Everything's Better with Cheesecake: July 2009

New York or Mommy, is There a Place We Can Sit Down and Recover?

(Yes, this is a long post. I could have done it it little posts, but didn't want to. The length is mainly due to all of the photos, but I do have a few amusing stories as well)

Our little family decided to go ahead and forge onward with our plans we had made long, long ago, before pregnancy (BP). We flew to New York.

Here are the highlights:

We took the red-eye into JFK, arriving (who knows for sure--we were all hammered) around 6:00 a.m. Eastern time. Took awhile to get the bags and get out of that airport, but finally made it to our rental car company.

We got on the road around 7:30-ish a.m. This was about as far as we got. On the road. Then we stood still for a few hours in the morning rush-hour traffic. We now know first hand why Aloysha and D, and D and A didn't even attempt to use cars when they lived there.

Luckily, the kids, who had been so excited that they couldn't sleep (except for maybe 2 hours) on the plane, fell asleep. I tried to sleep as well, though it was hard because our bossy GPS system kept barking out orders, as it tried to navigate us out of the city area.

Part-Time Politician was a champ. Though he was hammered as well, he spent 6 hours (we hear it doesn't usually take that long) driving us upstate to Uncle W and Aunt K's house! We were met by Cousin A on his scooter, who directed us to his house. Yay!

Uncle W even came home from work early to greet us--and then took us to the Corning Museum of Glass. Aunt K is a docent there, so we got to have all the information we wanted at our fingertips. Here are some of my favorite pieces:

You gotta love stuff by Chihuly

Just a cool piece

This fruit was GIANT

This used to be a perfect sphere, but as it has been moved around, it is starting to lose its "spherical-ness." Still amazing though.

A beautiful, HUGE peony

A nativity made of glass and shells

A mosaic--each tiny piece is a piece of colored glass

I always like blue and white glass anything...

Again, blue anything--this is a really, really old piece, but I can't remember the significance of it--sorry docent K.

Another amazing mosaic-you'd never guess it was glass

I think of bubble gum when I see this one

A crystal baseball bat

The bat, sans my beginning belly

A giant AMAZING paperweight

Cool chess board

The lady that created this piece had her friend put on a dress and then sprayed it with a ton of hairspray to make it stiff enough to make a mold. Loved this one.

That night, we went to cousin S's spaghetti dinner and baked goods auction--a fund raiser for Girl's Camp. Aunt K's chocolate mousse pulled in a bunch of money (people know a good chef). The kids thought it was great how Uncle W kept handing them cash and telling them to bid on stuff. Our crowning moment was when we paid $80.00 for a cheesecake. It was delicious. The item purchased for the most money was another cheesecake with raspberries on top. The former YW President paid something like $160.00. Whew!

The next day, we stopped at cousin J's place of employment, which was an excellent idea because it is an ice cream stand:

Really good, locally made ice cream.

We were then headed off to what was going to be a fun little hike. It was pouring by the time we got there, so we opted out and went to see "Up" instead. A very cute, funny movie that will also make you cry. From that time on, my children periodically yelled "squirrel!" (you have to see the movie to get it).

Here we are, after the movie by the pier:

Some very fun cousins!

Uncle W and Aunt K (a side note about Uncle W--"Faces" on iPhoto recognizes him EVERY time--those who have used Faces know that this is rather amazing)

The next day we went to cousin J's Senior Piano recital. It was at a monastery. J had the choice of playing on a Chickering or Steinway piano. She chose the Chickering. Good choice!

Before the recital

During the recital

Also during the recital (too much Sunday afternoon basement rugby)

Some fun pictures we took after the recital:

Cousin A's sole purpose for being in this shot was to look cool.

The next day we started our Church history tour (sadly, without the cousins). For small synopses on what happened Church-wise at the sites you can click here, and then choose which site you would like to see.

We started at the Whitmer Farm:

The hill Cumorah (the pageant wasn't on yet):

Whenever we visit a site with a Christus, the boy likes to make sure we take a picture.

