The time is coming....

Its now official my time in NY is coming to an end... I have a one-way ticket back to Utah! August 8th is the day. Its definitely a bittersweet thing. I am very excited to come home to my family and friends. But at the same time I am leaving my second family and new friends who I have grown to love and respect. Its going to be so hard to say goodbye, but new chapters of life always come with goodbyes. I have loved my time here and it has been the best experience of my life!!

Happy Birthday Rachel!

Its Rachel's birthday this Sunday so we decided to get together early and celebrate. A group of us girls met at the ferry and went into the city for dinner and a movie. We ate at Max Brenner (my favorite!!) and saw 17 again! It was lots of fun! Happy Birthday Rach!!


Rachel blowing out her birthday candle with her white chocolate yummy!!


Our whole group, starting from the left, Lejdja, Fatbardha, Ejona, me, Christy, Natalie, and Rachel.


Natalie, Christy, me, and Rachel were the only crazy ones to stay out late enough for the movie, I think we got home around 3! :)

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!! I had a great Easter this year, although I do miss home and the traditional Easter I am used to, it was a fun and different Easter this year. I went with the family to the Hilton for Easter brunch. It was delicious! We had a great time and lots of good food!


The girls and I looking gorgeous in our Easter outfits! :)


Bri and me pulling silly faces, funny how she will look at the camera this way not when we just want her to smile, go figure!


She got mad and told me I had to make the same funny face as her.

Lou had the camera and decided to just start taking random pictures.

Before we stuffed ourselves.

So here is what the Easter bunny brought me this year (I was my own Easter bunny) didn't he do a great job?!? :) I love it! Lou calls it my smurf suitcase haha.

I was able to take Laura and the girls to my ward breakfast and egg hunt on Saturday. They had a lot of fun and I was so glad they came with me! I was sad I didn't get more pictures!

Here are the backs of Brianna and Mikey (Brianna's cousin) we do a lot of playdates with him, he and his mom came with us too. They were too busy looking for eggs and wouldnt't turn around to look at the camera.

Coney Island!!

This weekend I went with Laura, Lou, and the girls to Coney Island to see the Aquarium and while we were there Laura and I went on the famous Cyclone! The girls had lots of fun at the Aquarium and Laura and I had lots of fun on the roller coaster :) we got lucky with the timing, this was the first weekend the roller coaster was open this season so we timed it just right! We saw lots of cool fish and animals at the Aquarium, Brianna's favorites were the penguins and the sharks. We watched sea lion show and I even got a kiss on the cheek from Oscar the sea lion :) it was a such a fun day, here are some pictures of all the fun we had!!


Here is the famous sign of the Cyclone Roller Coaster that is in a few movies!

There is only one car going and it is chaos trying to get on the roller coaster, they dont have the rows divided by bars so just like everywhere else in New York you have to push your way through to get the seat you want on the roller coaster. It took me and Laura about 5 runs to actually get on, it was crazy!! Not only that but you can pay to re-ride and they don't make you get off and go to the back of the line so most people stay on and go 2 or 3 times.

Me and Laura ready to go! Laura was nervous the whole time and I as usual was as exicted as a little kid on Christmas morning! :) The seats are so padded that we barely fit together you have to climb on the seat to get in because its such a tight squeeze, most people have to ride as single riders.

At the Aquarium they have a Planet Earth 4-D show that we thought we would try. Well.... it did go over so well, the girls only lasted about 5 minutes before they were both hysterical crying because they were so scared, it was so sad!

Brianna loves to eat and hates to share as you can tell.

Here is Oscar the sea lion, I got a kiss on the cheek from him because Brianna really wanted to see him give me a kiss, so I went along with it... well it was wet and smelly to say the least! :)

Oscar was quite the dancer, it was cute.

The girls and me waiting for the show to start.

Brianna and me in front of the Coral Reef Exhibit.

Its almost impossible to get Chloe and Brianna to look at the camera in the same picture.

Brianna's penguins.

The lazy sea otters.

The fat walrus.

Plan B...

So Friday night Teo, Ejona, and I were supposed to go into the city for a concert... well it didn't happen. We were already late and then we missed the ferry so by the time we would have gotten there it would have been over... so we went to plan B. We just went to dinner and a movie, dinner was great and the movie not so great, but it was a fun night out!


The 3 amigos :)


lookin' good :)


even better!

Teo is a nerd and decided to try on Ejona's sweater, it wasn't working so well for him.

So you can't tell but Teo is not very happy in this pic, this was right after we realized we just missed the ferry by like 3 minutes... sad day.

Temple Night

Friday night was our Relief Society's temple night and Ejona and I decided we didn't want to be excluded, so we tagged along and joined a group to do some baptisms for the dead. We had a great time and it was so nice to go to the temple, I haven't been in so long! The Manhattan Temple is pretty inside and out, it's easy to miss it in the middle of all the tall buildings but we all know it's there. I can't wait to be able to do other work in the temple!!


It was too dark windy to get a good picture of more of the temple so we settle for a close-up for now.

Valentine's Day

I just love Valentine's Day..... NOT!!!! I came to the conclusion that I have been and probably always will be Anti-Valentine's Day. Even when I have had someone to spoil me I still was never a big fan, I'm just not a sappy romantic person, but everyone that knows me is already well aware of that. Maybe one day I will change my mind but i highly doubt it :) I was brave enough to go out for the night though. Ejona and I decided it would be a good excuse to buy ourselves something so we went shopping and got ice cream. It was fun!! Of course we were surrounded by couples to remind us that we were alone but it was totally worth the new stuff I got! Here is just a pic of the awesome time we had :)