We are alive!!!

Yes, we are alive and well...it may not look like it since my last post was in June of 2009 but who really reads these things anymore? The way I look at it is that facebook was the downfall of me blogging, but I really don't do too much of either these days. Jocelin took all these wonderful pictures of us this summer and so I decided that it was time to update a little. No exciting post yet but at least Maddilyn made it onto the blog so I guess that is a start. Who knows maybe in the next few days you will see some actual pictures of what has been going on at the Norris residence, but for now enjoy not seeing New York part 2 updated 2 years ago on my blog link on your blog :)

New York (Part 2)

I really wish I would have brought my camera with us to church. The church was in an industrial park that looked just like a business building, but once inside it looked just like a church. After church, and a big long nap, Lanny took us on a drive up the Hudson River. It was so pretty, we drove by all these old Manors. I even found us one that was for sale, however, Jay wouldn't buy it for me (party pooper). Sherry and Lanny don't really live that far away from the river.

Monday morning Sherry and Lanny went to the courthouse for a half a day and so Jay and I first stopped by the Today Show and saw Matt and AL (more of that on Wed.)

Next we went to the Empire State Building, here is the view from the top


This is the Chrysler Building

On top of the Empire State Building.

This was one of the only sunny days in NY. While we were here it was mostly cloudy and pretty cold so I was excited to use my new prescription sunglasses when I could.

Next we went on a carriage ride "supposedly" around Central Park, my advise save your money.

I was so excited to run into Trump Tower, Jay and I have watched a few seasons of "The Apprentice" so I was excited to find out the doorman had been on the show and he even held the door for me so I could walk out like I had been fired.


Bad picture but this was a beautiful cathedral right by Wall Street


In front of the library,

This is the church right by ground zero, they had a lot of memorials in there for all the firemen and policemen. This is where they all slept in the weeks following 9-11

This was also the church that George Washington came to pray right after he was inaugurated, this was his pew.

Later that evening we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge Jay on the Brooklyn Bridge

Tuesday we went to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island with Sherry and Lanny. In Battery Park was the monument from the Twin Towers it will be moved to ground zero as soon as the monument is complete.

The Statue of Liberty
We went inside the monument, this is Lady Liberty's original lantern she was holding. It was very interesting to see how she was designed and created. This is a replica of how big Lady Liberty's foot is

The view from the boat

The benches where the immigrants would wait to be processed on Ellis Island.

As we left Battery Park I saw this park, how sad the kids have to play on cement, whomever name this city the"cement jungle" was totally correct.

Later that night we went to a Yankees Game, which was way fun. They played the Texas Rangers and won 12-3

I asked the people for an infield shot, but somehow we are covering the bases. oh well, that's what you get when you don't take the picture yourself.

This probably ended being my favorite thing from the entire trip. Jay and I were undecided if we really wanted to wake up super early on Wednesday to go down to the Today Show. Well, we ended up going down there and got on the front row, then even better they did the top of the 8 o'clock hour right in front of us. We were on TV for like 3 minutes! It was way cool.Meredith was super nice and shook everyones hand, they had to keep pulling her away to do her job.
Al kept moving around so I couldn't get a very good picture of him. Will Ferrell was there promoting his new movie "Land of the Lost"

Later that day we went to the warship Intrepid. It was really interesting to learn about the huge boat. It was actually called the ghost ship because so many enemies had tried to sink it so many times but nobody ever succeeded.
This is actually a submarine, its kinda hard to tell.

After we left the Intrepid we went back to our hotel got our baggage and then headed to the airport to find our flight delayed, then more time sitting on the runway we walked in our house at 2 a.m. on Thursday morning very tired.

One more thing I must say it that the driving in NY is crazy, I gripped Jays arm so tightly that I think he has permanent damage. Traffic rules are really more like suggestions rather than actual laws.

What a great time, I can't wait to go back for more plays and shopping (in a few years)

New York City

Jennie told me she was going to start writing nasty notes on my blog if I didn't quickly post pictures of New York, so here I go. This may take a few days because I stopped counting after I got past the 250th picture I took in NY. Hopefully I will not bore you all to death.

We took the red eye flight (I would recommend never doing this) and arrived at our hotel on a Thursday morning at 8 a.m. checked in slept for four hours then got up and we went to The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Jay liked the guns and weapons best, and I was just a little surprised with all the young school groups there and all the naked paintings and sculptures everywhere (this isn't Utah anymore)



We walked back to our hotel (40 blocks down and about 7 over) and got ready for Wicked. It was so so so good, I just sat there when it was over hoping that they would start again. No luck however so we walked home walking up Time Square all lit up. This is one great city.

I love all their signs. I saw one that said $350 fine for honking.

The next day (Friday) we went on a site-seeing tour. We both really loved this, the tour guide knew everything about NY and we got to sit on a bus are relax for a good portion of the day.

We went to Wall Street

This is on the Staten Island Ferry

I know you can't see us but that is the Brooklyn Bridge behind us.

When we were done with the tour we met Lanny and Sherry at Grand Central Station. What a neat building.

On Saturday morning we were on Lanny time which put us in the city at the temple before the 7:45 a.m. session (remember that's a 25 min. train ride and then a 5 to 10 min. subway ride and a bunch of walking time). Now 7:45 doesn't sound that early but if you put it to Utah time we were there at 5:45 putting my Saturday wake up time at 3a.m. WOW!!!!!

Funny thing about the Manhattan Temple is that the day before we went right past it on our tour and didn't even notice it. You really have to look up if you want to see everything.

Since we arrived at the temple so early we had time to kill before our 2 p.m. Lion King show, so Sherry really wanted us to go to the wax museum, which ended up being really fun.

I took this picture for Jocelin (I've seen the dude, now do I really have to go to the movie?)

Before we went to the Lion King we went to The Hard Rock Cafe, it was such good food and a fun experience. The Lion King had wonderful costumes, but I do have to admit that I was a little disappointed in the singing.
Well, that's all for today, next time I will post Sunday through Wednesday

PS. Jay and I had a wonderful time, I didn't even miss my kids as much as I thought I would!

February Love

So I know I have a hard time blogging, I go in spurts, but I have been scrapbooking lately and I have 51 pages done. It is Halle's whole first year of life, yeah, I know it means nothing to most of you. Anyway, Jocelin posted these on her blog so I copied them and posted them on mine. I love when she takes pictures of my kids, she does such a great job. She also took some pictures of her kids you can see them on her blog, it was funny to watch her take pictures of her daughter Zoe (who will need therapy when she grows up:) that girl is totally trained where to put her head and how big to smile and where to look and so forth, you can totally tell her mother is a photographer! Now why wont my kids take me that seriously? And as always I promise to post more later (I know another empty promise!) To see Jocelins good work go to www.photographybyjocelin.com