Walking up the Hill Cumorah (it is a pretty good sized "hill")

At the top

Coming (well, rolling) down the hill Cumorah

Yes, I wondered if it was sacrilegious, too...the parents will probably be held responsible...

Next up, the Smith Family homes and the Sacred Grove where the First Vision took place:

S and the boy got to help read James 1:16-17 out of the old Bible.

The room Moroni appeared to Joseph in multiple times. Yes, there are two beds (not a big cabin for a big family). The people sleeping next to him must have been ASLEEP.

The Smith farmhouse. This was a nicer house that the Smiths were able to live in for awhile until the bank suddenly asked them to pay off the loan completely. They didn't have enough for the entire loan, so they had to move back into the cabin.

One of the places Joseph hid the plates was under these bricks.

As you can see by the amount of kitchen pictures I take, I love the kitchens in pioneer homes.

On our way to the Sacred Grove

The boy had to fix his shoe

Beautiful place. Beautiful feelings of the spirit.
Everyone should have the chance to visit this place.

On our way back out.

Each of our children felt a special spirit there, testifying to them that Joseph Smith did indeed see the Father and the Son, and that Joseph was a prophet of God. It was wonderful.

On to the Grandin Publishing Building--where the Book of Mormon was originally published:

The boy helping fold pages in the Book of Mormon

One of the original Books of Mormon

After a long day with many sites, we headed to "O Canada" so that we could visit Niagara Falls the next day.

A note about the border: it seems that the Canadians are more than happy to let you into Canada. Even if your identification is photocopies of expired passports and birth certificates and drivers licenses.

The U.S. is not so happy to let you out of Canada and back into the U.S., however. Even if you haven't even been gone 24 hours. Paul explained how he went on the U.S. website and it said that if you didn't have current passports, you could use expired ones, or photocopies of expired ones or birth certificates and drivers licenses. The U.S. border patrol agent informed us that this had never been the case, so he couldn't figure out why we would think that (so maybe the North Koreans are running that website, too).

Anyway, after asking me where my passport that I had renewed in '05 was (I renewed in '05? Really? I had forgotten...I guess that is how I managed to get into Korea that year...but how did HE know?), and then looking at me like I was a moron when I told him I hadn't been able to find it in my house (along with everyone else's originals--WHERE ARE THEY????). He finally let us through, but told us not to make the same mistake next time.

Boy are we a tough nation! Not letting any renegade families who aren't smart enough to keep track of their original passports back in: "If you can't even keep track of your passports, we certainly don't need you here in the U.S."

Maybe this is a way of filtering out the weaklings to make our nation stronger. "Go visit Niagara Falls everyone! It is great--your family will love it--make sure you take plenty of clothing, in case you end up staying longer (wink, wink)..."

We stayed in a really nice Hilton on the 24th floor. Amazing views:

View 1 from our hotel room

R loves to do hair. S hates to do hair or get her hair done. Sometimes R pays S to get S to let R do her hair. It is true. Although that is not what happened this time. Amazingly, S was a willing participant, and did not kick and scream.

The pool at the hotel had a water slide. Since we arrived late at night, we decided to take the kids swimming in the morning. Paul offered to take them down, while I slept in a bit, and took my time getting ready. It was a lovely idea, for I thought that maybe I could get feeling a little better before we headed out to the falls.

So, when morning came, Paul took the kids down to swim, and I slept in a bit. I got up and decided to take a bath in the fun tub they had. Just as I was getting into the tub, I heard "ding...ding...ding," and then "ding...ding...ding," again over and over. I thought maybe it was the phone, so I went into the room, where the phone wasn't ringing, but the "dinging" was still going on. I looked up and saw that it was the fire alarm. What kind of fire alarm goes "ding...ding...ding?"

I don't think anything that can be called an ALARM should go "ding...ding...ding."

What about the loud "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!" or "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!" --alarms that say "Get out of here now--you are in a burning building that is about to collapse!!!!"

