saying good bye to July

We've had some changes in our life. Sonia is taking ballet... just kidding. I simply love this shot.
1. When we got a cool new Dvd player in Brighton Beach (it playes all formats from around the globe and should be illegal), our old TV that came from Grandma Wilder became absolute. Sad as it was, we had to find a new one on craigslist for $40. Well, on Sunday in church our friends offered us a flat screen 36 inch-wide TV. We laughed and decided to get it. Now we are proud owners of three television sets in our NY apartment.

2. Yesterday Jeremy was let off work. He has been super busy these 24 hours, perhaps more busy than his last couple of weeks at work. We hope for something to come our way and he most definitely is on top of it.

3. Last weekend my nice leather purse/diaper bag got dropped into the East river with it went my camera. I recovered the purse and now it has a cool design. My camera drowned. Jeremy got me a new one and I love it.We head to the 3rd play ground last night and I put it to good use. Jeremy and Sonia had lots of fun playing and chasing after each other.

This is where Sonia decided she could walk by herself for the first time. It was about a week ago but she still considers this place safe for free walking. Sonia is super cautious to let go of mom's hand.

Wild ride on the spring horse. Sonia gets into it and sometimes it feels like the horse is almost taking of.We also celebrated Samuel's first birthday in the park with cupcakes and some friends (in order, Jarom, Remy, Keahi, Brooklynn, Samuel, Sonia and Simon)

Billy Joel at Shea

It was the first of Mr. Joel’s two “Last Play at Shea” shows, which are to be the final concerts at Shea baseball stadium before it is demolished. Neither Jeremy or I has been to a concert of this size before. Shea seats 60,000, it was sold out in 40 minutes and our seats were somewhere in the middle.

That was one of the perks of living in NYC!

Jeremy's instant response and creativity with his answers to a trivia questions at work made it possible for us to enjoy a free night. Plus all thanks to Natalie who was willing to watch Sonia. Needless to say we got back a bit too late... around 1 am.

We kicked off our night with a dinner at the Oyster Bar at Grand Central... one of the best sea food places. I always struggle there to order because they've got more than 100 sea food choices that are excellent.

The metro ride was packed with Mr. Joel's fans. Most of them from Long Island.

Mr. Joel brought Tony Bennett out to join him in “New York State of Mind,” and they pushed each other toward flamboyantly jazzy vocal turns. There were lots of guest performers that night. Billy, Tony and Jeremy ;)Mr. Joel sang “A Hard Day’s Night” with John Lennon inflections in his voice... in August 1965 the Beatles played at Shea. It was a first rock concert at the baseball stadium and it showed the world that rock’s audience had grown by an order of magnitude.

By the way, the stadium will be torn down but Billy Joel is older than this stadium. He recalled that Shea was built while he was a teenager. “Now they’re going to tear it down,” he mused, “and I’m still playing.”

trip to a Central Park Zoo

The kid zoo was fun last Saturday. Here is Sonia and a rabbit.
Sonia saw her first puppet show with a rabbit and a frog who both could hop around. She loved it.
Then she crawled on the spider web. For a minute there were only boys there.

Then we fed goats some goat food. It was hilarious. I tried helping Sonia feed the goats instead she was eating the food faster than a goat. She would take a pellet out of my hand before a goat could reach it and eat it up super quickly. She did not want to share food with any goats. Yeah, she ate a lot of it ;-)

Sonia is walking on water lilies.

Last Friday we were at the 3rd Street play ground. We rode a spring horse, walked up and down a toddler lot, played in the sand box. On the way out we saw a squirrel sitting in our stroller, eating Sonia's stale Cheerios. Sonia and I laughed our heads of.

On Monday we listened to the New York philarmonic and saw beautiful fireworks in Prospect park. It was Sonia's first fireworks and on mommies lap she was not scared a bit.

Camping at Zion Ponderosa Ranch

It was like a dream... I have not seen so much open space in years.

Zion is gorgeous but being in the camp had its own advantages. First the temperature was much lower since we were in the high-desert plateau way above Zion National Park. Second we had everything we could possibly wish for...

I got to meet some of Jeremy's aunts and uncles, and their families. Our tent was right next to Joe and Bobby. Joe took us rock climbing on our first night there and it was a lot of fun. While Sonia was taking a nap under great care of Joe, Jeremy and I had wonderful massages.

Sonia loved the pool.

