Dr. Jonathon

The long awaited day finally came.

Jonathon officially earned his PhD and became Dr. Jonathon.

Thursday, August 5th was the day of Jonathon's dissertation defense. 22 family members from 4 states travelled to New York City to watch Jonathon present his talk. He spoke for about an hour about his various projects and the results and conclusions that he got during the past 5 years. I couldn't have been prouder. After the first 10 minutes, most of us didn't understand much of the information, but we knew that he was doing a fantastic job. He was calm, smooth, and thoroughly engaged in his presentation.
After the talk, Jonathon went into a conference room with his committee and they grilled him for an hour on everything they could think of related to his project. When we all arrived back at the reception to hear the results, we found out that he had passed with flying colors. He answered every single one of their questions, and they couldn't stump him. His committee only had to confer for 5 minutes to decide that he passed. He did so well, in fact, that he not only passed, but he was awarded "distinction" as well. That honor is only given to the top 10% of Columbia students. The day could not have gone better! What a wonderful experience it was to see 5 years of hard work culminate in such a positive and happy occasion.

A-Rod and me, we're BFF's!

On Wednesday my family and I went to a Yankees game. Among the many star players on the Yankees is Alex Rodriguez. A-Rod and I go way back. When he was young and playing for the Seattle Mariners, my brother and I used to watch him all the time. That was pre-$262 million contract and pre-steroid nastiness. He was just an awesome baseball player back then. Daniel and I loved everything about baseball and were fanatics. For my Senior trip, my mom took Daniel and me to 2 Seattle Mariners baseball games to see A-Rod play.

Back to Wednesday...

A-Rod was approaching a huge baseball milestone. He was about to become only the 7th player to ever hit 600 homeruns and the youngest to ever do it. He was stuck on 599 for a really long time. 12 games, in fact. For over 2 weeks, the sports world was waiting to celebrate the milestone. A-Rod must have known we were going to be at the game because he waited for us. On his first at bat, he smashed a homerun into the bullpen and hit the 600 milestone. We were all screaming and jumping around like crazy fools with 50,000 other Yankee fans. It was sure a fun experience. To top it all off, the Yankees won!

Hannah and me under the "Congratulations Alex, #600" sign

Mom and Christian at Yankee Stadium

Proof of Christian's first cotton candy

 The whole fam on the upper decks

Central Park Zoo

A few weeks ago, we went to the Central Park Zoo with our good friends Jess, Noah, and Gabe. They were our very first friends when we moved here, and this trip only confirmed how much we are going to miss them. The boys had the best time! They loved the sea lion show, the penguins, and the polar bears. They also could have spent all day running through the tunnels and climbing in the eggs at the Children's Zoo. What a splendid way to spend one of our last free days in New York City.

The Sea Lion Show... We had a front row view.

Noah and Christian walking through the zoo

They became friends the first Sunday we were in NYC when they were both terrorizing the Relief Society meeting.

The polar bears were a big hit.

Andrew and Christian in the turtle shells

All 4 kids in the giant egg!

Birthday Festivities

On Wednesday Jonathon went with me to a live showing of the Martha Stewart Show. While I must admit that I rarely watch Martha, I wanted to see a show while in NY, and hers was one of the only ones I was interested in. Jonathon wasn't too excited about going until I told him it could be my birthday present and the tickets were FREE.

We arrived at the studio early, stood in line for a while, then sat in the guest waiting room and got an overview of the show and the procedures. I didn't realize that it was going to be a live show, but that made it all the more exciting. Next we were moved to the studio and were prepped on various stage commands (i.e. applause, fade, etc.). Here is a picture of us sitting in the studio just before the show started:

The topics of the show itself weren't all that exciting. Her guest was some rapper named Big Boi. Yeah, never heard of him. (We found out later that the second taping that day was with Antonio Banderas :(. She then taught us how to cook lobster, make a garden apron and a shell sconce, and played a short segment on topiary gardens. This is the garden apron and part of her stage scenery:

After the show, some audience members got to ask Martha questions. She seemed exactly like what you would expect. Sweet, sincere, and a bit sassy too. It was a fun experience and I am glad we got a chance to go before we leave New York .

On my actual birthday (Sunday), the Primary kids sang to me, I heard from lots of great friends and family, and Jonathon busted out his culinary skills to make me an amazing dinner and dessert. For dinner he made chicken cordon bleu, seasoned mashed potatoes, and cooked carrots. For my "cake", he whipped up an amazing fruit tart that tasted as good as it looked. Seriously, the boy is good. It is a pastry crust, with a cream cheese layer, and topped with fruit. Oh, and you top it all with whipped cream. The recipe can be found here. YUM!

27 is looking to be a good year!

The Yankees Win, THHHEEEE Yankees Win!

On Monday night, we went to our first game at the new Yankee Stadium. 16 of Jonathon's lab-mates got tickets with us. We had a fantastic time! The Yankees played the Baltimore Orioles and ended up beating them 4-1. CC Sabathia was the pitcher, and as usual, Jeter and ARod played.

