Bryant & Alexis Jensen

Two of our most FAVORITE people came to visit us from Logan a few weeks ago!

Ryan and Megan Jones flew in on April 3rd and let Bryant and I drag them around the city!

We visited the City Hall area in Lower Manhattan

(That gold statue at the top of it is 25 feet tall to give you an idea of its size.)

Next was the Brooklyn Bridge

Later that night we ended up in Times Square, but the rain put a damper on things.

The next day we toured a few midtown places and ended up at the corner of Central Park near the Plaza Hotel.

Bryant stopped at a food truck to grab us some hot chocolate. While Ryan, Megan, and I were waiting, one of the guys that gives PediCab tours of Central Park decided to come and pester us. After I repeated "NO!" about a dozen times, Ryan and Megan got to see the sassy side of me.

After the bike man left, Ryan's keen eye spotted Leah Remini inside one of the carriages in the middle of filming something.

Incase you forgot who she was:

Back to people we care about...

These two handsome guys!

You can see from the evidence that we had to hit Dylan's Candy Bar:

Saturday, April 5th, we went to Chinatown and boarded a bus to take us to Washington, DC.

It was about a four hour bus ride that dropped us off at Union Station.

We then walked over to the Capitol Building and hung out there while we waited for more of our FAVORITE people to arrive: Dave, Becca, and Tessa Lee!!

We really just lounged on the steps and munched on Dylan's Candy.

We wandered through a few of the Smithsonian Museums.

(Becca was very proud of the dinosaur from Utah!)

Inside the Natural History Museum we were able to see The Hope Diamond.

(45.52 carats, worth $250 million)

Washington Monument

The White House

(How adorable, right?!)

The golf picture was taken during the Fall of 2002.

Since this was my THIRD official visit to Washington, DC, I had to post my side-by-side pics:

Left: July 2011 Right: April 2014

Back to Dave being our amazing tour guide in-action:

Later that evening the boys rode the Metro out to where Dave and Becca live and the girls rode with Becca in the car.

Tessa and I were buddies...until she woke up.

(Story of my life.)

We ate dinner at a yummy restaurant at the Tyson's Corner Mall, then zonked out for the night.

Sunday, April 6th, Dave picked up Ryan, Megan, Bryant, and I and drove us to Arlington National Cemetery.

Left: 2006 Bottom: 2014 Right: 2011

Dave decided to meet us at the Lincoln Memorial while the four of us walked across the Arlington Memorial Bridge over the Potomac River.

Lincoln Memorial

We asked some random lady to take a picture for us with my phone. The poor thing kept hitting the 'home' button so we were lucky after a few tries to get a picture with her finger covering 1/4 of it.

At least she tried(multiple times)!

We had to catch our bus back to NYC and had to say goodbye to Dave.

(Thanks again, Dave!!)

The drive back to New York took quite a bit longer (closer to 5 hours) so once we arrived, we were starving.

We took Ryan and Megan to Greenwich Village so they could experience some real NYC Style Pizza.

After eating, we parted ways. Ryan and Megan went to Washington Heights to visit more friends and we went back to Brooklyn.

We were able to see them one more time before they flew back home on Monday.

We had SO much fun and are so glad they were able to visit (and that we were able to visit Dave & Becca too!)

MISS YOU GUYS!!

My lovely Marisa Paige Snelgrove and I very first met in a lovely Winnebago in the Summer of 2008 when we were signing our contracts to live in Edgewood Apartments at USU.

For real. The office was in a Winnebago.

Edgewood was actually in an awesome location. Super close to campus, but it was also strategically placed at the bottom of the World's Most Dangerous Hill, especially in the winter.

(I may or may not have fallen on my butt a few times walking to class. Don't worry about it.)

Be jealous. This place was awesome.

These are also the ONLY pictures I can find of us cohabiting in the apartment. You can tell we were BFF's.

(My defense is I had started dating Bryant so I was obviously too twitterpated to stay home.)

Paige and I lived together until the spring of 2009 when Paige moved back home to Chicago I moved to Kampus Korner (who names these places? Seriously.) for the summer then I married sweet lil Bryant that September.

FIVE YEARS LATER:

Paige and I became daily pen pals over the course of the next few years. (We probably know WAY too much about it each other, but it's fiiiiine.)The best of friends send each other Lou Malnati's pizza from Chicago and Juniors Chocolate Mousse Cheesecake from NYC.

So once I moved to NYC I was finally able to convince Paige to come visit me!

Paige arrived at our place Friday morning, March 21st.

After Willis loved her to death, we were able to leave the apartment to go grab some lunch at Katz's Deli. (I talk about how amazing it is all the time, so I shall spare you details for now.)

After that we headed down to City Hall where we were able to see an episode of Law & Order being filmed on the steps of the NY Supreme Court Building.

We then walked over to the Brooklyn Bridge:

Then over to the 9/11 Memorial.

We eventually made our way to Washington Square Park.

Paige took these lovely pictures. (The bubble one is my favorite.)

Later that night we went to the original Junior's in Brooklyn and stuffed our faces with Chocolate Mousse Cheesecake.

(I don't care who you are, your life will change once you eat this cheesecake.)

Saturday, March 22nd Paige and I got up bright and early (Ha! Good one. 10 AM) and went to the Empire State Building

Below you can see the view toward lower Manhattan, then to the west.

Looking towards Central Park

Look closely in the picture on the left. You'll find Paige bravely sticking her head through the fence.

You couldn't pay me to do that.

We can now die in peace

We then wandered over to Macy's and stared at their amazing floral displays

Then up to Rockefeller Plaza

Then over to the corner of 53rd & 6th Ave to wait in line for The Halal Guys.

Paige claims that there are ZERO food carts/trucks in Chicago, so naturally we had to have some street food.

(I'm seriously drooling as I type this. SOOOOO GOOD.)

At this point our poor feet were ready to fall off, so we hopped in a taxi to hurry over to Dylan's Candy Bar to stock up on some delicious treats.

I totally forgot to mention that one of Bryant's best buddies, Jackson Olsen, also arrived at our place Friday night and stayed through Sunday morning. (He lived in NYC for a year so he didn't feel the urge to site see with Paige and I. And he and Bryant just wanted to watch March Madness Games.)

You can tell Willis quickly fell in love.

That night we played a rousing game of "Seinfeld Scene-It."

Paige and I won.

Later the four of us had to go grab some treats at Veniero's.

Sunday, March 23rd Paige and I decided to take a literal day of rest.

(Our poor feet!)

Willis also weaseled his way into cuddling with Paige on the couch.

Monday, March 24th we were somewhat more energized and ready to explore again.

Our first stop was Levain Bakery on 74th Street for the world's greatest chocolate chip cookie.

(If you click on the link it will take you to their website where you can order some for yourself. You can thank me later.)

We pretended like it was actually Spring at Times Square.

Don't worry, it was still in the low 40's.

We then meandered over to Grand Central Station

We walked up 5th Avenue towards Central Park and made a quick stop at The Peninsula Hotel. (Paige used to work at the Chicago location so they let us into the spa to look around. It was nice pretending we could afford it.)

This was looking toward Central Park