April

April was a busy and fun month!  As I mentioned, I finished students teaching earlier this month and am so happy to be done even though I did enjoy it.  I also passed EdTPA which was a HUGE project so I'm glad that's over with!  New York was awesome, and then soon after we got home the Tulip Festival started which I love, but that's kept me pretty busy during the days.  Bailey just finished up the rest of his finals but is still busy with work, so we are ready for a calmer summer!

Here are some of the fun things we did this month!  I'll leave out the pictures of the many trips we took to the Tulip Festival because there were enough pictures that I might as well make a separate post for that haha.

Rachel and Spencer visiting was of course a huge highlight of our month.  We love hanging out with them and their cute baby!  While they were in Utah County we took them to see the Butterfly Biosphere.  Eleanor, their baby, was cracking us up because she could not see the butterflies.  We would point right at them but she either just couldn't figure out what we were pointing at or just didn't care at all.  I, on the other hand, had the time of my life as a butterfly finally decided to be my friend!  Kind of creepy but super cool.

Warden is my sweetest little friend and whenever Bailey and I travel, I like to pick up a little outfit for him.  I got this onesie in New York (as I'm sure you guessed) and it is so cute on him!

The UVU Art Department held an awards night and I was awarded the Student of Merit in Art Education.  So cool!

Easter was really late this year so that was kind of weird, but we enjoyed celebrating with Bailey's family!  Bailey's mom got us some bubbles and I think Bailey is ready to compete in Olympic bubble blowing.

Easter also happened to fall on Bailey's birthday!  We celebrated at Del Taco the night before and then his nice friends at work got this cake for him.

I had to say goodbye to my friends last week.  These girls have been in the art education program with me, and I don't know how I could have gotten through it without them!  They are all so fun and are going to be influential teachers.  I'm grateful that I've been able to have art teacher friends, and hopefully it wasn't a forever goodbye!

Exploring Southern Utah

My uncle Matt is living at my grandparents Southern Utah home for a little bit, and today he took some time to show us around.  He is so fun to hang out with and is an excellent tour guide!

He first drove us out to the middle of nowhere to see some dinosaur tracks.  I had no idea these were here!  I'm not sure if I would have noticed them even if I was walking right by them, but once they were pointed out to me they were as clear as day.  It is so difficult for me to imagine the time of dinosaurs, so it was cool to see some evidence in the real world.  Also, some of those dinos take crazy huge steps that are difficult to replicate!

Matt then took us to Fort Pearce, which I actually think I've seen before.  It is a cool little stop!

I was most excited for the "glitter pits" though!  My grandpa has taken me to see them a couple of times, but it was before the time of Bailey so it was all new to him and my friends.  We had fun admiring the sparkle and picking up some mica to take home.

After our awesome St. George tour (thanks Matt!) my friends and I went to Pioneer Park to play/climb around and kill some time before dinner.  I swear every time I go to Pioneer Park I must park somewhere different and it must be huge, because I feel like I've never seen the same part twice!  I especially liked the little arch and slot canyon we found today.

Our trip ended with a visit to Anasazi, the greatest steakhouse in all of Utah (in my opinion).  Luckily Rachel and Spencer have great taste in food, and we all enjoyed our steak dinner.  I will never get sick of this place!

It was just a short little trip but a fun way to celebrate the start of summer as I am no longer a student teacher.  St. George isn't super hot yet so we were lucky with the weather while still being able to enjoy the sunshine.  Our favorite part, of course, was being able to hang out with our friends who we don't get to see very often!

Zions National Park

All my life I've lived in Utah, and never have I visited Zions National Park!

Yesterday was the last day of my student teaching, and it also happened to be the last day of the semester for our friends Rachel and Spencer, who you will recognize from many of our China pictures!  They live in Idaho and drove down to Utah County last night with their sweet little Eleanor.  We took some time in Lehi, showing them the Ashton Gardens and eating at Spitz (one of my new favorite restaurants!) and then headed right down to my grandparents second home in Southern Utah.

We woke up bright and early this morning and headed straight to Zions!  Last year the five of us did Yellowstone in one day, and this morning we were determined to get a good taste of Zions in one day too.  We joked that we should write a book titled something like "National Parks in One Day" because we never have tons of time but always want to see as much as possible.

We did take it a little bit slow, though, because we decided we wanted to enjoy our time there and take in as much as we could of the beautiful area.  The park is super easy to navigate, you just park at the bottom and then take the shuttle all around.  We started with a short trail near the visitor center, then soon hopped on the shuttle to the lodge for some food!

By the lodge were the Emerald Pool Trails.  One was closed so we could only hike to one pool.  It was an easy, beautiful walk and the misty waterfall was cool to see and cool to walk through!

