Idaho to New York or Bust!

For the past year or so Scott and I have wanted to go vacationing to New York. Neither of us had been there before and we've always wanted to visit. We had originally wanted to road trip it and to hit all the church sights on the way there and then swing into Canada for our trip back. We figured to take a trip like this though we'd have to take at least 2 weeks off from work and spend lots and lots of mula. So we settled for just flying if the chance ever came up. Well that chance came up in October when we found tickets for $200 dollars round trip! Who passes up a trip to New York for 400 dollars? So we got the tickets of course and scheduled our trip for the end of January so that we could have a few months to save up.

We both have friends in New York and Washington D.C. so we decided while we were there we might as well hit both places. Now I can't possibly go into great detail without this being the longest post in history. So I'm just going to hit the highlights (and it will still prob be the longest post in history):

Day 1
Our plane left at 9:30 am with a layover in Denver then onto New York. Let me tell you, that first flight was the worst flight of my whole life. I didn't take anything and man was I sick! I don't know how I made it without throwing up all over the place. I was real close. Let's just say the Lord answers prayers. Once we landed we went straight for some dramamine! The second flight was much much more bearable.

 We arrived in New York at 5:30 and our good friend Carlos was there to great us! Carlos and his wife Heather were very generous to let us stay in their awesome one bedroom apartment while in New york! Thank you again! It was so fun to stay with you!

Day 2
Carlos and Heather both had to work so Scott and I head out into the big city on our own with nothing but money and a map! It was fun to get to experience New York for the first day with just the two of us. I was glad we got a chance to explore the city on our own just for a day!

The awesome bike set up in Carlos and Heather's apartment!

Our first New York experience, a walk around Riverbank Park!

Our first look at New York in the light!

We started our Subway experience perfectly by getting onto the Subway on the wrong side. There went our first 5 dollars! I was really excited to ride on a Subway because I'd never done it before!

 After fixing our mistake our first stop was the Seinfeld Diner for lunch!

 New York Temple. We really wanted to do a session but we just didn't have enough time. The temple was really unique and cool though.

 We spent the rest of the day at the Museum of Natural History. 

 That night we hit up Town Square and went to the Broadway Phantom of the Opera. I've always wanted to see it and I'm so glad we did! It was really good!

I thought time square was a lot like Vegas... Just a lot cleaner!

 Phantom of the Opera!

 After the Broadway we went to the Hard Rock for dessert.

 Day 3
Carlos and Heather didn't work so they would both get to show us the ropes of New York! We took the water taxi to take us to the sound end of the island (Which was still powerless from Sandi). This isn't the water taxi by the way... It's the Intrepid. We wanted to take a tour on it but ran out of time.

Walking to Ground Zero

 Ground Zero Memorial

The new World Trade center buildings are amazing!

 Last surviving tree from ground zero

Stroll down Wall Street.

 A lot of abandoned streets from Sandi.

 Brooklyn Bridge

 New York

 Statue of Liberty

 The Island is still closed from Sandi so this is as good at it got.

That night Carlos and Heather took us to Little Italy in the Bronx and we ate at the most amazing Italian restaurant ever! This was both of our favorite restaurants we ate at our whole trip! And we ate at a lot of different restaurants.

Day 4
We would be taking the bus down to D.C. later in the day so we started out by dropping off our luggage at a luggage storage place by the bus stop. It seemed a little sketch and we really hoped it would still be there when we came back for it. Nothing says breakfast in New York like eating at a authentic Mexican restaurant for taco's! It was really tasty... But I don't think my morning sickness was allowing me to enjoy it to the fullest.

We went to Central Park and got our first New York Geocach!!

 Random photo shoot. I felt bad for her because it was really cold!

Empire State Building!

 The view was so cool! But it was so extremely windy up there!

 Heather and Carlos our gracious New York hosts!

 Our last restaurant in New York was a French restaurant. Scott's main goal of going to New York was to find a French restaurant. Well it was the most we have EVER paid for any food anywhere. And neither of us thought it was that great. The thing I hate about nice restaurants is it seems the more you pay the less food they give you. We had a 3 course meal and when I left I felt like I still could have eaten more. The Italian restaurant was half the price, twice the food and tasted 50 times better! We know were we will spend our money on food in the future.

 I do have to say the dressed up the plates really nice though!

We were running a little late after that so we had to run to the luggage storage place and then to the bus so we didn't miss it! I was glad our luggage was still there and the bus ended up being a half hour late so all the running wasn't necessary. It was crazy but we went through like 7 states on the 4 hour bus ride to D.C. All the states are so close over there!