Leaving the boys was hard because Andrew was screaming as we tried to sneak out the door. He has a history of treating babysitters badly, so I was a little apprehensive at the game. About halfway through we got a text message from our awesome sitters saying he stopped crying 2 minutes after we left and went to bed without a peep. Yay for kind people who are willing to watch our little bugs. The rest of the game was a lot less stressful.

The stadium was beautiful. It was very clean and had a nice open feel. I noticed a huge contrast between it and Fenway Park in Boston. Fenway is small and has so much character, but Yankee stadium was much more "corporate." We were in our usual seats at the top of the stadium, but at least we weren't on the very back row like most events we have attended. Regardless, we had such a nice evening. This might have been our last Yankees game... ever, so we really wanted to enjoy it.

Our view of the field

ARod at bat

After the game

Marionette Show

One of Christian and Andrew's friends had a birthday last week. We all went to the Central Park Marionette Theatre for a puppet show and party. It was so fun! The kids loved it, and I had a good time too. Thanks for the fun day, Olive!

The stage, puppeteers, and decor

A scene from the show called "Three"-- a fun twist on a bunch of different fairy tales. This is the Big Bad Wolf cleaning the 3 bears' house. *pic courtesy of Abbie's awesome blog

The whole gang (well, most of them...)

Central Park Bike Ride

For Jonathon's birthday, I promised him a bike ride through Central Park followed by lunch at the Shake Shack. Thanks to our amazing friend and great babysitter, Andrea, we were able to go today. It was perfect weather for a bicycle ride, and Central Park was in full bloom. 6.2 miles of pure BEAUTIFUL! Come on a tour with us...

Spring Break Part IV-- Grandma in NYC

The best part of the week, for the boys, was spending time with Grandma C. She brought them so many special things and played with them non-stop. It was so fun to have her come, and we can't wait until she can come back.

*Christian, the hair-stylist

*Building forts out of couch cushions

*The Museum of Natural History

(We spent the whole hour in the dinosaur wing... surprise, surprise.)

*Playing at the Park

*Grandma and her Grandbabies

Spring Break Part III-- Boston

Going to Boston has been on my list of things to do before we leave New York for a long time, and now it can officially be crossed off. We had a fantastic time! The weather cooperated, and it was a beautiful day to walk around the city.

*To start the day, we took a tour of Fenway Park (home of the Red Sox). We got to explore all of the stadium and hear plenty of anti-Yankee jokes.

*The next picture was taken from the seats on top of the Green Monster. They are the most coveted seat in all of sports. You have to win an online lottery in order to purchase these tickets for around $160 each. Not only are they unique, but they also have a pretty great view.

*Jonathon is standing in front of one of the many old cemeteries that we saw while walking the Freedom Trail. Buried here are John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin's parents, all 5 victims of the Boston massacre, and maybe even Mother Goose (Mary Goose).

*This is the Old North Church where Paul Revere saw the 2 lanterns hung, indicating that the British were arriving by sea. He then made his famous midnight ride alerting the colonists that "The British are coming."

*Below is the U.S.S Constitution, better known as "Old Ironsides." It got its nickname in the War of 1812 because it was hit by several cannonballs, but sustained very little damage. We got to tour the main deck of the ship. Christian especially liked seeing the holes where they shot the cannons.

We saw and did so many more things, but these were the highlights of the trip. Each site was interesting, but the experience was really wonderful because of the history and charm of Boston. The cobblestone sidewalks, the old brick buildings, and the feeling of awe over the historical significance of the area made Boston a unique experience.

We all tried to come up with our favorite part of the trip...

Christian: "Where we waited at the store for tickets." (Fenway Park)

Jonathon: Touring the two ships

Sarah: Plymouth/Old North Bridge/Fenway Park (I couldn't pick just one!)

Mom C: Exploring the old cemeteries along the Freedom Trail

Spring Break Part II-- Lexington and Concord

*After Plymouth, we headed to Lexington to start a short battlefield tour. We started at Lexington, drove past the site of Paul Revere's capture, and ended up at the Old North Bridge, where the "shot heard 'round the world" was fired.

*The Northeast (especially Rhode Island) was seriously flooded after several large storms. While we were driving, we had to change our route 3 times in order to get around the water. The flooding was particularly bad at the Old North Bridge, as evidenced by this sign.

*Here is our family at the Old North Bridge. This was my favorite stop along the battlefield. It was here that most people say the Revolutionary War officially started. Amazing history...

Spring Break Part I-- Plymouth

My Mom came to see us during her Spring Break, and we headed up to Boston for 2 days. On the way, we stopped at Plymouth, Massachusetts. It was a quaint little Cape Cod town with a lot of history. We had a great time.

*This is Plymouth Rock. A large portion of it was removed years ago, but the rest is enclosed here for visitor's to see. It has the date 1620 (when the Pilgrims landed) engraved on it.

*Jonathon called his Grandma to find out the names of his ancestors that came across on the Mayflower. It turns out they were quite famous. This gift shop is dedicated to one of them, John Alden, and the other was the first governor of Plymouth, William Bradford.

*This is our family at the Mayflower II. It is a reconstruction of the original Mayflower. On board was a man dressed in colonial clothes and acting the part of the original ship's captain. We asked him questions about the ship and he answered them, all while staying in character. It was very interesting.

*At the Harbor in front of Mayflower II