Spring Break part 2

After we had decided to visit New York, I was looking at a map.  Dangerous. I saw all these little states up in the corner of the country that I'd never visited.  I started scheming.  I figured out that we could leave first thing in the morning, take a 12 hour road trip and hit every single one of those states in a day.  Crazy, right?  Right.  A little too crazy even for me.  I realized that yes, I'd be able to say I'd been to those states, but wouldn't even be able to step out of the car in most of them.  So, we decided to just take a day trip and hit *most* of them.

Destination:  Sharon, Vermont.  Birthplace of the prophet, Joseph Smith.  We figured after spending most of our time in the big city, it would be nice to enjoy a peaceful day in the middle of nowhere.

Welcome to Vermont!

Where they still have three foot high snow banks.
In April.

Yikes.

I think this was the first time we've ever

had a snowball fight on spring break.

 After stretching our legs at this rest stop, we were on our way to Sharon.
It is a quaint little town.  Exactly as I'd pictured it.

We saw trees with buckets for maple syrup.

Then we made it to the visitor's center.

A sweet senior missionary told us several stories
from the prophet's childhood.

Here we are standing on the actual hearthstone
where he crawled around as a baby.

Also in the center they had a theater where we watched a short movie about families. You exit the theater into a room with a collection of books, a statue of Joseph Smith, and a wall with Brandon's favorite scripture on it.  The sister missionary asked Brandon to read it out loud for us.  I'm so glad she did.  It was one of my favorite moments of the whole trip: "And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony, last of all, which we give of him: That he lives!" Powerful scripture.

Then we headed outside to see the memorial that was placed there in 1905,
when Joseph would have been 100 years old.

You can't tell in the pictures, but it was snowing while we were outside.
Big flakes.  Crazy.
I hope I never have to live in Vermont.
But I'd love to go back and visit in the summer.

It was 38 1/2 feet tall, one foot for
every year that the prophet lived.

I thought this was a great side trip.  The kids thought it was too far to drive and wished we had just spent another day in the city.  But we have now been to Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire. (Only missed Rhode Island and Maine in that neck of the country.)

Passed the NBA Hall of Fame in Springfield,
but didn't have time to stop.

On Tuesday, we took the train into the city.

It was an easy form of transportation, but we ended up
in seats that were backward facing and they kind of made me sick.
I tried not to look out the windows much.

We ended up in Grand Central Station.
Awesome!

We walked down to Rockefeller Center.

 Still ice skating in April.
We'd had enough cold in Vermont, so we skipped this.

 Andrew needed his 30 Rock moment.

We took the elevator to the "Top of the Rock."

It was awesome!
Check out that view!

 It was chilly and windy, but we loved this
vantage point of the city.
At least Brandon and I did.
Andrew's and Whitney's fear of heights
made this one of their least favorite stops.

I had to convince Andrew to step outside for

just a moment for a photo op with me.

One of our favorite random moments at the Rock was this little room that had light up tiles all around.

 The lights would somehow recognize you and follow you around.
 

 We had fun trying to figure out the patterns and mixing our colors.

We checked out the Lego store.

The kids liked it.
I thought it was overcrowded and
didn't have a fun place to build like
many big Lego stores do.

Then we found Nintendo World.
That was fun.

 We spent some quality time trying out the 3DS.

And upstairs they had vintage Nintendo gear.

 This Power Pad brought back lots of memories.

Next, we walked down to Times Square.

That place is awesome!

The kids had a lot of fun at the huge Toys R Us.

 They have a ferris wheel inside!

Christian and Mandi and their girls met us there

 and we went for a ride.
The height didn't seem to bother Whit.

They have a giant Wonka candy section.

Love Caroline's sweettart canon.
 
 And on another floor,
they have a huge Candyland section.

A kid's dream!
(A dentist's nightmare.)

We had some real NY pizza for dinner.

Yum.

 I wanted a quick photo with all four adults.
Too bad I was talking.
Then we sent the boys home with Izzy,
so the rest of us could go to a show!

I picked Matilda the Musical. My first choice was Mary Poppins, but it closed at the end of March.  My second choice was Annie, but it was going to cost $820 for the five of us to sit way at the back of the theater.  Not gonna happen. So, that led us to Matilda.  It is a show that is a big hit in London and is just now opening on Broadway.  Because of that, there aren't a whole lot of reviews out there.  But from what I could find, it sounded good.  So we went.