Sleeping baby.  So portable!

We also did the hike to Weeping Rock which was gorgeous.

The time passed quickly, and soon we found it to be evening.  We spent some time by the river taking a few pictures and playing in the sand, enjoying the beautiful view.  It is easy to forget and take for granted the beauty of this state that we live in, and today was a great reminder of just how lucky we are!  It was a beautiful day in Zions and I can't wait to get back to see more!

It has been so fun to spend the day with our friends who we don't get to see so often.  Eleanor is so freaking cute!  She did so good today and it was fun to see her experience new things.

We ended the evening at Honolulu Grill (of course!) and Swig.  Luckily we have a whole day of fun planned for tomorrow as well, so we don't have to say goodbye yet!

The Guggenheim

We took it slow this morning checking out.  Before even checking out we went to a local diner here in Chinatown with classic diner food.  Which was kind of funny considering its location.  But it was so tasty!  We were sad to check out of our Airbnb and say bye to our best friend Biao Biao who we will certainly miss.

We finally got Bailey a travel backpack like mine.  Seriously, these Osprey bags are so comfortable and can carry so much!  We love them!

We only had one goal today, which was to visit the Guggenheim.  Something cool about the Guggenheim, they will actually store your carry-on size luggage.  Super helpful for backpacking people like us!  We were able to drop off our bags and use my AAM card to get us both in for free.  So nice!  We thought we were pretty smart, too, because we decided to take the elevator to the top and work our way down from there in order to avoid any uphill walking.

Let's talk about the building.  So dang cool!  Not my very favorite Frank Lloyd Wright, but I really loved the bright white aesthetic which is definitely my style.  I appreciated the spiral design, because it made it very clear as to where you should go.  I always get a little bit stressed in museums with no clear pathway, I always worry that I'm missing something!

Now we can talk about the artwork.  It was definitely unique!  Bailey was not a huge fan of Hilma af Klint's exhibit, because he claims that he could paint circles too.  I said, "maybe you could, but did you?".  I quite liked her circles!  I thought they were pretty.

The Guggenheim was full of all sorts of modern art, however if you are choosing between the MoMA and The Guggenheim, personally I preferred the MoMA's collection.  I am so glad that we got the chance to see The Guggenheim, though, because they did have a good collection with quite a few notable works and cool sculptures!  We were not huge fans of the Mapplethorpe collection though... we definitely chose to skip pretty quickly through that one.

We had more time to kill than planned, so we decided to go a little bit out of our way for lunch.  We headed back to Greenwich Village and got slices at Joe's Pizza.  Holy cow!  So freaking good!  John's Pizza was tasty enough, but Joe's Pizza was really something else.  We sat in the park across the street and enjoyed our cheesy slices while watching pigeons play a game of catch with a piece of someone's bread.

After eating lunch we decided to try some gelato as well.  It was very delicious, especially Bailey's pistachio flavor!  Unfortunately that was our last New York experience as it was then time to head to the airport.  The trip to the airport was a very crowded one, as I guess Wrestlemania is tonight in New Jersey, and we are flying out of Newark.

Overall, our trip to New York was amazing.  I never thought I would like New York so much!  I don't consider myself much of a busy city traveler, but there is so much to do in New York that it was such a good adventure!  Just the perfect mix of history, art, architecture, and nature.  Four days was good for hitting the highlights, but I really hope to come back and see more of what this city has to offer.  And to eat more of the food!  There are so many fantastic food options here!

If you ever get the chance, I highly recommend stopping by New York.  It may be smelly at times, especially walking out of subway stops for some reason, and it may seem expensive, but I think it is still totally doable on a budget and so worth it to make the trip happen!

Just Bailey being the best husband ever on our journey home.

Liberty & Ellis Island

We were so happy to wake up to a sunshiny day!  Well, I was.  Bailey actually prefers rainy weather.  We had booked our tickets to Liberty Island in advance, and I had just picked a random day to go.  Thank goodness I didn't pick yesterday when the weather was bad.  I feel pretty lucky about that!

Before heading to the ferry, we had time to get breakfast at Russ & Daughters.  It definitely wasn't a cheap place to eat, but it was the best breakfast I've had in my life.  I'm not usually a normal breakfast food person, it turns out a bagel and smoked salmon is definitely more my style.  Today was my first time actually trying it!  It was a beautiful and delicious breakfast!

We still had some time to kill before going to Liberty Island, so we walked over to The Oculus.  I didn't really know what it was other than a cool building, turns out it is a shopping mall inside.  We walked around inside a little bit and enjoyed the neat architecture, but I don't think anyone needs to plan a lot of time to check it out unless you want to do some shopping.

