Too much Star Wars?

I have been getting out the Easter decorations and decorating the house a little bit for Easter. Easter is just so early this year I haven't prepared too far in advance. But, since our church is having an Easter Egg hunt on Saturday, I figured it was time to start digging out their Easter baskets, along with our plastic eggs since we always have an Easter Egg hunt with our neighbors. I also needed to find the Resurrection Eggs so we could use them for family devotions this week (which we started last night by talking about Palm Sunday and Jesus riding on a donkey). Anyway, back to the story...the kids found a few stuffed rabbits that they have been playing with today. It's amazing how exciting a stuffed animal is when you haven't seen it for a year. They were naming their rabbits and Brandon told Bekah, "This one is Peter Cottontail, but sometimes I call him Sebulba." I think that might be a definite sign of too much Star Wars!!!!

The big snow!

On Friday morning around 7am it started to snow, and it snowed off and on until Saturday around lunchtime. We ended up with anywhere from 6-18 inches of snow, depending on where you measured. It was very windy, so the snow was very uneven, but in most places it was at least 9 or 10 inches deep. We even had thundersnow on Friday night with lightening and thunder!

Our back yard around 9 am on Saturday, before it was finished snowing!

It was almost waist high on Bekah as she came out the back door!

This spot has 17 inches of snow!

Our front yard

Our street

Brandon is ready to sled. The snow was so deep that it was hard to sled until it got packed down a bunch.

Bekah was brave enough to sled by herself this time. She just kept saying, "I don't want to go fast!"

Daddy went sledding too!

The kids decided to build an igloo!

Brandon is hard at work clearing out the inside of the igloo!

Todd splatted Brandon with a very large snowball.....just kidding!!

The finished igloo....maybe they can sleep out there tonight!!!

Looks like it's getting dark. It must be the end of a very fun day!

Going Home

On Saturday morning, we said goodbye to our home away from home, the Omni Hotel.

Our driver picked us up at the hotel around 9 am. We had about an hour drive to the Long Island airport. Then we caught a flight to Chicago. We had a short layover there and about a 30 minute delay and then boarded another flight to Nashville.

After retreiving our bags, we caught the shuttle to the long term parking lot and found our van. It had an almost flat tire and the battery was absolutely dead. Thankfully they have guys at the airport who will drive out and start your car and fill up your tires! Then we drove over to the Opry Mills mall where we met my parents and were reunited with our kiddos! After a little walking to stretch our legs and dinner at the mall, we got back in our van to make the 3 hour long drive back to our house. So, we finally arrived home a few minutes before 11 pm. What a long day! We are thankful to be home and feel so blessed to have had this opportunity to go to New York!

Ferry and Statue

On Friday, we rode the Staten Island Ferry which passed by the Statue of Liberty. Here are some pictures from the ride.

Lower Manhattan

Yesterday we took the Subway down to Lower Manhattan. There are lots of huge, beautiful buildings (as there are in Midtown where we've been staying).

This is a monument in Battery Park. I don't know if you'll be able to read the sign in the picture below, but this is a monument that was damaged on 9/11 at the World Trade Center, and they moved it to Battery Park and lit an eternal flame.

We went to Ground Zero, and it is basically a construction zone. They are in the process of constructing the new building and memorial.

We also went over to Wall Street and saw the Stock Exchange and Federal Hall.