To me, "ding...ding...ding" sounded like, "Pardon me, but if it isn't too much trouble, you may want to evacuate the building when you are finished with whatever you are working on. Because it (the building, not what you are working on) could be on fire. Or not, because we hate to interrupt you. Please, just do what suits you best."

So, I had to make a decision. Do I assume it is a false "alarm," and continue with my bath, or try to find Part Time Politician and the kids. I decided that I'd better try to find PTP and the kids.

First, though, I decided to put some clothes on, which turned out to be a good decision, because as soon as I left the room, I realized I didn't have a key--Paul and the kids had taken both of them.

The elevators were, of course, turned off, so I had to take the stairs. Did I mention we had a great view on the 24th floor? Yeah. And the stairwells were really skinny, so it was essentially a spiral staircase, circling and circling, and circling. Did I mention the title of a story I could have told you, "Pansy Davenport and the Case of the Virulent, Vicious Vertigo?" Circling, and circling, and circling and circling down a staircase would not have helped Pansy's case of VVV, nor did it help mine--that's all I'm going to say. I hung onto the handrails. Did I mention there was no air conditioning?

When I finally reached the bottom (the fire "alarm" had ceased it scary notification by now), I opened the door, and they had blocked it off because of construction--there was no way onto that floor from where I was. I had to go back up at least a few floors, past the floors of construction.

Man, it is a good thing that I didn't burn up in all of those flames, or I'm sure the hotel would have been hit with a huge law suit (because that is the type of man Part Time is--always suing people), right after my funeral.

Blocking off exits of people in burning buildings--not a good practice.

I went back up 10 floors, and decided to see if the elevators were going yet, because somehow I had to make it to the first floor. That was where the pool was. So I was either going to have to take an elevator (hopefully) down, or find another stairwell, that would let me out when I got to the bottom. Lucky for me, the elevator was working again! I took it down to the first floor.

When I got to the pool area, PTP and the kids were gone (it turns out the water slide doesn't run during the day, so the kids got sick of the pool pretty quick). Sigh.

I tromped back to the elevators, went up to the 24th floor, and knocked on the door of our room. Thankfully, one of my darling children let a sweaty and aggravated me back into the room.

PTP was glad to see me, or more specifically, glad to see that I had clothes on. He had seen the underwear I had taken off next to the tub (ok, so when I put my clothes back on, I skipped a step and left the underwear--I was in a hurry because I didn't know if this alarm was really serious or not). Anyway, seeing the underwear caused him to think that I had rushed out naked in a towel or something (because that is the type of gal I am--always running around naked in towels).

Darned if I wasn't going to still take my bath, though! So I took my clothes off again, and just as I was getting in..."ding...ding...ding..." I told PTP I was staying right where I was. After all, if I stayed in the water, I would not get burned up. I may fall hundreds of feet as the floors started to collapse, but I wouldn't burn, baby!

This time, in the middle of the "dinging" a nice, calm voice from the main desk came on, "We are investigating the possibility of a need for evacuation--we will let you know momentarily." A few minutes later, "We don't believe there is any need for evacuation at this time, unless you choose to." What a surprise that was. Essentially the same message the "alarm" itself gave--"if you choose to, you may evacuate." I wonder what happens when there is a real fire?

Good Ol' Canada--not offensive to anyone--even in the midst of emergency.

By the time it was all said and done, I was ready to evacuate that hotel permanently.

We finally made it out to visit the falls and take a ride on the Maid of the Mist:

Bridal Veil--not quite the same as in Provo Canyon

Maid of the Mist

Before the ride

After the ride
S and the Boy decided they didn't want their hoods on because they wanted to get wet.
They succeeded.

Niagara Falls was really, really cool! Definitely worth a visit--even if you aren't allowed back into the states when you are finished.

When the border patrol finally agreed to let us out, we went to The Ohio...
...and stayed in a Hampton Inn on the ground level (thank goodness):

S, taking care of some important business with her sleeping mask on.

Our last day of Church history sites started with alot of rain at the John Johnson farm:

The step Joseph Smith gave a sermon from the morning after he had been tarred and feathered.