Day 5
I think today is the day I lost all my energy. Every day for the past 4 days had been go go go go. And it hit me. In D.C. we stayed with my good friend and old roommate Mich! It was so fun to see her and spend time with her! We also met up with our friend Tara and Scott's cousin Shalayne! It was a party in D.C. for sure! We started off by going to the Space and Air Museum:

Moon Rock!

Tour of State Capital Building:

 Me and Mich!

 Touching the center of D.C.

Archive Building to see the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution:

Washington Memorial

 Scott, me, Mich and Tara

 World War 2 Memorial

 Lincoln Memorial

 Tara, Scott, me and Mich!

Vietnam Memorial

 White House

Day 6
The last sight seeing day of our trip we got up early so that we could fit everything in!

Arlington Cemetery got there just in time to see the changing of the guard:

 JFK family burial site and Arlington House in the background

Just subway waiting..... Mich is the most awesomest photographer ever...

 One of her great works!

 Another Great work. :)

Museum of American History:

Just a cute 23 week baby belly pic of me :)

 The Holocaust Museum was our last stop. I was glad we got to spend a couple days in D.C. Our checkbook was glad too! New York is soooo expensive! We spent almost all of our vacation money the first 3 days we were there! Everything in D.C. was free so we hardly spent anything! It was a nice change. We caught the bus back late that night and I think I slept 3 1/2 hours of the 4 hour ride. (I blame it on the dramamine) After arriving back in New York we bought ourselves a hot dog off the street because everyone told us we had to do it. Well that was the most nasty tasting hot dog I have ever eaten in my life! I'm surprised I didn't catch a disease from eating it!

One last night shot of Empire State Building

Day 7
The final day of our trip! I'm going to speak in Idaho time zone. We woke up at 1:30 so Carlos could take us to the airport. We wanted to get there early so that we could check in... But I guess that early in the morning there isn't a lot of people because by 2:30 we were in our terminal waiting for the plane that was scheduled to leave at 4:15. Because of weather in Chicago our plane ended up being delayed an hour. So our 1 hour layover in Chicago ended up being hurry run to our next flight because everyone is already loaded and your going to miss your plane! Because of all the delays though we ended up actually taking off about an hour late as well. Because of the dramamine I slept for a good 2 1/2 hours of the first 3 hour flight and prob 3 hours of the second 4 hour flight. The people I sat next to probably thought I was some crazy prego women that couldn't keep her eyes open except to shove snacks in her mouth and then dose off again! But between the motion sickness of the flight and the morning sickness of not having a meal to eat for 10 hours (because we had planned on getting something to eat in Chicago but ended up not being able to because of the delays), I was feeling pretty crappy. So I was glad I couldn't keep my eyes open! When we landed it was around noon and I was beyond starving! and feeling pretty sick. We stopped in Ogden on our way home to have lunch with Melanie. She is so cute with her cute little baby bump! I wish we would have thought to take prego pictures standing next to each other but I didn't even think of it... On our drive back to Idaho, again I proceeded to sleep for most of the ride. I felt bad for Scott but I really just couldn't even keep my eyes open if I tried!

All in all the whole trip was a blast! We both loved it! New York is so different then anything I have ever experienced. And so much walking! Scott and I had sore feet the whole week from walking so much. It got pretty painful by the end of the week. But we still had so much fun. It was also so fun to see so many of our friends! Thank you all for hanging out with us and letting us crash with you while we visited the east! It was so fun to see everyone. Now I really did have a blast, but I don't think I will ever take a trip like this again while pregnant. It just would have been even more enjoyable if I didn't have to deal with morning sickness the whole trip and not have to find a restroom every hour! Anything I rode on made me sick, and we rode on a lot of different things. Planes, subways, buses, boats, elevators. And I felt like a had to pee ALL the time. Like I said before though. It was still so much fun! And I loved going! Now we feel like we need a vacation from our vacation!

Moving Time!

With a new babe on the way, Scott and I decided our 450 SQFT 1 bedroom, 1 bath, 1 car garage apartment just wasn't going to cut it anymore! Time to upgrade! So what did we decide to upgrade to?..... A 1200 SQFT 2 bedroom, 1.5 bath, 2 car garage townhouse!!!! This is going to be a long post. So if you don't want to hear all the drama you can skip to the end to see the pictures of our new place. I know those are the best part anyways....

