Just before school started Grandma & Grandpa Hendricks took us to Walt Disney world in Florida.  We had a blast going to all the parks.   We stayed in the Fort Wilderness Cabins and housekeeping even made it fun by propping the toys into different positions while we were gone.  The first night we came back they had Jessie from Toy Story sitting with the remote and the TV on.  Another night she was put in the window in a cute pose.  We had breakfast in Cinderella’s Castle for Kate’s Birthday.  Allie and Kate spent a couple of hours in the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique getting their hair done and dressed up as princesses.  Claire was too little for the makeover, but she got a Tinkerbell dress for consolation.

Dad, Chris, Jr., Mason, and Sarah got to go snorkeling at Epcot in the 5.7 million gallon fish tank at the Nemo pavilion.  We were very busy from morning to night.  We even spent one day at Universal Studios so Mason could go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  It was pretty cool, and the butter beer was tasty.  It went way too fast.  We had a great time and hope we can go back in the future.

OK, there are tons of photos to go along with this post. Watch for the links throughout the post – you can click these links to see lots more pictures of each activity!

I don’t even know where to begin. I haven’t updated this in a while. We had a very crazy, busy summer.

• The boys went to scout camp for 8 days the week after school got out. 
• Chris’s parents came to visit a week later. They had to go home early for a medical emergency just a few days after they arrived. Chris and the boys flew back to Utah only to have it be a false alarm. The boys stayed in Utah for the rest of July.
• We took advantage of only having the three girls at home. We found a local lake to swim in (Lake Tiorati at Harriman State Park).
• We took the girls to the Bronx Zoo (we did make a post for this!). 
• The boys flew back to NY with Uncle Nate, Aunt Michelle, and their cousin Kylie. We spent the next week fitting in as much sightseeing as possible, including the nearby historical mansions like Lyndhurst and Sunnyside. 
• One of my favorite activities was going to NYC with Michelle and Kylie to see Wicked on Broadway. It was wonderful! I can’t wait to take the kids to see a show on Broadway. We also spent a very long day touring NYC. We took a ferry in and then walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, and then down into Brooklyn to have lunch and walk to a park under the bridge. We then rode the subway to various places in NYC. I think we got home after 11 PM. 
• We also spent a day at the Statue of Liberty with Nate, Michelle, and Kylie. We made sure to get tickets in advance this time so we could go inside and up onto the pedestal. It was such a perfect day, the weather was great. The normal haze that settles over the city was gone so we got some really great photos. We also took some great shots of a storm that was moving in on the coast. We had a lot of fun and were sad when the Davis’s had to go home. 
• We had a little rest and then Chris’s parents returned with Uncle Josh to attend a Yankees game in the Stadium before it is torn down. The day they flew in we met them and took a 3 hour boat tour around NYC. After the tour we walked to Times Square and then we left for home. We are a little tired of the city so we sent Josh, Grandpa and the boys to the city to run around before the Yankees game. Me, grandma, and the girls ran around and did girly things. It was fun though their stay was short. 
• The day they left we packed up and went to spend the last long weekend of the summer at the beach down in Wildwood, NJ. We got a little burned because we still are not used to all this sun but we had a good time. 
• On the way home we visited several lighthouses that are up and down the Jersey coast.

Whew!

Another trip we made was to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Grandpa Hendricks hadn’t been there before. It was a beautiful day, not too warm. The park was not very crowded either so it was a really nice experience. Click here to see some more pictures from this set.

Grandma and Grandpa Hendricks came to visit over spring break. One of the little trips we went on was a day trip to NYC. We went up in the Empire State Building (the express pass was worth the money) and even went all the way to the 102nd floor! It was pretty cool. We walked up 5th Ave, ate lunch at a deli, saw giant Muppets on the street, visited Rockefeller Plaza, shopped at FAO Schwarz, played in Central Park, and rode the subway. All in all a pretty busy day. We’ve put up some of the pictures we took on Flickr – click here to check them out.

We took a long drive down to the Jersey Shore. Grandma Hendricks grew up in Manasquan so we visited where she lived and the beaches there and in Point Pleasant. The kids loved to run and play in the waves, and Kate was happy to eat sand. It was a beautiful day to be at the beach, sunny and warm. We also stopped to see a lighthouse and a veterans’ monument in Manasquan that had Great-grandpa (Big Papa) Riemer’s name on it.

 Click here to see the entire photo set!