Right across the street was the 9/11 Memorial.  Wow.  That was a very difficult place to be!  We spent quite a while just leaning over the edge of one of the water walls.  It is crazy how much you can feel the emotion, even so many years later.  Especially looking at all the names engraved into the memorial!  I could hardly handle it, actually, and Bailey decided we should probably go so I could quit crying.  It was a beautiful and symbolic place, I thought that the water features were a very powerful way to allude to the sadness and tragedy of 9/11.  Also I found the Survivor Tree which was really neat!

We still had some time so we walked past Trinity Church and were able to see Alexander Hamilton's grave through the fence which was pretty cool.  We headed towards Wall Street because Bailey wanted to see the Charging Bull.  He jumped in for me to take a picture of him with it!

Bailey was finally able to get a street cart hot dog, which he said was just like any other hot dog.  We picked up more drinks from Starbucks and hung around Battery Park for a minute before heading on our "cruise".

Finally it was time to board the ferry after going through extensive security!  Liberty Island was just a short boat ride away, and soon enough we were on the island and picking up our audio tours.  Liberty Island is a National Park, and the setup was a lot like Alcatraz.  The audio tour was super simple to use and very informative.  It took us around the whole island teaching us about the history of the area, the statue, and the people who saw it on their way to Ellis Island.  The stories were powerful and it was such a special experience to think of all the people who saw Lady Liberty on their way to America, after leaving their home countries and enduring a long boat ride.  Finally they reached their destination!  I can't imagine how nervous and excited they must have felt!

It was easy to pause the audio tour, which we did multiple times to take some pictures.  I love the symbolism of the statue, but it is also quite the artistic and architectural feat.  She was bigger than I ever imagined her, and the details were amazing!  I loved looking at all of the folds in her clothes.  So beautiful!  The view of Manhattan from the island was not bad either.

We spent some time just checking her out before picking up some food at the Cafe on the island.  The food was actually a lot better than we thought it would be, but not really that great.  I would recommend eating on Ellis Island instead, though, because after we ate we hopped on the ferry over to Ellis Island and saw that they had better looking food and way less people!

Lots of people skip getting off at Ellis Island and go straight back to Manhattan.  But don't you dare miss it!  Ellis Island is super cool and they also have a great audio tour inside the museum.  The audio tour took us through the process the immigrants went through after landing on the island.  It was another informative experience, because the process was not easy.  But it must have been super easy compared to making the decision to leave home and try to make it in a foreign land!  It made me feel proud and grateful to be a descendant of brave immigrants so that I could call this wonderful country my own.

My favorite part of the museum was the arrivals halls.  So big and gorgeous!  The audio tour told us to sit on the long benches in the hall, then proceeded to tell us that they were the exact benches that the immigrants had sat on while waiting for their names to be called.  So cool!

It was sad to learn about those who were sent back to their home countries.  That would suck because they made such an arduous journey, but even more so because usually the rest of their family was allowed to stay.  I hated hearing about all of the families split up, so many of them not seeing their grandparents ever again after they were shipped off back home.  They made it clear, though, that 98% of people made it through, which statistically that's not bad.

By then Bailey's feet were killing him so we took the ferry back to Manhattan and took a quick break at our Airbnb.  Well, we tried to be quick but our host's super sweet dog, Biao Biao, was so excited to see us and snuggled up to our legs, it was hard to leave!  He is so darn cute and when we let him into our room he either tries to snuggle us or hide under our bed.  He is an adorable friend!

We decided that we need to at least look at the Empire State Building and the Flatiron building, so we made our way to Madison Square Park to enjoy the view.  Madison Square Park is a fun little park!  If we didn't already have dinner plans it would have been fun to grab some food and eat there.

But we didn't spend long, because we also wanted to walk around Greenwich Village.  Our old friend Jeff had told us that is one of his favorite parts of Manhattan, and we can see why!  It is full of cute shops and fun restaurants.  Also, Washington Square Park is pretty neat.

We ended the night in Chinatown, exploring a little bit before checking in for the night.  We ate dinner at Xian Famous Foods and it was SO GOOD!  Again I forgot to take a food picture, but trust me on this one, you need to go and get their spicy lamb noodles as well as their vegetables and noodles dish.  The noodles were so chewy and the flavors were deliciously authentic.  So nostalgic!  It was a little bit spicy however, so we stopped by Coco soon after to cool down with some tasty drinks.  There was a Coco near our school in Changzhou and we went there all the time, so it was super fun to be able to go to one of their locations!

We shopped around a little bit and enjoyed the commotion before calling it a night.  I'm so sad that tomorrow is our last day - we have had so much fun!