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. 

Things to come

Well, here he is.  This picture was scanned in and isn't the greatest quality, but hey, isn't he cute?  I didn't realize this before but there are lots of things to look forward to with boys.  Sports and potty humor for example. There are also things I am not looking forward to, like scouts and being urinated on.  All in all, it should be a good experience.  Despite the lack of selection, there are some pretty cute boy clothes out there. Most of them have a Nike swoosh on them.  Which is totally fine with me.

Needless to say, Riley and I are just so excited to have this kid.  I hear Riley was a really good boy growing up.  I think the absolute worst thing he did was throw headless barbies at the ceiling fan.  I hope he's like Riley.

In other news, we are leaving on our trip to New York/Baltimore/DC on Wednesday.  This is a trip we can NOT wait to take.  We are so excited to see Justin, Erin, Bennett and baby Elsie!  We, however, are NOT excited to see how my car sickness/nausea does on the airplane.

Today is Katelyn's birthday, and even though she will not be reading this, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!  She is such a cool missionary.

School starts all too soon.  You may remember my hesitant-ness to start school last fall.  I can assure you that this year is not any better.  Even though it will be my last semester of school. ever. AND a diploma and new baby will be the reward.  I just hate when summer ends. It is so so sad.  Nearly breaks my heart.. My list of summer activities has not been completed.

The Olympics are awesome.  We are completely hooked.

Boy or Girl?

We scheduled our ultrasound for July 25th!  We are very excited to find out what this baby is.  We just hope he/she is cooperative so we can find out.  Also, you may disregard my previous post.  I've been feeling a lot better lately (it's a birthday miracle)!
If you care to guess if it's a boy or girl please leave a comment!  Whoever gets it right (which, if I do the math correctly should be about 50% of you...) gets a prize.  The prize will most likely be favorite aunt/uncle/grandparent/friend.  I'd say that is pretty legit since this is one baby you'll want on your side. I have a feeling it's going to be pretty cool.

9 weeks of the flu

I've decided we will probably only have one child.  Most people tell me that I will forget how miserable things were and want another baby.  I have out-smarted them all and will write some descriptive things down to remind myself of what it was like.  Whatever I chose after reading it years from now will tell a lot about myself.  I may be very, very stupid.

Here are some highlights of pregnancy so far:

-The first day of being sick was on our one year anniversary.  We had eaten a really yummy breakfast of french toast and sausage.  I haven't eaten sausage since- mostly because I thought it was food poisoning.  And if eating sausage makes me nauseous for 9 weeks, I will most likely never eat it again. 
-I had no idea that a person could be so tired after 10 hours of sleep and laying in bed the whole day before.
-Phases of food: pop tarts, cereal, pretzals, 7-up, cheese
-Food I will not eat for a long time because I saw it after it was digested: golden puffs, ham sandwiches, frosted flakes
-Food that always sounds good: Cheese, pizza benders, Panda Express, most everything not mentioned above
-It is amazing that nothing. NOTHING. will make the nausea go away.  It may settle for an hour, maybe two but it does NOT go away.
-Taking a sleeping pill every single night actually did help take the edge off the nausea.  I'm convinced though, that it was the cause of a headache I had for more than a week.
-I had a horrible cold/sinus infection.
-Telling Brad one day that I threw up while at work.  I said being sick at work had to be the worst.  His response was that being buried alive at work would probably be worse.  That only made me fill a tiny bit better, but it did make me smile.
-Running out of a meeting and barely making it to the bathroom on time.
-Stopping at Del Taco after a really fun play Riley and I went to because I hadn't eaten in a few hours. Ate the taco just in time.
- Not really eating meals, just eating whenever I feel my stomach might be getting empty.
-Eating a bowl of cereal in bed, then sleeping again for another 20-30 minutes before getting up and ready.
-Going to bed at 9:30 every night
-Crying for silly reasons.

Maybe that is enough of the negative.  To give myself a fair chance in a few years, I won't hide all the positives:
-Watching Little House on the Prairie- really, it is awesome.
-Reading a lot of books
-Having a flexible work schedule
-Having Riley around who does a great job cleaning, cooking and making sure I eat.  If I ever say, "Oh dear, I need to eat"  he says, "what do you need?" He'll even stand up and walk towards the kitchen.  Unless he is in the kitchen (50% of the time) he'll walk one step towards the fridge.
-Getting really uplifting texts and emails from parents, siblings and in-laws.
-Thinking about the fact that I'm not sick for any old reason- that a (hopefully healthy, beautiful) baby will be the end result!
-Buying realllllyyy  cute clothes. And getting things ready for a baby.
-Choosing a name.  Although every time we discuss it, Riley ends up naming objects that could maybe, in a million years, pass as a name.  The worst so far has been "counter"....
-Hearing a really cute, really fast heartbeat every month that the doctor says is the baby- I'm not convinced it's not my stomach churning...

my conclusions upon writing this:  the positives outweigh the negatives.  And even though I thought I was getting a lot better and was very disappointed today, I know that it will get better!  Eventually. I mean, I can't be nauseous forever, right?  Nauseous or not, there is some beautiful 90 degree weather and a water park calling my name.

Funny pictures

So these are from when the family was here. Jane took all of these :) they all happen to be of graham but they are pretty funny!

 

 

This one is my favorite: