Something's Phishy

It's good to be a cat.

Susquehanna River

In a few years this priesthood restoration site will be totally different. The road pictured in the background will be moved so that visitors will be able to safely walk from the reconstructed Joseph and Emma home to the reconstructed home of Emma's parents. This site will have a different feel, but somehow, I'm glad we were able to see it before all of the changes. Our family had the place to ourselves and it was a beautiful, peaceful evening to visit.

Curt and Kevin by the monument commemorating the restoration of the priesthood.
Joseph and Emma's first child.
Headstones for Emma's parents.

The Susquehanna River, muddy but still pretty.

Access to the river is gained by going over some railroad tracks. Just as we were leaving to drive closer to the river, a member of the church (a rarity in those parts) pulled up in his truck. He told us stories of how the access to the river had been closed by the railroad for a while, but through a series of miracles the way was opened again. He was very helpful in making sure we followed the right road to find the path to the river.

The trees and bushes were so dense in that area, I finally understood how Joseph could have angelic visitors and receive the priesthood and still be secluded from neighbors. Not that there were a lot of neighbors, and I know that the spirit wouldn't let people near who weren't supposed to be there. But being there helped me more easily visualize the things that took place. A spirit accompanies sites where great things happened, and it's wonderful to be able to actually go to those places.

Little Red School Desk

At the beginning of the summer, I went to Desert Industries. I used to hate D.I., but now I've become my mother and I like looking around. Who knows what treasures lurk amongst the junk? This particular day I found a cute, antique school desk very similar to this one (I never got a "before" picture of mine):

It was rusty and dusty and had spider webs under the legs. I loved it! The seat swivels and the desk top opens. Best of all it was only $8.00, and I knew at the very least I could sell it online for way more than that. My plan was to strip the finish and repaint the metal. No, I'd never done anything like that before, but I figured I had the entire summer to figure it out. If not this summer, then the next one or the next; you know how these things go. Fortunately, the very next day my mom and dad came to visit. My dad looked at the desk and asked if he could take it and refinish it for me. Yeah! I was secretly hoping he would want to take it on as a project. He loaded it into his truck and a few months later it came back looking like this:

Beautiful! He took everything apart, refinished the wood, sanded the metal (it was way more rusty than I thought) and repainted. He also did a few other repairs that I hadn't noticed needed to be done. Someday, when various children move out of my house, I will have room for an office, and my future grandbabies will have a place to write and draw. Meanwhile, it looks cute downstairs by the playroom. Thanks Dad!

Hoboken Baby!

We are Carlos Bake Shop fans. Cake Boss has been one of the girls' favorite shows. When they heard we were going to New York, Erin immediately shouted, "We can go to Cake Boss!" Much joyous jumping and screaming then ensued. I tried to remind them that the true purpose of the entire trip was to see the Sacred Grove, but it was lost in the moment.

Here we are in the van driving to Hoboken.

Finally, Carlo's Bake Shop is in sight.
When we got there, we were thrilled to see a relatively short line in front of the bakery. Had we come early enough to avoid a long wait? Did we hit the lucky day? No and no. As we approached the people at the end of the short line to ask if it truly was the end, we were told that the long line we'd noticed across the street, the one we'd been hopefully ignoring, was actually the end of the line. No cutting was possible (not that I or the girls would do that, but Curt and Kevin sure would). The long line was where numbers were given out, and without a number, no entrance to the bakery was possible. At least they were organized and the system was fair to everyone. The people at the head of the line had gotten up early to wait before the bakery opened and ended up waiting about 3 hours anyway. No matter what, you get to wait. Luckily, the line is along a Walgreens store (I'm sure that's increased their business) with an overhang that provided shade. There were also a few enterprising street cart vendors selling lunch.

The three younger girls were thrilled to see Buddy's mom enter Walgreens. They followed her inside and peeked around the corners of the aisles at her. Not wanting to be too stalkerish, they then came outside and waited. When she appeared, they stood there with puppy dog eyes and eager faces while she took pictures with a few people. Then she motioned them over for their own picture. She was happy and upbeat and seemed really nice.