This room always makes me sad because it is the room where Joseph and Emma and the twins were when the mob broke in and ripped Joseph away from his wife and babies, and then tarred and feathered him--some tried to poison him. One of the twins, who had been sick, died because of the exposure.

The room where the Prophet had many revelations.

(Could my husband look any younger? He must have been 12 when I married him)

One of the fun things about seeing the sites in Ohio again was the fact that the buildings had been restored to the original colors--inside and out. Those pioneers had awesome colors.

Next we went to the Newel K. Whitney store in Kirtland, that Joseph and his family lived in for a time, and where the School of the Prophets was held.

The room where the School of the Prophets was held.
Amazing revelations happened in this room.

Emma's own kitchen

There were other places to see in Kirtland, but the kids were chomping at the bit to get back to the cousins' house, so we made one last stop at the Kirtland Temple. It is now owned by the Community of Christ Church, and they don't let you take pictures, so I have no pictures to show you.

Back to the cousins house! The general consensus was that the funnest part(s) of the trip were just being with their cousins. A few memorables:

1. Convincing the dads to play the newspaper game. For the those who don't know what the newspaper game is, it is an activity played by many Cutler families for Family Night. It fosters the love and kinship of family members via chasing each other and hitting each other with a rolled up newspaper. Wait it gets better: first the person with the newspaper goes around the circle, choosing his victim by saying, "I like you...I like you...but I DON'T like you." It's a huge self-esteem builder. I do know that sometimes in an effort to make the game seem less harsh, the chant gets changed to "I love (or like) you...I love (or like) you...but I love you BEST!" Favoritism--always a good thing.

The first time I was introduced to this game, I was amazed because I thought that Grandma and Grandpa Cutler would have never allowed something like hitting each other and telling people that they are either not liked, or the favorite--even as a joke. Later I learned that April Fool's day is the Family's favorite holiday, and that the possible psychological and physical damage of some of the jokes that have been played over the years go above and beyond the possible psychological and physical damage that could ever occur playing the newspaper game. So there you have it.

Anyway, once you get the dads involved in the newspaper game, little mercy is shown. They refuse to lose. Aunt K and I had a great time watching, and everyone had a great time laughing.

2. Hearing "bump bump...shuffle, shuffle, shuffle" over and over again in the middle of the night until PTP went upstairs to find the Boy, S, and Cousin A playing a "quiet" version of the newspaper game in the hopes that they wouldn't get caught. You will have to ask one of the perps about how it is played.

3. Aunt K and I discussing what we, in each of our families, deem appropriate for Sabbath Day activities. Meanwhile, a very intense game of Sunday Basement Rugby was going on downstairs. We didn't know exactly that this was the case, but based on the noise level, we could have probably guessed it. No, we didn't go down to check. We let it continue. As long as the family is together enjoying each other...
The eldest daughter here wanted to make sure it is known that she and Cousin S won that game.

4. Sunday wasn't the only day Basement Rugby got played. I must mention that the boys are very good at getting really, REALLY sweaty. At times, it was positively like a steam room in that basement. I must also mention that Basement Rugby isn't very safe for the usual reasons, but also because it is played with a giant ping pong table in the middle of the playing "field." No one (no player) seemed to see this as a problem, and luckily, there wasn't a whole lot of bodily harm that came from it.

5. Listening to Aunt K explain to Cousin A that soccer is an outside sport, and that no, it couldn't be played inside just because it was raining. I laughed because four years prior, PTP and I visited these same cousins while they were living in Germany. I remember vividly Aunt K explaining to Cousin A that soccer was an outside sport, and that he needed to quit kicking the ball up and down the stairs and around the house. Don't ask me how rugby got cleared...it probably didn't.

Sadly, we had to tear ourselves away one last time so that we could visit NYC for a couple of days before we headed home.

On the way we stopped at Harmony Pennsylvania, and visited the site of the restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood. It is also the site of where Emma and her family lived before she married Joseph. After they married, they continued to live there, and have their first baby, who died. There is a cemetery there where Emma's parents are buried along with Joseph and Emma's baby. I wanted to see if I could find the graves, but we didn't have time.

