Anniversary

Yep, our anniversary went by almost a month ago. I really do plan on getting caught up on here sometime soon.

We have been married 3 wonderful years. Our anniversary happened to hit on my Saturday off (since I switched weekends when I switched to days), so that was really nice. We started the day by heading to the apple store since Zack's computer decided it did not want to turn on anymore the night before. I should just mention that I was a total brat about this. But we went anyway and the problem has been resolved enough to get Zack through the rest of this term. He will add some RAM and probably back everything up and wipe his hard drive and things should be mega dandy again. Anyway, after taking care of the computer, we were able to get to the festivities, which began with a boat tour of the Schuylkill River.

There are those of you who may not be entirely familiar with Philadelphia geography, so let me just give you a little rundown. Downtown Philadelphia is basically sandwiched between 2 rivers-- the Delaware River on the east, and the Schuylkill River on the west. On the other side of the Delaware River is New Jersey. On the other side of the Schuylkill River is University City, with both the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University being not too many blocks away from the river. I have included a map courtesy of google maps so you can see what I mean. You should be able to click on it to enlarge it if you want.

Anyway, the point is that the Delaware is the bigger of the 2 rivers and a lot of shipping and stuff goes on there. The Schuylkill is smaller, but basically goes right through the middle of things. It is very scenic and much less crowded. So our tour started basically downtown and we first headed north toward the art museum and Waterworks.

We turned around there because there's a dam. We enjoyed this little statue that was in that area.

Once upon a time, this guy was a fisherman with a fishing pole. He disappeared during a big storm (hurricane?). A few years later, when people were dredging the river, they came upon this guy and pulled him out of the water and put him back in his original place. Unfortunately, his fishing rod was never found.

After that, we headed south on the river, ending up at Bartram's garden, a beautiful botanical garden in southwest Philadelphia. All along the route, we got the hear about what they are doing to clean up the river, make the banks more walkable, etc. Finally, we headed back up to where we started. It was delightful and relaxing and the views were fabulous. I am glad we did that.

Next on our agenda was dinner at the Waterworks restaurant. It is located-- you guessed it-- on the Waterworks. The food was amazing, the service was excellent, and the view was killer. We got to sit on the outside patio looking out toward the river and the setting sun. Since the Waterworks is so gorgeous, it is a popular place for wedding photos. We saw a few wedding parties out and about getting their pictures done. I guess we share an anniversary with those people. How fun.

Finally, we wrapped up our evening with a Phillies game.

Very unfortunately we had to watch the Phillies lose. Not only did they lose, but they lost to the Mets. That was a bummer. But it was still fun. Except for the nasty Mets fans sitting nearby. Oh well, what can you do?

All in all, a pretty fabulous anniversary. Here's to many more to come.

Utah-- Noyce edition

I am finally getting around to posting about the rest of our Utah trip.

After our delightful picnic with my family in the mountains on the 24th of July, we headed to the Noyces' for some more fun. Zack's sister Amy just moved into an apartment up by the University of Utah and we got to go see it. It is old and charming, which we just loved it. I forgot to mention in the previous post that we also got to see my brother and sister-in-law's apartment while we were in Utah. We hadn't seen it yet, and we thought it was really nice. After Amy's apartment, we headed up the canyon again for some delicious dinner. I can't remember what the place was called that we ate at, but we ate outside, and the whole family was there, and it was fun and delicious.

Sunday was the whole reason for our visit. Sam got to speak in church and we also played his clarinet. He did an excellent job on both. After that, we went back to the Noyces' and a ton of people showed up for food and chatting and to say bye to Sam. It was loads of fun. We even got to see our dear friend Adam. We also got some photos of the family, since it was the last time everyone will be together again until Sam gets back in 2 years.

On Monday, we started out with breakfast at a little place near downtown Salt Lake,

then we walked around downtown.

Last time we saw downtown Salt Lake, it was pretty much a gaping hole in the ground. It has really come along since then, and it starting to look pretty good.

We checked out the fancy new Deseret Book store (and bought some undies while we were there). And of course we saw Temple Square, which was beautiful as always.

Later in the day on Monday, we went up to Park City. Megan had left to go back to Kentucky by that time so she didn't get to go with us but the rest of us went and walked around the shops on Main Street and then we got some dinner. Then we went to the outlet stores, then headed home.

Tuesday morning we went and got some TCBY frozen yogurt and picked up some final stuff for Sam. Then we had to hop on a plane and come back to Philly. Our flight was uneventful again (yay!) and we were happy to be back to our delightful city.

Thanks to all who hosted us, fed us, and generally put up with us while we were in Utah. We really enjoyed our time there.

Utah-- Woolley edition

Zack's brother, Sam, got his mission call to the France Toulouse mission. We were thrilled that we got to use that as an excuse to go visit our families in Utah. In order to maximize our time there (and minimize our days off work), we left super early on a Thursday morning. We left for the airport around 5 AM. Our flight to Utah was uneventful, and we even arrived a few minutes early. My mom came to pick us up and we headed straight up to Layton to visit my Grandma Crawford. She had her knees replaced and was staying in a rehab center for a few days for some therapy and recovery.

