2012 St. Patrick's Day

We had plans to party with friends, but they ended up getting pink eye.  And we all know how pink eye affects Sharon.  Highland games will have to wait for another time. Our unplanned event was that we ended up in New York City and saw some of the St. Patrick's day parade.

 Ira wasn't sure what to make of all the people in green.

We stayed long enough to see a few bagpipe groups go by and a a lot of policemen.

Sharon put her amazing cake decorating skills to work and made this sweet cake. She also perfected the corned beef and cabbage.

 Sharon's interjection:  This cake really makes me smile as I think, "My 3rd grader made that all by herself?!?" And then I realize that I don't have a 3rd grader, and that I'm the one who made the cake.  It didn't turn out how I envisioned, but it was extremely fun to make...and watch Ira eat.

Ira eating the "apple-con."

In other craftiness, we remember Ira drowning in most of his clothes when he was born.  So our solution was to buy a load of cheep onesies and tie die them for baby #2.  Sharon has experimented with quick and easy versions of the art, but never the real deal.  It was more fun the second time around, perhaps since Ira helped. 

Spring in Central Park

We decided to get a visit to the temple in before the baby came. Such a treat. Ira and I enjoyed our early morning walk through Central Park where spring was starting to unfold. We even caught some of the New York St. Patrick's Day Parade, picture are in our St. Patrick's day post.

Ira liked the pond with the Ducks

 I enjoyed seeing the green lace on the trees and the emerging flowers.

 

 Some early morning hockey. It was pretty with all of the mist coming off the ice.

 It was tricky trying to capture the moment with my cellphone, but I liked the way this one turned out, with the city and nature merging in the early morning light.

West Point Visit

 While my family was here we made the short trip out to West Point, NY. We did a thorough walk through of the Military Academy's visitor center and free Museum. 

 Reporting for duty.

Down in the basement they had an Atom Bomb display as part of the large weapons exhibit. I'd never been close to one before, amazing to think how destructive such a small and simple looking thing can be.

I also enjoyed the history of war gallery that pointed out the major shifts in military strategies over the years and the war leaders that introduced them.

I don't have many pictures because I was the one lagging behind everyone reading the exhibits, but we can take you when you come to visit :)

Sharon’s Updates

This week was busy and I have created a couple of posts below to capture the major events. I have put Sharon’s family update first, which is a good quick overview. I should note that Sharon is good about writing family updates and it was suggested that I post her updates for a second point of view and since this is the Quinntessentials it only makes sense to have updates from both of us. I will start posting them from here on out, so without further ado, Sharon’s update….

Hi Family,
   It's been a fun, kind of party-ish week and a half.  I think I'll try to write it in bullet form so you can skim through all my lengthy commentary. :)
*  Balloons: Anthony and I won over $50 in gift certificates at a little town event adult balloon toss.  It was really fun.  Live music and free food.  The fact that I made it out without getting soaked was nice too.  If only Anthony could say the same.  :) 
*  Family!:  My cousin Mary and her husband Barney arrived late Saturday night from Orem.  She's due about 3 days after me, so it was fun to have another prego around. :)  I enjoyed showing them how to use the Metro system, and around D.C. a little.  We went to the temple on Tuesday to do a session and go out to lunch with my parents who have officially started serving their mission in D.C!
*  NYC:  Anthony took a couple of days off work (which has been suuuper slow), so we could go up to New York with Mary and Barney.  We slept at my parents place in PA, met up with our friend Gabe Proulx and made our way to the Big Apple.  It's fun because Gabe, Ant, and Barney all lived in the Bountiful Court apts. and were all friends before I moved in.  I grew up with Gabe, who talked me into moving into the BC, where I met Anthony.  Yay!  And then in a round about way, Mary and Barney met because I had lived there.  Anyway, so it was good to be with so many close friends/relatives.  In New York, we saw Phantom of the Opera, ate some New York Pizza, saw Ground Zero, the Apple store, took a Ferry to and from Staten Island where we could get a good view of the Brooklyn bridge and Statue of Liberty. 
*  Amish country:  The next day we felt like being lazy, so we checked out Hershey Chocolate World, and went out for some seriously authentic Pennsylvania dutch food.  Mmm.  Hamloaf and woopie pie.  Then back to D.C.
*  Mary and Barney headed back last night after we had a fun visit/lunch with my parents and Quoc, and old family friend.  And then we headed North to Maryland where we could watch Phish...Anthony's one and only favorite band. They broke up a few years ago, but have reunited for a tour this summer.  It was pretty sweet, but it was past my bedtime most of the time.  And I couldn't help but wish for tiny earplugs for the baby, who is now 4 moths along!  Woohoo! 
   It was definitely a fun week.  I guess it was kind of the last Hurrah before heading back to Pittsburgh (which we're looking forward to) and going back to teaching preschool (which I'm trying to get pumped up for).  I guess I'm a little nervous since I've been so spoiled with so much free time to play and sleep. 
  Love you guys!  We constantly feel blessed to have you as family!
  Sharon  

She also had a lot of pictures attached all of which, plus more can be found in our online photo album for the summer here.

DC

The Big Apple

Sharon’s cousin, Mary, and her husband, Barney, came to DC for a little vacation  before Barney starts his MBA and Mary gives birth to their first child. I got a few days off work so we could all go and play. We headed up to Marietta, PA to pick up Gabe a friend Sharon grew up with and the rest of us got to know when we all lived in the same apartment complex in Provo.

With the gang together we drove over to New York to get as much in as we could in one day. We took the ferry over from Staten Island which allowed us to see the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge. We then took the metro up to time square and got tickets to Phantom of the Opera (we tried to get into Wicked, but that didn’t happen). We had some New York pizza, went to Central Park, saw the Apple store, checked out the Trump Tower and its supper expensive ice cream shop (we passed on that for some Baskin Robins), saw ground Zero, and then headed home.

New York was a packed day so we took Thursday nice and slow in Marietta. We visited Hersey, PA (really Derry, pronounced dairy, Township) and enjoyed the magic of Hershey’s Chocolate World. We stopped by Sharon’s old work, ‘The Country Table’, to get a taste of the Pennsylvania Dutch food. It was really good. That afternoon we headed back to Washington. More pictures can be found on our DC album for the summer.

This was a really fun trip. We were with good fun people and we all got along well. It was nice to get out and just have fun. However, as great as a place as New York City is I realized that I probably wouldn’t want to live there. I do think that living close enough to make it there once or twice a year to enjoy Broadway and other attractions would be really fun.