We enjoyed these precious moments together and soaked forever even when it was too cold for everyone else. Sonia is great at swimming. She is not afraid to go under water and she giggles when coming out.

She puts her head in the water and blows bubbles with her papa. She can swim when I support her shoulders.

She is not afraid to get in and out of the water. Here Sonia is taking a break before going back to the water.

I also got to experience a Zip line. I am gearing up and going up a big barn tower.

Stepping off that balcony and going down for the first time was super scary. The second time it was fun ;-)

At night we watched a family rodeo in the big corral right on the farm. It was put together by a family of four little girls. They acted all parts of it. Family fun! Sonia made friends with pigs, goats and huge Belgian horses on the farm. I think I took way too many pictures but here they are ;-)

Pigs were small and cute. They dug big holes in the mud and were covered with dirt.

Goats were boisterous and kept budding each other. They climbed on top of their shadow shack.

This horse is a giant!

On the way home we took grandma back to St. George and hit the road making an only stop at a pretty cool discovery park in Cedar City.


It was hot there, dry heat that gets into the marrow of your bones. Sonia was not going to sell any bait no matter how hard we tried.

She thought of cool breeze and real sea on those dolphins.

Our ten-day escape from NY

After the wedding we gradually travelled South towards Zion. First couple of nights we spent with our good friends Howard and Marge Sharp in Salt Lake. There we went to church and were introduced to Richard and Linda Eyer who gave a fireside on raising responsible kids that night. What a wonderful coincidence! Jeremy and I both attended and enjoyed it. We got some useful books on parenting and I am looking forward to Joy school now.

Sonia in the reflection pond... She dove in, splashed and got herself all draining wet.

Then we visited grandma and grandpa Lamb in Sandy. Grandpa took us out to a delightful new to SLC Cheesecake factory. We got four Cheesecakes and traded to try different flavors. They were also kind to watch Sonia for us so we could sneak to a concert in the park with my mom.

On our way further South we spent sometime with Irene and Jeff in Orem . Time was filled with going back to BYU, saying hello to Chris at my old printing job, visiting Marla at work, seeing a new alumni building with the fun racing car, and having a diner with Jarom and Ashley. At night we saw a deer next to the Marriott School.

One of the greatest places to eat in Provo is Brick Oven so we enjoyed it twice on this trip. Once with Jarom and Ashley and then with Irene's family. Sasha, Katia, Michael and Sonia loved the baloons and the clown at our table.

Earlier that day the kids, Irene and I went to the Bean museum. I loved displays of the animal families and kingdoms. It is so unlike NY Natural History where the theme is Darwinism.

Here is our fam with animals of the North and a pop liger from Salt Lake City Zoo.

Four-hour drive to St. George was fun. We sang songs from Sonia's musical CD (it saved us because Sonia could sing for the span of two hours). Then we had to stop and explore the playground at Mac Donalds.

Sonia got to meet Gg Wilder and stay at her house for a night. It was fun to see her ;-) We took grandma to Olive Garden and enjoyed a nice dinner after Sonia finally fell asleep.

Gg looks great! She keeps herself super busy with the temple work and visiting all of her big family. Sonia loved Gg's ducks on the porch and kept asking to go outside to see them.

Grandma keeps up with the times and she also has better water storage in her garage than we do ;-)

My mother's wedding

Yeah! Congratulations to my mom! She found a match. I think they are great together and a lot alike.

Michael Noble born in AZ, somewhere in his 60s and is very good natured kind of a guy. They were wedded in Salt Lake City in the LDS church on June 28. Jeremy gave my mom away... so she is all married now! We flue in to celebrate this special occasion and I helped with flowers. It was fun making boutonnieres and corsages for the first time. I also got to meet Michael's daugther, Melanie who was in charge of decoration. Irene amazingly managed everything around. She was setting up and being in charge of food.

At the reception we had lots of white and dark chocolate fondue with strawberries, marshmallows, carrot cake, and I can't remember all other delicious nummies.

My mom had Russian violinist play and it was very fun. Ksyusha who used to live with my mom in Russia also helped with music and she is just amazing on the piano. Jeremy and I had lot of fun and enjoyed being part of the wedding. Now we can visit Utah and go skiing more often!

I have to mention that my mom looked great in her dress and all these pictures don't do justice. I just took pictures with my camera but my mom had her own photographer so those should be much better. But here are these for now.

My little flower girl having fun ;-)