Aaronic Priesthood restoration marker

Susquehanna River

We made fairly good time driving back to the outskirts of NYC, and, lucky for us, made it just in time for the afternoon rush hour! Our timing for rush hours is impeccable. This time, however, we gave up fighting it and pulled off to eat at IKEA (IKEA really isn't all that close to downtown, but rush hour traffic extends way, way out there), of all places. By the time we finished eating, rush hour had died down enough that we could continue on our journey to the Courtyard Times Square.

Unfortunately, the rooms aren't big enough for a roll-away bed. Good thing our kids are still relatively short (except the eldest--but she was tough):

Most of my kids slept sideways on their beds as toddlers anyway--
good practice for the sleeping arrangements here.

The next day was our "visit the Statue of Liberty and the Museum of Natural History" day. As it turned out, it was everybody else in the state's "visit the Statue of Liberty and the Museum of Natural History" day, too.

After getting in line for our tickets to the statue and having the "people that be" tell us that the line to get on the boat to the Statue of Liberty was going to be a 1 1/2 to 2 hour wait, and judging that the line we were in just for the tickets to stand in line for the boat was going to take a good 1/2 hour by itself, we decided to "see" the Statue of Liberty from the pier.

Visiting the Statue of Liberty. See how close she is!

I put the telephoto lens on my camera and let the kids look through it so they could see her better. I thought the above photo turned out cool.

"SQUIRREL!"

We got back on the subway headed (we thought) toward the Museum of Natural History.

The boy, thinking that the subway was cool--until we'd been on it longer than planned.

So somehow we got on the wrong side of the subway, and were happily riding it to the Natural History Museum. We started to notice that the subway was getting emptier and emptier, and that, well, let's just say that "touristy" people who look like us were getting fewer and far between. PTP suddenly realized that we had been going for 20 or so minutes in the wrong direction. We were just outside Queens. The Museum of Natural History is not in Queens. So we got off, and got back on going the correct direction, but being on a stuffy subway for as long as we ended up being on it made for a grouchy boy and grouchy mom.

We finally made it, though, much to our relief:

I like the quote by Teddy R.

You can't tell by the pictures, but the Natural History Museum was PACKED with people. I kept having this feeling that we were going to run into a bunch of school field trip-ers because I knew that New York's schools weren't out for the summer yet, and I knew that, at least in Utah, classes go on tons of field trips at the end of the year as a way to use up days without adding extra school work for the teacher to deal with.

Anyway, it turns out I was right. Field trip-ers everywhere. We went to the cafeteria to eat lunch and were inundated by school kids. I just about had a full on breakdown right there because of the chaos (I don't do well in giant crowds anyway, but pile some hormones and other problems on that, and it isn't pretty. Plus, I was tired from the subway and starving.). CHAOS! Luckily, Paul saw me in my state and managed to navigate us through, get us our food and to a table. Eating helped me immensely.

The one funny thing about all of the school kids was how excited they were to be there...until they realized the museum is nothing like what they saw in Night at the Museum. I kept hearing kids (it seemed like the majority were 9th-grader types) commenting about how the museum was nothing like the movie, or how they couldn't find Sacajawea, etc., etc. Perhaps the funniest thing was how disappointed they were when they found out that the Hall of Pacific Peoples was closed. "You can't even see 'Gum Gum' through the (closed) doors very well," and "Man, the only thing I wanted to see was 'Gum Gum.'" You could hear them telling their friends, "Don't even go over there, it isn't open." Everyone was totally bummed. For those of you who don't know who "Gum Gum" is, he is a statue from Easter Island that some people think is hilarious in "Night at the Museum." I actually didn't really enjoy Gum Gum (although I enjoyed the movie--haven't seen 2 yet), but I can see how a person in 9th grade would think he was amazingly funny. I'm sure the majority of them felt like they had been "tricked" into coming to a regular, boring museum.