 The scenery was awesome.

There were some really fun songs.

I liked a lot of the choreography.

That's about all the good I can say about it.  I didn't like the show.  It made me uncomfortable.  I hated how mean Matilda's family and the headmistress were to her.  It was a little intense at times and I wished our 4-year-olds were at home with their dads.  But, Whitney and Caroline actually loved it.  It was one of Whitney's favorite parts of the trip. She was the only one who had read the book by Roald Dahl beforehand.  I wish I would have and maybe I would have been better prepared for what to expect.

Wow, that was a long, eventful day!

One more to go.

On Wednesday, Brandon woke up with strep throat.

It was our last day in NY, so I gave him some Tylenol and

asked him to just hang in there for one more day and I'd 

get him the doctor in the morning.  He did great!

We attempted to visit the 9/11 Memorial and had a bad experience.  Brandon saw the long, snaking Disneyland-link line to get in and decided he couldn't stand for that long.  Poor guy. Andrew took him to find a place to sit down.  I took the girls and got in the line.  We waited.  And waited.  They were being so good.  After half an hour in line, I started having second thoughts.  The girls weren't going to get anything out of this....Should I just leave?  But then we made it to the front of the line...45 minutes later.  And when the ticket-checker looked at our passes, he pointed out that I had printed passes for THE WRONG DAY.  I guess this visit was just not meant to be.  I was upset that I had wasted that 45 minutes, but we decided to just move on with the rest of our day.

We walked past Wall St.

Cool photo op for Business Boy.  

Then we caught the Staten Island ferry.

I was so glad that Mandi recommended it.

Both the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island are closed right now because of damage from Hurricane Sandy.  So, this was the closest we could get.  The ferry goes right by Lady Liberty and...it's free!

It's a 25 minute right to Staten Island.

Then you get off the ferry and take a 25 minute ride back.

What a special place.

(But she's smaller than I thought she'd be.)

You get a cool view of the city, too.

We wanted to head to Chinatown to do some shopping, but Brandon was really done by this point.  So we hopped in the car and headed home.  We had originally planned to get a hotel in Maryland, halfway home.  But instead we drove the whole way, arriving around 1 am. Not bad. And we got B in to the doctor the next morning and on his antibiotics and he was feeling better within 24 hours.

What a wonderful trip.  I'm so glad Andrew could take the time off.  And our amazing friends let us stay with them.  And the kids were so good.  Caroline asked me just yesterday, "When are we going back to New York?"

Spring Break in NYC part 1

It has become a tradition over the last couple of years to get together with Mandi, Christian, and their girls for Spring Break.  We went to Philly one year.  Met in DC another.  This year, they are living back in NY and we HAD to take the chance to drive up there to see them.  Andrew had his work trip to NYC back in 2010, but the kids and I had never been.  We have been planning and anticipating this for months.  It was a great week!

We took the kids out of school a little early on Thursday and headed up to DC to spend the night with Amy, Rick, and their kids.  It was a short, but fun visit.  (I think our visits with them are always short and fun.)

On Friday morning, after cooking pancakes and bacon for TWELVE of us, we left for NY. The kids are such great roadtrippers.  I love vacationing with them.  Our favorite car game this trip was Family Feud.  I found it on clearance for 29 cents right before we left.  We had a lot of fun guessing the top five answers to random questions like "Things you were afraid of as a kid that you're still afraid of."  (Dentists was #1.  Boo.)

We drove through states I'd never been through.  Like Delaware!!  I was so excited to take a picture of in front of a big "Welcome to Delaware" sign.  But they have no state pride.  I couldn't find a good sign like that. Here's the proof that we've been there:

Hi. We're in Delaware.

After paying lots and lots of tolls and getting stuck in traffic for no apparent reason on the New Jersey Turnpike, we made it to Christian and Mandi's in the early afternoon.  The adults were excited because Friday night was date night! We left all seven kids home with a cute babysitter (who was shorter than Brandon) and took off for the city.  We had such a fabulous double date. First, we stopped at La Esquina, a little taco shop with tacos that were so delicious that Andrew and I are still craving more.  And they had spicy corn on the cob that had really good flavor, but the kernels were too small.

Andrew and I kept quoting Nacho Libre, 

"Get that corn outta my face!"

