Our cross country trip...

...was a blast. ( BEWARE, VERY LONG POST!!!) Kyler and I packed up and left dad with the girls for a little break from home. We drove to Salt Lake and boarded a plane headed for Massachusetts to see a friend of ours, Brandi, that moved there last summer. Kyler was an absolute angel on the plane.. He either slept or played the entire time. I decided to bag the stroller and just carried him in a backpack the whole time. This definitely made it much easier. I'm not sure how people travel alone with more than one child though. Kyler was good and it was still a ton of work. We arrived to a home Cooked cafe Rio dinner, unfortunately there are none where she lives. She did an awesome job though, the food was very good! We decided to just take it easy and do some shopping, play Nintendo, and just catch up a bit. We ate at another good restaurant that we don't have here called Panera Bread. They have awesome soup and sandwiches there.
On Saturday we went to Bunco night with a group of girls from her ward. Brandi's sister Kaci was also in town and we all went together. These girls really go all out and it was so much fun meeting some new people! Thanks for letting us crash your party! On Monday, we decided to head to New York to do some shopping and sight seeing. Kaci, Brandi, Kyler, and I headed for the city. The rental car that we had was equipped with a GPS system and it took us straight to the parking garage that we needed to get to. A GPS is defiantly a must for traveling in the city, it was so Awesome! We drove along the Hudson river into Manhattan and parked our car in a garage there. The first spot in New York City that we saw was Times Square and it is so much more overwhelming in person than in movies and pictures. We went to Hard Rock, Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, & Sephora. You can find almost any chain somewhere in Times Square or near it. We ate at a little pizza place right off of Times Square and it was great!! After lunch we headed to Canal Street to do a little shopping. I definatly got an education while I was there. The street can be a rough place. We saw so many different kinds of people. There are numerous purses, perfumes, watches, etc. sold there and most of the stuff is fake or stolen. I did get a favorite perfume and a cute bag. After shopping, we headed to Ground Zero to see just what it really looked like. They are working on building something in the spot, so so it is hard to see. It was weird actually standing right where it all happened. All of the walking made us tired and hungry, so we decided to find something good to eat.
We headed to Lupa a restaurant owned by Mario Batali from the food network. We ate the best meal I have ever had and it was pretty reasonably priced considering the owner and location. I would definitely recommend it to others! All in all we had a great trip. Thanks Brandi for letting us stay!

P.S. I am awful and left the camera in the car at the airport. Before I realized it we had already gone through airport security. So, when I get some pictures from Brandi I will post them on here.