Finally after about 2 hours we were ushered across the street and almost inside the store. We were making progress!

After another 30 minutes our number was called and in we went. Buddy's sister, Lisa, was working the counter and graciously thanking people for coming. She was nice to pose for a picture with the girls.
Once inside the crowded store, you can take as long as you want to choose your items. However, there are no price tags on anything, so we just assumed that it was probably double or triple the prices we'd pay at home. I think we were right. We told the kids that we would buy a cake and get everyone a cannoli and they each could choose one other thing. Everything looked so good that it was hard to decide.

The store has family pictures along the walls and a cute mom and pop feel to it.

Four boxes, all tied with red and white string, and $56 later we were out the door.

Cannolis! We had never tried them and were anxious to see if they were as good they looked. They were so delicious! With a creamy, not too sweet middle, and crunchy slightly cinnamon tasting crust that didn't fall apart when bitten, these were worth the wait in line. We regretted not getting more. We ordered the small ones, but should have gotten the LARGE! Kneaders sells them here in Salt Lake, so we need to go and do a little comparison tasting. My mouth drools just looking at the picture! Oh, Cannoli, we love you.

You can't visit Cake Boss without buying a cake. This oreo cake was good (maybe not 3 hours wait in line good, but still good). We saved it for our Sunday dinner in Palmyra; it was gone about 3 minutes after we cut into it.

Piranhas at the feast.

In spite of the three hour wait, we thought the visit was worth it. We had a good time and treats to eat on our long drive to the Susquehanna River.

Family Photos

Every 10 years we get formal family pictures whether we need them or not!

New York, New York

We got up early for our drive into the city from Newark. We stayed in Newark to save money and because I don't think Curt wanted to drive into New York at night. Finding our hotel in Newark was an adventure as the entire state of New Jersey doesn't seem to believe in labeling their freeways in a common sense way. (New Jersey's motto: If you don't live here, get lost.) This is our foggy view of the Lincoln tunnel on our way in. In fact, our entire stay was overcast which was okay since it cut down on the heat.

Curt really didn't want to drive into the city at all. But after checking out all of the options, I realized that was by far the cheapest even after paying $50.oo per night for parking. After I convinced Curt that we (and by we, I mean he), could drive into the city, I found a hotel conveniently located near the tunnel, so we only had to drive a few blocks. I don't know where our van ended up for 2 nights since the hotel took care of it, but I guess it was in something like this:
I think it looks like a large version of the old matchbox toy car parking lots. (We got so used to paying for parking on this trip, that a few weeks later for our anniversary in Park City, we marveled at all of the free parking right downtown in the old part of the city. The $4.00 hamburger at the Olympic Park also seemed to be a good deal.)

Our first stop was to take a cab to get on the ferry to see the Statue of Liberty. This is Liberty's original torch which is now inside a museum near the statue's base.

Lady Liberty's face up close and personal.
We couldn't get tickets to go into the crown (only 200 or so are allowed in per day), but we went to the top of the pedestal.

We are all laughing in this picture because the total stranger that offered to take our picture lay flat down on the ground to get all of us and the top of the statue in the shot. What a nice thing to do! Notice my hair. Oh the humidity!
We stopped at Ellis Island for a short while. In my previous trips to NY I had wanted to go there, but didn't have the time.
This is the large hall where immigrants were processed. Truly if these walls could talk, we'd hear amazing stories.
We ate at Ellis Island and discovered that anyone can order a child's dinner and the portions and price were actually pretty good. As long as you like chicken nuggets, hot dogs or hamburgers, this was a great option and available at most of the tourist spots which is where we always seemed to be around meal time.
We had to stop and pay homage to Wall Street.
Ground Zero rising.
We saw this ad in the subway, in taxis and in the middle of Times Square. Cool.
I'm sure every tourist in the city was there to see the lights of Times Square. Have to do it once.
We ended our day with a late dinner at Shake Shack. Somehow I thought that Shake Shack was an actual shack, like a street cart or something. Don't know how I came up with that one, but I was surprised to find that it was in an actual building.
Was the food as good as Angie has blogged about? No, not at all; it was even better! That chocolate truffle cookie dough is heaven and the burgers are the best we've ever eaten.
Kevin thought it was so great that he even said, "We HAVE to come back here tomorrow. This is so good I'll even pay for it myself!" High praise from the tightwad. Of course, he meant that he would pay for his meal, not everyone elses. Definitely the highlight of Kevin's NY experience.
We should see if they want to franchise Shake Shake in Utah. We could make it an extended family business and we would all make big bucks!