So, let me tell you, I work in a publicly funded nursing home, and it's not the latest and greatest in terms of how nice it is. It looks old, residents live 3 to a room, sometimes supplies are not available when needed, and budget cuts are always on the agenda. It houses people who just cannot afford to get care elsewhere. This creates a diverse and challenging population. Now don't get me wrong. A lot of quality care is provided within those walls. Lots of good things happen there. I'm just saying that it's not the nicest place ever. So when I walked into the rehab center where my Grandma was staying, I swear I about fell over. It was so nice. The floors were carpet and wood laminate instead of linoleum tile. The paint looked nice instead of old and chipped. There were tasteful paintings on the walls throughout the center instead of puzzles that people had assembled and then tacky glued together. Faux flowers abounded. The whole place just looked fancy. I couldn't resist snapping a picture of the medication cart on my cell phone because I just got such a kick out of it.

I left there with mixed feelings-- happy that my Gram could stay in such a nice place (fyi-- the staff seemed nice and pretty good), but sad that there is such inequality in the healthcare system.

Wow, that was kind of a long tangent. After that visit, we got to go to lunch with some more of my family who live (or were vacationing) in the Layton area. Fun to see people I haven't seen in a while. Then we headed to my parents' house and I got to hang with all my siblings and their spouses. That evening, despite that we had been up since 3-something AM, we hit up the drive-in movies with my family, where we watched (and stayed awake through the entirety of!) Despicable Me. My very brief review-- cuteish and okay. We didn't stay for the 2nd movie because we were just too tired so we went home and crashed.

After a refreshing night's sleep, we got up the next day at headed out to Boondock's Family Fun Center with my family. There we rode go-karts,

played laser tag and arcade games, mini golfed, rode bumper boats, and just basically had a blast.

I should note that our camera had already died by this point in the trip and we did not pack the charger, thus the lack of pictures-- the ones we do have are from other people. It's kinda sad. That evening, my Woolley grandparents drove up from St. George so we got to spend a great evening with them. We played croquet (except we played with Ben and Tosca's weird rules-- still fun). I won! That pretty much never happens so I wanted to note it. Also of note-- Grandma Carol came in 2nd place. Grandma has the reputation of always losing at games, so it was very exciting that she did so well. Way to go Grandma! We polished off the evening with some cheesecake from Cheesecake Factory-- mmmmmm.

Saturday was the 24th of July, which is actually a holiday in Utah commemorating the day that the main body of Mormon pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley. We started the day off with breakfast and we sorta watched the parade on tv while we ate and chatted. After that, we went up one of the canyons and had a picnic and walked around a lake.

It was beautiful up there. I really love the mountains and that's one of the things I miss the most when I am in Philly so it was fun to get to enjoy them and also enjoy the company of my parents, siblings, and grandparents.

We spent most of the rest of our time in Utah with the Noyces, which will be its own post, but we did get the fabulous opportunity to be there on Sunday afternoon when my little bro Matthew was ordained to be an elder. Lots of extended family was there, so we got to see them for a minute. We also snapped the picture with my family. Thanks to my fam for making the time to see us and have some fun. We love you guys.

3 years

Here's to 3 fabulous years. I love you Zack. Happy anniversary.

Wildwood days

Wow, it's been a few weeks since I've written. We've been having a good time.

2 weekends ago, we decided to go to the shore again, since it is still summer after all. We packed up and headed out to Wildwood, NJ.

We sat on the beach for a while on Friday, but decided it was a little too windy, so we hit up the boardwalk instead. We had a great time looking in the shops, munching on boardwalk food, and people watching. We also played glow-in-the-dark, 3D, pirate-themed mini golf, which was really fun. This picture isn't too awesome, but it gives you an idea of what it looked like.

That evening, we watched some fireworks on the beach while eating a funnel cake. Yum! We stayed in a tacky little motel that night. Frankly, most of Wildwood is pretty darn tacky. I guess that's part of its charm. On Saturday, we were able to actually get some beach time in. Then we packed up and headed home. Even though we had fun, I think I have decided that I don't need to go to Wildwood again. It's farther away than some of the other beaches; the beach is really long, meaning that it's quite to walk to get out to the ocean, especially when you're carrying all your beach gear; and it's pretty tacky. I just prefer other beaches.

Some updates on our trip to Utah are forthcoming.

The Cove

Have you seen The Cove yet? It's a documentary. I heard about it on NPR soon after it came out and knew I wanted to see it, but it took me this long to get around to it because I knew it would be sad. And it was. But very good. Go check it out.

A VISITOR!

I never mentioned that Zack's mom got to come spend a quick weekend with us a couple of weeks ago. I don't think we really took any pictures. I guess we were too busy having a blast! We just had a low key sort of time and really just enjoyed the company. We took an architecture walking tour downtown, which was pretty great-- just our kind of thing. We got some delicious food at Reading Terminal Market, we golfed at our favorite mini golf course (I didn't take this pic),

we went out to eat and to a play (if you were curious, it was Avenue Q,

which was released the same year as Wicked and beat it out to win best musical that year. My review: very funny, definitely relevant. Unfortunately quite raunchy, especially in one particular scene, with some language and innuendo thrown in at other times. For that reason, I can't recommend it. Really a shame. Also, I love Wicked. It should've won. ) We also went to church, and enjoyed a Sunday evening picnic on the Belmont plateau with a wonderful view of the city (I'm sure I have a picture of this somewhere, but I'm on a roll with using pictures I didn't take-- so that's why there are no leaves on the trees. There were leaves when we were on our picnic).

Thanks to Momma Noyce for coming to visit us. It's been too long since we've seen family. If only more of them would get out here to visit us (hint hint). I guess it's a good thing that we are going to visit them in just a couple of weeks here.