is the new gigantic tower that is still being built

 The memorial was really nice.  We both enjoyed it a lot.

 This is the survivor tree. It is the only tree still standing on that block

 This is a graveyard/cathedral across the street.  It was extremely old.  This guy was buried in 1778, I think.  The sayings on the headstones were super weird.  They spelled lies/lyes different on each one! Weird.

 Riley loves a good door.

 We walked (the long way) to Wall Street.  We finally made it, and I'll admit it was pretty cool!  How they build such huge buildings right next to each other is beyond me!  At this point it was like noon and I was getting pretty tired.  This is when I discovered that ice cold Lemonade would soon become my best friend.

 Short stop at Tiffany's! The inside is... a.maz.ing.

I think Riley's favorite stop of the day was the New York Stock Exchange.  As he said, "Allison, this is THE stock exchange".  Profound, I know.

Ok.  For most of the afternoon we hung out in Little Italy and Chinatown.   We ate some delicious Italian food (reconnected with my roots, ya know), dropped our camera in Alfredo, relaxed in the cool restaurant and geared up for the rest of the day. 

 This is us on the subway.  We were extremely hot and tired. I thought my shoulders might fall off. Sounds impossible, but I was truly concerned!

 We spent a little time in Central Park.  Lots of it was under construction but relaxing all the same.  

 In front of the Empire State building.

I'm really not sure what we were trying to get a picture of, but it was important enough to have someone else take it for us... 

We grabbed a quick dinner and some gelato (oooohhhh sooooooo goooooodddd!!) and went to our bus stop.  We took a Megabus to Baltimore.  It only took about three hours, and other than the guy behind us who was talking swearing the entire ride, it was pleasant.