We Love Upstate New York

We were very close to coming back to Utah, packing up all our things and moving to New York.  It was that gorgeous.  The fresh air created by the plethora of beautiful trees combined with the rich history and friendly people who always greet with a smile, unlike many Utahans who don't even acknowledge your presence next to them at a cross walk, put upstate New York towards the top of our "Places we want to live" list.

We arrived Friday afternoon, after much luck getting onto fully booked planes (we flew non-revenue which means we fly stand-by).  We almost had to stay a night in Chicago, which we actually were a little excited for, however making the flight to Albany was also exciting.  Nikki and the kids picked us up and took us to get some New York pizza in Saratoga Springs where we met "Brooklyn Bob" who tried to tell us how the owner of the pizza place would increase his profit by advertising that "Brooklyn Bob" ate there on a regular basis.  Apparently, Bob knows his pizza.   Anyway, the pizza was delicious.  Couldn't get enough.

Didn't get a picture of the pizza, but got a picture of Dallin drinking Saratoga water in Saratoga Springs

 

Climbing the "spider web" at Bailey's cheer practice

The next day, we went for a morning stroll around the Senelick's neighborhood in Corinth, enjoying the gorgeous trees and fresh rain that didn't leave a film of dirt on the cars like Utah rainstorms tend to do.  We then got to go apple picking where we had our very first, and very addicting, Apple Cider Donuts.  I came home and immediately looked on Pinterest for recipes.

Cute Will enjoying his

Gorgeous walk

Since it was towards the end of the season, most of the easy to grab/see apples were gone from the trees.  Nevertheless, with much effort, we found some good apples at the top of the hill that no one treks up.  A good experience that resulted in a delicious apple pie, apple topping for pancakes, and apple crisp made by Jared.

Jared and Bailey on the tractor to the orchards

Nikki enjoying a cider donut and me excited for apples

Getting some up high apples

Dallin's favorite apple of the day

Family of monkeys

Giant apple

Apple had more fun eating apples than picking them

All our apples

Sunday was spent at Bailey's first cheer competition.  Loved supporting her, but Dallin and I quickly came up with ways that we could sway our children away from cheer.  The competition makes for a very long day.  Quoting my mother regarding her experience at Lexi's cheer competitions, "She has no idea how painful they were for me."

Bailey with her team

Workin' it

Monday we went back down to Saratoga Springs where we toured the Horse Racing Museum and Congress Park along with downtown Saratoga.  Such a cute little town.  We then met up with Dallin's cousins, Missy and Chad, who just moved out there a couple months ago for school and stayed with them Monday night.  They made us some delicious tacos and introduced us to putting Thousand Island dressing on our tacos-delicious-and then played some pretty intense rounds of The Office CLUE.

Bailey trying the spring water at Congress Park

She has attitude

Will was potty training...

Missy and Chad took us to Uncle Sam's graveside

As always, it is nice to be home, but we miss the beauty of New York.

Revolutionary War museum

Enjoy your week!  Love you.