We had quite the experience with finding a new place. We had been searching for a couple months and had found the townhouses and liked them. Finally 2 became available the beginning of January. They were owned and managed by 2 different people. From this point forward in the story I will refer to the managers by good manager, and bad manager. We looked at good managers townhouse first. We liked him and the townhouse from the start. The only problem was he was renting his townhouse for 75 dollars more then the bad manager. And that was about 75 dollars more then we could afford to spend. Even though we were able to talk him down 25 dollars, we still just couldn't do it. So we looked at the bad manager's townhouse and liked the townhouse but felt a little bit more hesitant about the manager. We told him we would like to move in 2 weeks because we had a vacation planned for the end of January and wanted to be all moved in before then. He told us that wouldn't be a problem at all. He had a list of things he wanted to get done in the townhouse (maintenance/upgrade things) but should have everything done in a week! Sounded great to us! So we gave him the deposit to hold the townhouse for us and the plan was set to move the 19th of January.

The day before moving day we called bad manager to make sure everything was still in order for us to move. He told us he still had a couple things he needed to finish up but we could move Sunday for sure. This was slightly inconvenient for us but gave us all Saturday to finish packing everything. By Saturday night we were all completely packed up except for a bag full of clothes to get us by the next couple of days. Around 10 pm we get a call from bad manager saying he had some stuff come up and wasn't able to work on the apartment but we could move in Monday for sure for sure. I was a little frustrated at this point. EVERYTHING was packed and ready to be moved, and moving on a work day was VERY inconvenient for us. Sunday morning Scott drives over to the apartment to see whats going on. When he gets there he find that almost NOTHING has been done since we gave him the deposit TWO weeks ago! The apartment is still dirty from the last tenants and all of their garbage is still there. He hasn't cleaned anything. Bad manager tells Scott we can move Tuesday for sure, but Scott knows that there is no way he going to get everything done he said he would in two days. By now Scott and I have had enough red flags to know we DO NOT want to rent from this guy. We were glad we hadn't signed the lease and were not obligated to move there. But all of our stuff was packed and we had nowhere to go. The apartment we were in had already rented for February and we had to be out by the 31st of January.

We get online and notice good manager still has his townhouse for sale. So we call him up, knocked off some more money and were all set to move Monday. We had already given him an application and he had already accepted us at the beginning of the month so we didn't have to worry about any of that. I don't know how it all worked out in the end but it did.... Monday after work we had the elders quarm from our ward helping us move all our stuff and by Monday night we were in our new townhouse. It is so much bigger then anything we have lived in since we have been married that we don't quite know what to do with all the space or with ourselves!

To finish the story.... Monday Scott went over and told bad manager we'd decided not to move in and would like our deposit back. He took it a lot better then we thought he would, tried to talk us into it a little, then told us he didn't have the money to give back our deposit but would be able to get it by Thursday. To make an already long story shorter... From this point, two week later, we have received a little more then half of the deposit (which we finally got on Saturday) and am still waiting for the rest of it. We aren't to worried about getting it... eventually... We just don't know how much longer we'll have to wait for it. Scott keeps on his tail about it everyday. Most of the time he ignores our calls, emails and texts. But if we keep hounding him them we'll get it... eventually.... He should have never deposited it in the first place before we had even signed a lease. This was a great lesson for both of us though! The spirit talks to us for a reason. Neither of us felt good about the manager in the first place and we were just to eager to get a new apartment to listen. We hope to do much much better in the future so that we don't have to deal with drama like this again. But I'm still amazing that everything worked out so nicely in the end. Maybe it was supposed to work out like this so that we could get the townhouse that we really wanted at a price we could afford. Who knows... Either way I'm so happy we ended up where we were and not where we could have been.

I'm glad we decided to move when we did because I'm not even that big and I feel like when I was trying to clean and pack and move my belly was getting in the way all over the place. So I can only imagine how much worse it would have been a couple months down the road! Ok... Now for what you've all been waiting for! PICTURES!!!

 The door of our Second home together! It was a nice place to live and we enjoyed the manager, neighbors and cute little apartment that it was! Good bye!

 Getting everything packed! This is the only moving picture I have... Cuz I'm good like that.

No judging clutter and boxes! We are still in final stages of unpacking!

 Living Room from front door

Living Room

 Dining Room

 Kitchen

 Half bath and Coat closet under stairs

 Up to the Second Level!

 Full bath and my personal favorite, Washer and Dryer! YAAAAY!!!