That night, Paul decided to see if he could get last minute tickets to Mary Poppins so he could take the girls. He did, so while they were at the show, the boy and I ventured out to find some ice cream.

Being the resourceful person that I am, I checked the internet for the closest ice cream parlors. There was one a block and a half away. Perfect. We left, and I turned the direction I thought we needed to go. A block and a half later, no ice cream place. O.K., I must have gone opposite where we needed to. Backtracking a block and a half and then straight another block and a half--still no ice cream place, but we were awfully close to the theatre where Mary Poppins was showing. I pointed it out to the boy, in an effort to cover the fact that I was taking us all over the place for no good reason. Meanwhile, there are, of course, people everywhere and I'm totally backwards and trying to figure out how I got this way.

The boy asked me when we were going to be there, and I mentioned that I had gone the wrong way and that we would just pull out Daddy's iphone and use the GPS on it to get us there. The boy thought this was good idea because he was tired of walking. He looked around. "Isn't there some place we can sit down and recover?" I also looked around, and then thought to myself, "Recover?! Boy, you obviously don't know where we are. There is not a place in NYC you can "sit down and recover." People here, as a rule, don't sit down; and they certainly don't recover. They just keep drinking coffee and keep moving...one of the reasons everyone is so grouchy. We'll be lucky if we can ever truly recover again. (You can see I was having a bad attitude for getting us lost--also for feeling penned in with millions of people. I am more of a "big sky, few people" kind of gal) Now, where are the dang mountains around here? How am I going to figure out which way I am going without mountains? If they hadn't built so many giant buildings, a person may be able to at least figure out which way was North..."

Anyway, thanks to PTP's iphone and the GPS we were able to get headed in the right direction for a couple of mintues before the battery died. (If any of you out there with iphones have a handy way to get the battery to last longer than a few hours, let us know). The good news was, the boy and I found the ice cream parlor which was, as it turns out, a block and a half from our hotel. Down one of the streets we didn't go down originally. So we got our ice cream and went back to our hotel and did our best to "recover."

The girls and PTP came back, singing Mary Poppins songs all the way. They had a wonderful time. It is a very fun show, and we highly recommend it to everyone. Some of the tricks they do on the stage are AMAZING. (I know because PTP and I saw it last year when we were in NY).

The next day was our "Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" Day at the Metropolitain Museum of Art! (Love this place) If you haven't read or re-read 'From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler' recently, you need to do so. Or get it on tape or CD and listen to it. We listened to it in the car--hilarious, once again--so that we would be ready for our trip to the museum. Now, that is a book someone should make into a movie!

The good thing about a book over a movie is that when it is set in a "real" place, you can picture the events really happening in the actual place. With a movie, you are "shown" what the place looks like, so when you go (as the 9th graders found out), you are disappointed that it looks nothing like the movie.

Everyone had a fun time imagining Claudia and Jamie living in the Museum.

PTP and the Boy in one of their favorite rooms. Who doesn't love armor and weapons?

We didn't get to stay very long at the Met because we had to make it to our matinee showing of "Wicked"--one of the main reasons we put NYC on our tour in the first place.

I love the statues on the Disney store.

A less-croweded day.

S was right in her element in this city. Nothing phases her. The hustle and bustle invigorated her. In fact, much of the time we were trying to figure out where she went, because she just kept wandering off, looking at whatever she wanted to--not anxious in the least bit about getting lost. We were often calling, "S! Get back here and be with our family!"

The girls excited about the show, the boy excited about the New York Yankees bat he bought.

"Wicked" was, as usual, wonderful. Everyone should have the opportunity to see it. It leaves you feeling so happy and exhilarated. I've heard that people shouldn't read the book, though. (Just thought I'd better throw that out there)

After the show, we ran back to the hotel, grabbed our bags, jumped in our taxi and went to the airport. We made it home with almost every bag, and the one they lost they kindly delivered to us a couple days later.

What a trip! Whew.

SLC airport, waiting for the bags. The boy has found a place to recover.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009