The next morning, my phone had several frantic messages from Krysta wanting to know if we were up yet. Jack White was signing albums only a few blocks away! If you know who Jack White is, this is thrilling news. But none of the rest of us knew the difference between Jack White, Black, Purple, or Pink, so we weren't so excited. But, since this signing was under the Highline and was on my list of places to visit anyway, we headed out first thing. I couldn't help but think that the value of these apartments increased dramatically when this park was put in. I bet the owners of the apartment with the rainbow flag (yes, that rainbow) were thrilled. For better pictures (even one of this exact building) and a description of the Highline go here.
We waited under the Highline for about an hour and a half before impatience took over. I wondered what we were doing waiting for someone we didn't even know and wasting our meager two days in NYC? Kevin nicely said he would wait with Krysta and the rest of us left for the Rockefeller Center. The plan was for Krysta and Kevin to catch a cab and meet up with us.
Finally, Krysta's wait paid off and the celebrities arrived. Apparently Jack White (Black, Purple, Pink) was collaborating with Steven Colbert on something or other so they were both there. When Steven Colbert saw Krysta clutching her record, he said, "You don't want my autograph," and moved her on to Jack White. He was right. This little autograph encounter was Krysta's NYC highlight.
Krysta and Kevin met up with us a few hours later at the Rockefeller Center.
Even though none of my girls are into dolls anymore (Rachel thinks dolls are scary) we made a quick trip to the American Girl Doll Store. It was so cute to see the the dolls in the salon getting their hair done and the little girls watching their dolls being fixed up. Girls could get their doll's ears pierced also.
Camille poses with Nikki, the same as her American Girl Doll from 2007.

After a crazy cab ride, we all finally made it to one of my main goals. The Met! I have been to NYC twice before and each trip I did not have time to visit. This time (with even less time to spare) I was determined to go there no matter what. After all, one of my favorite childhood books was the Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, so I really needed to see this place. We got there in time for lunch, (the $4.00 soup was not so bad) and by the time we ate, we only had about one and a half hours to spare. This place is huge and the possibilities to get lost are endless. We made sure to stick together and walked as fast as we could to see everything. Someday I will go back and spend a whole day (which is still not enough time even if you skip all of the creepy Medieval art).

I loved this painting. The details, especially on the skirt, are so clear that the painting looks like a photograph.
One of my favorite exhibits were rooms decorated with furniture from the different eras in American history. I took absolutely no pictures of this, because by this time, we were walking even faster and really needed to leave.

Curt and Kevin pose by the armor.
After a second dinner at Shake Shack, we hurried to get ready and see War Horse which was playing at the Lincoln Center. One of our local radio shows was covering the Tony's and the reporter said that this was the play she liked the best. Curt went through 3 separate brokers to get tickets and then crossed his fingers hoping that the tickets were delivered before we left. They all showed up about two days before we got on the plane. The play is based on a children's book and used big puppets as the horses. The actors even rode on them. It sounds like it might look corny, but it was really well done and you forgot that puppeteers were controlling the horses. Think along the lines of Lion King if you've seen that play.
Steven Spielberg is directing the movie War Horse which is coming out in December. We all really enjoyed the play (even those in our family who really aren't into plays) and hope the movie is as good.

Our second morning, after a foggy farewell to the city from the top of the Empire State Building, we headed back over to New Jersey for the highlight of the NYC area for Erin, Camille and Rachel--Cake Boss!