Everyone Loves A Parade

We went to see the Morris Plains Memorial Day parade on Saturday morning.  You can't beat a parade!  Whitney's favorite part was "the clowns". Lindsey's was the bands-she would dance her little tooshie off when she heard the music.

Sisters

Waiting for the fun to start

Who knew parades could be so intense?

Studying the bands

New Jerseys finest

Fleet Week

It's Fleet Week in New York.  Basically alot of sailors and marines come into port, they check out the city and people can check out what they do.  We toured the USS Iwo Jima, which had different air craft aboard and different military demostrations.  Then we headed over to the Intrepid, a sea, air and space museum next door.  After that it was dinner time, so we found a deli, got some sandwiches and sat at playground to eat and let Whitney play.  Friday night in the big city!

Ben and his girls with a big helicopter-plane thing

Whit in her cool glasses

Whitney walking the "balance beam" on the deck

The girls in the anchor room of the Intrepid

Mommy and Whitney in a boat that simulated the waves of the Intrepid

This Post's For You Mandy...

Ben took me to my fancy birthday dinner on Thursday to Per Se in New York City.  He had been there before with the other tight ends and had such an awesome experience that he wanted to take me.  Let me tell you, this was the fanciest meal we have ever had, and probably the last. :)  First of all its located at the southwest corner of Central Park.  When we walked in, the greeter looked at Ben and said, "Welcome back", then she looked at me and said, "Happy Birthday!"  We hadn't even told them our names!  Then we get our menus, which, at this restaurant, you don't choose an entree or salad, etc.,  you choose which nine course meal you want.  Anyway, at the top of the menu it says "Happy Birthday Amy".  Fun!  We had an awesome view of the city over looking Central Park looking towards the Upper East Side.  It was really beautiful as the sun was setting and reflecting on the windows of the buildings.  The flower arrangements were gorgeous and enormous, litterally the size of a small tree or a large bush.  Throughout the dinner we would just get a "whiff" of the floral aroma.  Wow!  And the meal...knock your socks off!  We ate lobster, oysters, harts of palm, ribeye, bone marrow, crawfish, chicken, foie gras (duck liver), sturgeon (fish), caviar, and various desserts of chocolate, raspberries, sorbets.  You would not believe all the different ways things can be prepared, dressed, presented.  Every presentation was beautiful and oh so tasty!  And after dinner we got to go meet the chef in the kitchen.  It was the cleanest kitchen ever, I mean, nothing on the floor, nothing on the tables, nothing.  It was fun to see them all working together getting orders out.  It was just a great night out.  One I know we'll never forget.  Oh, and we got to see a famous person, Isaac Mizrahi.  He's a fashion designer.  That was pretty cool.  The night was totally all about the experience.  Ben's career has taken us to many places and blessed us with so many wonderful experiences.  Life is all about experiences.  We are so, so grateful. 

All dressed up and ready to go

Our view.  Isaac Mizrahi is on the right, his head in between the bars 

Our first course, oysters and caviar on tapioca with sabayon

Our last dessert, chocolate and pistachios lots of different ways

Family Fun Day Outside

It was a beautiful day here in New Jersey.  That's right, we're in New Jersey again.  The girls and I got here last Wednesday.  We hadn't planned on coming until over the weekend, but my poor hubby pulled his hamstring, so we came earlier to help him heal up.  We are so happy to be together as a family again.  Today was a scorcher, in the 90s, but we still had a fun day.  We went to pick strawberries and then came home to play in the water hose.  Whitney had a blast at both, but our sweet little Lindsey, well, she didn't seem to have much fun anywhere.  She kept falling in the strawberry rows which got her mad and she screamed at the water as if she was being chased by...I don't know what, but she was terrified.  I'm hoping it was just because it was cold water.  I am so grateful for this day, my husband, my girls, my life...great day!

 Ready for the wagon ride to the strawberry patch

Whitney was such a good big sister hanging on to her sister so she didn't fall off

So, you know how you aren't "supposed" to eat the strawberries?  She was giving it away for us :)

Sweet Whitney

Cooling off with a popscisle

Yummy!

Sweet girl

They had many animals there, goats, chickens, baby cows, donkeys, peacocks, but Whitney's favorite was the rooster that kept crowing.  She loved it!

Water works at the house...Daddy had a little too much fun hosing down his girls.

Having fun...

Not having fun...Bless her little heart

So sweet

A Good Day

So my birthday was yesterday...31...Ben, unfortunately, wasn't here, but he spoiled me the day before with a brand new pair of sassy Ralph Lauren sunglasses, a Zune (Microsofts version of an Ipod) and we'll be going to dinner at a fancy restaurant in the city called, Per Se, in the next couple weeks.  He's super duper in my book!  The actual day was fun, I took off to go shopping for the day, then my BFF Mandy came over to make me a birthday dinner, chicken piccata and BLT pasta.  Yep, it was delicious!  And I had numerous phone calls, multiple versions of Happy Birthday sang to me, lots of emails, Facebook messages...So what I'm saying is...I was pretty much spoiled to the max for my birthday!  Maybe 31 isn't so bad after all...

Night Out on the Town

A big group of us went out to dinner over the weekend to celebrate my 31st birthday.  It really was just a "reason" to get out of the house and feel like adults for the night.  Outstanding!  We had dinner at Buckhead Diner, but that really was just a formality before the big star of the night, Cafe Intermezzo.  You can eat dinner there, but the star of the show are the two cases full of desserts.  I had the Oreo cheesecake.  Yummy!

Chad and Mandy

Chuck and Stacey

Kim and Britton

Jason and Pamela

Andrea and Bowdie

Barry and Christa

Who is that handsome fellow?!

Strawberries!

It's strawberry time! Today we went to pick strawberries, two buckets worth to be exact. Whitney did a good job picking (minus a couple small green ones) and kept saying "look mommy, this one is really juicy." She's so funny. We plan on eating alot of them and making some strawberry bread. Yummy!

Mother's Day

So, I know we are going to regret this one, but we didn't take a single picture this Mother's Day.  It was a really great day though.  Ben made me breakfast in bed, pancakes, eggs, toast, fruit and a caprisun to wash it all down...then Whit gave me a Pandora bead for my bracelet that she picked out, then we headed to church.  After church we went to lunch and then came home and had the best two hour family nap ever!!!  Unfortunately after our nap we had to take daddy back to the airport for the week...Boooooo!  But he'll be back on Thursday night.  We love him and miss him already!  Thanks for a great day hubby and sweet baby girls.  Mommy loves you!

Day Date at Durhamtown

Ben and I had a "day date" on Friday at his most favorite place in the world...Durhamtown.  Ben, of course, had his bike and we rented a 4-wheeler for myself.  We had a great time together and I loved seeing Ben having so much fun.  I did admit though, that it freaked me out a little to see him jumping the way he was.  But I was more comfortable with it as the day went on.  I sure think he's pretty good.  He was a great teacher for me as well and did a good job looking after me.  We didn't take many pictures.  He just took couple of me learning my ride and then at the end of the day all dirty.  We were so thankful for a wonderful day together!