Manhattan Temple

We found a couple in the ward that has willing to teach us the ins and outs of a temple run in the city as well as do babysitting swaps with us, so with that we made our first trip down to the Manhattan Temple.

We learned where the good places to park are, including the garage we used which had this sign posted. We felt welcome despite the misspelled name.

The Temple was beautiful of course, but it was different because it didn't have the incredible landscaping and breathtaking/eye catching architecture as most other Temple's I've seen. It blends into the city well though. The church has definitely made good use of the real estate here as it is used for everything. The interior reminded me of 1920's city style. Efficient use of space in good taste would my summation of it.

It was a beautiful day and  Central Park is only a few blocks away so while we were babysitting all we had to do was go into the park and let the kids play. We'll have to get more creative as it gets cooler.

Eating Apples

As I've mentioned before, Ira is loving the idea of feeding himself. Enjoy the short clip we threw together. I love to watch him exploring the world and see him learning.

The only downside with him trying to be more involved with the feeding process is the mess afterwards. I guess it's a small price to pay in the end.

Bluegrass, Water Falls, and Stone Sculptures

Labor day marks the unofficial end of summer and the beginning of fall. We are now mostly settled in as you can tell from Sharon's video tour of our new place and so we start the New England chapter of our life. We are looking forward to getting to know the surrounding area better and have a good start on it. We visited Maine last week and loved it. This weekend we have been exploring areas closer to us as the roads are busy with all of the holiday travelers. We started out at a little State Park where there is a series of small water falls that cascade down the mountain side called, Kent Falls. It was a beautiful day and as you can see in the pictures below the park was pleasant.

The park below the falls was busy with people picnicking and playing frisbee. The hike up to see the other parts of the falls wasn't as busy, which was nice.

I loved this cute little covered bridge. There are supposedly a lot of covered bridges still in use in the area, I'm hoping to get around to seeing some of them.

Ira feeding himself, he's really getting into this. We'll post some video of him later.

Kent Falls is about a quarter mile of stream cascading down the limestone rock through potholes and down slippery slopes. It reminded me of some of the canyons I've hiked in Southern Utah, just in limestone surrounded by forest instead of in desert sandstone.

We discovered a side trail that took us through this amazing stone sculpture garden, I guess you could call them karen's(trail markers) but they were the most elaborate ones I've ever seen and were everywhere, but the trail.

 How many can you count in the background?

And these were some of the simpler ones...

Some were small, others were quite tall.

After the park we headed over to Sherman, one of the small downs just outside of Danbury, to enjoy some bluegrass/folk music. The music and atmosphere were wonderful. It was put on in a small 'clubhouse' (really more of a barn/cabin) by an excellent group of musicians next to a beautiful lake. The music was cheerful with the audience clapping along enjoying in the marry tunes. The musicians told how a few of them meet riding the trains into New York City to play on Broadway for shows like The Jersey Boys and The Color Purple.

Our drive back took us along a twisty tree covered road I can't wait to go back to when the leaves start to change colors.

Tour of the New Place.

For those of you who've been asking about the place, here it is.  Come visit!
p.s.  Sorry for my "talking to Ira" tone of voice.  Just pretend that you're Ira and you won't feel condescended.  :)