We walked around the city a bit.

We could see the Empire State Building lit up in pastel colors.

Then we headed to Chinatown for Chinese massages.

Wow. We decided to go for 1/2 hour massages, but the 30 minutes went by too fast!

Loved it. After driving in the stressful traffic for the past couple of days, 

Andrew especially enjoyed his rub down.

I was glad Christian and Mandi could vouch for this place,

because I never would have gone down there on my own!

Our final stop on the amazing NYC date night:

Chocolate! (by the bald man)

You can't go wrong with chocolate.

Soooooo decadent.

This was a little further than our other stops, so we took a cab there and then back to the car.  My first experience with NY cab drivers.  Our first driver was so nice and talkative and (relatively) safe.  Our second driver was frightening.  Andrew had to close his eyes and was trying to wedge his body into the safest position if (when?) we were in an accident. I felt like I was on a roller coaster. It was crazy.  But we survived. Major props to Mandi for planning such an awesome date night.

On Saturday, we packed all the kids up into the minivans for more adventures in the city.  First, we walked right around the corner from our parking garage and found...

The Manhattan Temple!
Can you see the teeny tiny angel Moroni at the top?

Loved to see this little haven of peace in such a busy, bustling city.

Then we told the kids to channel their inner pioneer because we walked.

And walked.

And walked.

They were awesome.

First stop:  Central Park

 This ended up being the nicest weather day of our whole trip. Perfect.

The kids had such a great time.

Climbing on the rocks

Going down the slides

Spinning in the tire swing

Playing in the sand

Eating a yummy picnic lunch.

Afterward, we walked down to the Museum of Natural History.

It was just OK for us.

It was really crowded.

And the kids were exhausted from all of their playing.

We didn't stay long.

Just long enough to see a couple dino skeletons.

We wanted to make a quick stop at the Shake Shack before heading home.

But then we saw that the line went out the door and around the corner.

We sent the boys to get minivans, while we waited in line.

The four-year-olds had really had it by this time.
Poor little legs.

After resting up in the van on the drive home, everyone was ready...

to jump in the trampoline???
Crazy kids.

We also decided to do some our Easter festivities.

We read the story of the resurrection from the New Testament
and the kids made "resurrection rolls."  They were delicious.

We also sent the kids on a scavenger hunt for their Easter baskets.

And had our egg hunt in the backyard.

On Easter Sunday, we took it easy.
We went to church in the morning.
We even made it out the door in time to get some Easter pics.

More fun to come...

Guest speaker

I got tickets to Time Out for Women in Richmond two years ago to listen to Tony speak.  But his schedule changed and I got to hear Brad Wilcox instead.  Then last year I planned to go to Denver to hear him speak.  But I exceeded my time-away-from-my-family quota and had to back out.  So....I've never heard my brother-in-law speak.

Others tell me he's really good.  Our stake president, in particular, thinks he is AMAZING.  So, he has been working on having Tony come out to speak to the members of our church in this part of NC for the last two and a half years.  Well, it finally worked out.  And Tony got to stay with us and we got to hear him speak.  And now I can agree with others--he is a fabulous speaker!

It was a quick visit.  He got in late on a Fri night and left early Mon morning.  Saturday he worked basically all day--a meeting with seminary and institute teachers, then a four hour seminar on Gospel Teaching for all adults, and a fireside in the evening for the youth (and 11-year-old nephews). Andrew and I attended the entire gospel teaching seminar.  It was awesome.  Tony is great at being funny, teaching doctrine, and inviting the Spirit. 

For dinner, Andrew wanted to give Tony a taste of NC, so they went out to Carter Brother's BBQ.  They loved it, especially the big pig signs with "Jesus is Lord" printed at the bottom.  Gotta love the South.

The boys after the youth fireside.

It was amazing how many people said, "You two look SO much alike!" They're both tall and have dark hair, but I don't think their faces look very similar.  The other question they were asked several times:  "Who's older?" Andrew was especially flattered by one woman who was thoroughly convinced that Andrew MUST be younger.  (When you're in your late 30's and just a year apart, it's a toss up.)

On Sunday, Andrew had a speaking assignment for church in another town, so Tony went with him.  It was a cold and rainy day, so we just hung out, played games, and visited after church. 

We loved having Tony here and hope that he brings his family with him next time he comes out.