 Master Bedroom from door

 Master bedroom

 Guest room/Baby Bergy's room!

 Fenced in back patio with 2 port garage! Perfect for Cricket! My second favorite thing... Not having to take Cricket out and just letting her go out the back door by herself! So nice!

It's a........

BOY!!!!!!!!!

We went in for our 20 week ultrasound all sorts of excited! We brought a DVD with us so that the ultrasound technician could record the whole thing, and wow.... What an amazing experience! Our little guy was being all sorts of active! Kicking his legs, moving his arms all around, moving his fingers. It was hard for the technician to get what she needed because he wouldn't stop wiggling! It's just so incredible to think that I have a living, growing human inside my body. And an active one at that! Scott was especially excited that he is a boy! I was watching his face during the ultrasound and he was so cute. :) Had a smile on his face the whole time! It definitely makes it more realistic to see the actual baby on screen. And how amazing is technology these days?! You can see everything is such great detail!

January 12, 2013, 20 Weeks

Status on Baby Bergy:

• He's BIG! Weighing in at 1 lb 1 oz!
• Most of his measurements are in the 90th percentile
• He is healthy as can be and everything seems to be functioning perfectly

Status on Mother to be:

• She's BIG! Ok... Not that big, but definitely showing that cute baby bump off!
• Still suffering from slight morning sickness.... Some days worse then others. But MUCH better then the first trimester.
• Other then that feeling pretty good!

     21 Weeks

 Because Baby Bergy is measuring 2 weeks ahead we have another ultrasound scheduled for our next appointment. I'm not to worried... But they just want to make sure he isn't growing at an exceptionally fast rate. Most likely he just had a recent big growth spurt. I'm just excited because I get to see my little guy on the screen again! :)

Baby Bump Progression

On a side note... We recently celebrated Scott's 31st birthday! I am really trying to remember to take more pictures of big events like this... But again I have failed. We didn't do anything huge. I made a cake and invited friends and family over for cake and ice cream. I surprised him with setting up the tent and or sleeping gear in the garage so that we could go winter camping. He loved it. :) And yes... We did spend the WHOLE night out! We popped some popcorn and brought out his lap top and watched movies. It was very romantic. This is the first birthday I think Scott hasn't been excited to celebrate.... He is starting to think the numbers are looking a little big.... And he feels the numbers that best fit the age he FEELS are in the twenties still... So he is set on saying the he is still in his very late 20's. :) Whatever makes him happy. I just have to give him a hard time. ;) Either way I still love him! Happy Birthday Scott!

2013!

 Scott and I spent New Year’s Eve also in Driggs! My Aunt Hylin and her family are up visiting from Florida so we don’t get to see them very often. I haven’t seen most of the family in over 5 years! So we thought it was the perfect excuse to spend some time with them. Scott and I went up to Targhee to celebrate the last day of 2012! It was so very cold! I don’t think it got above 6-8 degrees while we were there! It was my first boarding of the year and I could definitely feel it! I had fun boarding but with being with child and all I was VERY cautions and therefore didn’t really push myself hard, go fast or try any new tricks. I think I’ll prob go one more time before I get to big but I don’t really want to spend the money on it seeing as I can’t really go and do the things I really enjoy doing for fear of crashing. It was still nice to go though and Scott had a blast! He loves skiing, and would go everyday if we had the money and time for it. He has started teaching ski lessons at Kelley Canyon and he loves it! It doesn’t pay well but he isn’t doing it for the money. He does it just because he enjoys doing it. That night we partied with the family playing games and eating our hearts out! As soon as the New Year rolled in though I kissed my sweetheart then headed to bed. I’m not a big party animal these days.

The New Year brought with it snowshoeing! Now although snowshoeing is more of an intense workout then a leisurely activity I have always enjoyed doing it. I went with my sister in law Crystal, my brother Scott, my cousin Vanessa and her fiancé Scott Davis. My Scott decided he wanted to spend the first day of the year also skiing so he went up to Kelley Canyon to teach some lessons and hit the slopes! Sorry... didn't take any pictures...

 A week following the New Year Scott and I were able to attend the sealing of my cousin Vanessa and her husband Scott Davis. This adds the FOURTH Scott to the family! I thought what a great way to start a New Year! It was a beautiful ceremony and a very cold day! They seem perfect for each other though and I wish them luck with their new life together!

