Took Our Broken Hearts and Put Them in a Drawer

Fall this year was bitter-sweet. The weather was incredible and it lasted so so much longer than last year, and my sweet friends were having babies and welcoming in new members to their families. These were all really great, really incredible things. But as I walked into the hospital one eveing to visit one of my friends after having her baby, I felt sad for myself. This was suppose to be me in a few weeks. Ace asked if I was ok and then just grabbed my hand and smiled. I was ok. I felt like I was doing so much better than I thought I would, but sometimes, I just got sad. 

I was worried that these sad moments would come too often as I drew closer and closer to our "due date". I just wanted the due date to come and go and so I could just carry on. So Ace helped me to plan an escape. It is so great to be with a person who wants you to be happy more than anything else in the world. I know I feel this way about Ace, but it isn't always the way I act. Lucky for me though, this is exactly how he acts. Instead of taking the weekend of our "due date" and making it easier for both of us, Ace just planned a way to make it easier for me.

I would leave for NYC, meet Asia there (best decision EVER) and Ace would take on all the extra work at home by himself. Not only was he ok with this, he pushed the idea until it was reality. I was so grateful to have this incredible weekend to skip over a sad day, but I was more grateful for the realization that I married the right person. 

Ok, enough about Ace :-). On to NYC!

So I love ASIA!! I am so grateful that we formed such a strong friendship before Ace and I were even married. We had already decided that if things didn't work out between Ace and me, we would still keep each other. She is one of my very best friends and I am so grateful that she took time and money to run around the city with me and be a couple of carefree wanderers. 

We had very few hiccups the entire trip. One being both of us flying into different airports than we had expected another was  hunting for public bathrooms and the last one was loosing my gift for my boys...which we found! It really was such an easy care free trip. I felt grounded and like my load was lightened.

(That's me)

We were so lucky to be able to stay with my truly incredible friend Jessica Pac. I met Jess last year and loved her immediately. I knew her for only 9 months before my family moved to California for the summer and her family moved to NYC for good. But she opened her home to Asia and me. It was so great to be able to spend some time with her and her sweet little family. She lives right by Columbia so it was also a really great location for all of our adventuring.

Day 1: Ate dinner in Time Square at the very exotic Olive Garden, and went to the play The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time before heading to Jess's for a nice late night chat with 2 of my favorite ladies.

Day 2: A little shopping in Time Square, lunch with Jess and visit Washington Square, bike around Central Park, visit the MET and then onto our musical that evening called A Gentlemens Guide to Love and Murder.

On the roof of the MET! One of my favorite days with one of my favorite people. It was a a beautiful autumn evening.

Day 3: Met up with some of Asia's BYU friends for some brunch, Farmers Market at Union Square, visited the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, explored around Rockefeller Center, strolled around the city before returning back to Jess's for the night.

(Farmers Market in Union Square)

Day 4: Breakfast at Tom's Diner (iconic Seinfield restaurant and known for one of my favorite songs; Tom's Diner by Susan Vega. "I am sitting in the morning at the diner on the corner"), bus ride to LGA and the vacation has come to an end.

This trip was perfect! It made me not only move past a potentially rough weekend, but it went a step further by helping me to see how truly blessed I am with incredible people in my life. Hard things happen sometimes; but I know my life is richly blessed and I am beyond grateful for it.

Oh, How Lovely Was The Morning

"Bees were humming, sweet birds singing,

Music ringing through the grove."

(Joseph Smith's childhood home in Palmyra New York)

One beautiful autumn day in September 2015,  church was canceled.

We think the heater kicked on for the first time since last winter and maybe burned some dust or something, but whatever the reason it resulted in the fire station being called and the building getting checked over by the local fire department. The building got the A-Ok to return into, however at that point the ward leadership had already canceled church for the day. 

It ended up being a huge blessing because we had a whole entire day on our hands and nothing planned with it. None of the Stryker boys had ever been to the Sacred Grove in Palmyra so we decided that would be the perfect Sunday activity, especially on a fall day in New York.