All of the Scott's in the family taking a picture with their wives

December

We had a very busy December. With Christmas right around the corner and trying to find a new place to live. Everyday seemed to be filled with things to do.

A week before Christmas my brother Scott, his wife Crystal, my mom and of course Scott and I went on a little road trip to Portland Oregon to visit my sister Katrina, her husband Taylor and their three cute kids! We left Friday night around 10:30 pm, drove through the night switching off drivers, and arrived at the Funk house around 9:30 am Saturday morning. The trip actually went surprisingly fast. I was a little worried because I’m still suffering from some morning sickness and usually I feel the worst in the morning and at night. But the night went by and for the most part I was morning sickness free.  During our few day stay we went to the Hobbit while Grandma stayed home with the kids, went to a GYNORMOUS book store and just hung out around the house and had a good time! I was a nice little vacation and it was great to get to hang out with the Funk’s for a few days!  We drove back Tuesday and the trip back felt quite a bit longer then the trip there. I guess it pays to be sleeping more than half the drive.

At the Portland Temple

 My sister Katrina and my cute niece Holland!

The whole gang!

With Benson, Myer (upside down) and Holland.

We had a great Christmas will all our families! It’s so nice to live so close to both families so we can split our holidays. We spent Christmas Eve with Scott’s family. We had a delicious Christmas feast then got to open some awesome presents! I got a new pair of pajamas that I LOVE and wear all the time! They are so warm and especially since it has been so cold lately they have been great! Christmas morning was spent with just Scott, Cricket and I. It’s so fun to start new traditions with just the two, and soon to be, three of us! We had a great time opening our stockings, cooking a great Christmas breakfast and opening our presents together. After that was all done we headed up to Driggs to spend a couple days with my family. It was fun to open presents with everyone and just enjoy the small vacation from life.  The kids all got together and bought our parents a new dishwasher and I think it was the most used present throughout the holiday. With all the family that was up that thing ran nonstop for a week straight! It was also really nice not to spend half of our Christmas vacation doing hand dishes.

Christmas Morning!

Cricket opening her stocking

Scott opening his stocking

Me opening my stocking

 The mess after all the presents are opened!

 Merry Christmas everyone!

I can’t believe 2012 is over… It’s amazing to look at where Scott and I were a year ago and where we are today. So much has changed and we have been so truly blessed! We have great jobs, have an awesome ward and were able to accomplish a lot of our 2012 goals! It will be fun to see what 2013 brings. With a new member of the family on the way we can expect great change! But it will be a fun new adventure to add to our new life together. 

November...

We had a pretty good November... Me especially with it being my birthday month and all. For my birthday Scott and I both stayed home from work and I either laid in bed or lounged on the couch (being morning sick and all) while Scott pampered me and cooked me all my meals. In the afternoon Scott needed me to be gone out of the house so I called up Clarissa and made her take me maternity shopping. Later that night Scott had planned a surprise get together with all our friends at Wingers and then to the play Wizard of Oz! I loved it! After the play we all headed back to our apartment for presents, cake and ice cream. It was a really great birthday. Thank you Scott for throwing a great party!

Me with all my Birthday Present. The reason I am wearing the oversized pajamas is because I was given them by my good friend Jordan who things after I am 8 months pregnant I will then need a size of XXL pajamas to sleep in because my regular ones wont fit anymore. So thank you Jordan!

The following weekend we celebrated my birthday with the family. Scott's family on Saturday and with my family on Sunday where we told them the big news! To let everyone know we were expecting I had Scott give me a "birthday present" that was a baby picture frame and I'd pull it out of the bag and say "Oh cute, it's a picture frame" Then I'd turned it around and just waited holding it until everyone caught on. Everyone was very excited!

My birthday pie! I made pie because I don't love cake. I still can't believe I'm 25... It feels so old! In my mind I'm still just 23.

 Scott and I with the baby picture frame I made

The benefit of living so close to each of our families is that a lot of our holidays can be split between the two families. Scott's family has always ate Thanksgiving dinner on Friday so that on Thanksgiving day they could go skiing. Now that most of the kids are grown and married they have kept doing it on Friday because it's more convenient with having to split family time. So Thursday Scott and I headed up Driggs to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family. I love being with the whole family! It's always so much fun to get together. Unfortunately we were not able to go skiing because Targhee decided not to open the hill until the day after Thanksgiving. We headed back to Idaho Falls on Friday and then celebrated Thanksgiving with Scott's family. Both dinners were very good! We are a little spoiled to get two Thanksgiving dinners every year :)