I love the picture below! 

Just me and my two sweet boys hand-in-hand, walking into the Sacred Grove. It wasn't like this huge spiritual experience where the boys knew they were walking on hallowed grounds. But instead it was a simple peaceful feeling, that maybe only Ace and I felt. The boys ran around happily in the autumn sunlight. There was no bickering, no pestering and very few other people were around. We saw a few sister missionaries, and one couple from Australia while we were there. But other than that, my sweet family and I could just enjoy the time together in a beautiful place, on a beautiful day were we could explain some really incredible things to our boys about the incredible gospel that we live each and every day.

Silly faces of course and good thing Ace remembered to wear his name tag.

Right in the sun but you can see the tip of the Palmyra temple poking through the trees.

We found ourselves on the way home too! So that was just an added bonus.

Lions, and Tigers, and Camping with 7 Littles; Oh my

Before school got too crazy and the weather got too cold we decided to take a camping trip with the Hogges, Kuhres and Currans. With the 4 families together we had 7 little ones all under the age of 4. It was crazy but it sure was fun! It was Reid's first time camping in a tent and he did so great. 

We camped at Watkins Glen State Park and then the following morning we enjoyed exploring the beautiful gorges and falls. Laura and Jen were both quite pregnant but somehow didn't seem to notice as they hiked and chased kids around all day. I was so grateful the Kuhres had this great idea and invited us all along.

The kids were such troopers. They walked a ton and had great attitudes about it. They had a hard time staying to the trail and were often lured to the creek and surrounding puddles. Reid slipped into the creek after getting too close, and ended up spending the rest of the day exploring the highly popular trails of Watkins Glen in just his diaper and sandals. Luckily, he didn't seem to mind at all. 

These two were made just perfectly for me. They are so fun and so easy going (for the most part. Reid still will give you an ear full when he feels his needs aren't being met). They probably wouldn't survive in our family other wise. 

Autumn in New York

Fall time in New York is absolutely enchanting. I was so grateful because we had a bit of an Indian Summer this year. The warm weather and green beautiful days lasted so much longer this year. I've been quite smitten with Ithaca this school year, which I know says a lot considering the dramatic break-up the two of us had after last winter. I never thought this relationship could be mended, but I honestly find myself thinking that I'd love to live in a place like this.

I love this picture because it documents something Garret could not do all last year. He tried so hard to climb up these spider legs and then hang down but his legs and arms weren't quite long enough to make that big gap and get to the top. He must have grown over the summer, because he came back able to climb on everything and even do the monkey bars. Gross Motor skills were worked on all fall and Garret showed a ton of growth and progress in this area.

chasing ducks at Cayuga Lake

and climbing trees

Love this sweet moment with Reid. We got some tasty treats at the Farmers Market here and then just sat on the bridge watching/feeding the ducks in the water below.

Taking the plunge into Treman Falls

One of the best things this that happened this fall, was finding this sweet little gem of a place. Flat Rock. The kids and adults could play here for hours. We did a playgroup here and then had such a great time we brought Ace back for a visit later that week.

The weather changed slowly and gracefully, leaving us with beautiful views like the picture above, and gave us warm wonderful days spent outside like the picture below.

Picking Fun at Grisamore Farms

One of our very favorite things to do in New York is go to all the U-Pick farms and pick, play and stuff our faces. We made sure to do this pretty immediately after returning to New York and we made sure to do it several times before the weather turned too cold. Again, one of our very favorite activities.

One day we invited a couple of the Dads along to pick blueberries. They weren't our best pickers, but they enjoyed the beautiful weather and good company and we just enjoyed having them around.

Garret is a pretty big fan of sweet Logan

The best picking crew around....and by far the cutest.

This year we even picked our own pumpkin. The boys found a pretty perfect one, but fell in love with a painted Minion faced one, apparently named Kevin. So we walked away with two pumpkins from Grisamore Farms

We are lucky to have so many great friends here; both big and little.