A Weekend in New York

Somehow Makenzie and I convinced our parents that they should send us to New York this summer to visit Matt and Madi (who were doing their summer internships there) so I flew home to hang out for the day, and then flew to NYC with Makenzie that night. 

But while I was hanging out at home, Makenzie had agreed to take these kiddos ice skating, which meant I was going as well. 

Thank freaking goodness for these blue things. 

Tate decided he wanted sharpie whiskers on his face for the day.

One quick red eye flight later and we were in the JFK airport, and then one quick tram ride later and we were in the subway. Then a not so quick subway ride later we were in the Upper West Side, and then one quick trash-day-smelly-walk later we were at Matt and Madi's apartment.  Then one quick nap later and we were ready to head to Times Square. 

That Friday morning included going to Times Square and the Times Square M&M, Disney, and Hershey stores. The FAO Schwarz toy store, Rockefeller Center, eating Magnolia banana bread pudding (recommend x100), and going to the NYC public library-where it was surprisingly very hard to find the books. 

Quite a library entrance if I ever saw one.

Also it was hard to find a place to sit down, which was greatly needed at that point. 

It was time for lunch, so we hit up Los Tacos No.1 (recommend x1,000) 

The line was long, but it was worth it. 

We then got a post lunch dessert waffle.

We then waited for Matt (Tiffany's husband, who also just so happened to be in Manhattan on the same weekend) to show up so he could get us the VIP hookups to the Empire State Building. 

Matt works at LinkedIn, who conveniently have their NY offices in the Empire State Building.  Employees get to take guests up to the top with VIP access, which means, no waiting in lines. 

Looking out at the top of the first elevator ride. 

The look out from the top of the 2nd elevator ride. 

(Recommend knowing someone who has the hookups x10,000)

After we got some tickets for Phantom of the Opera later that night, we went back to the apartment and crashed until the play. 

The tickets we got were partial view-but also front row, so we didn't mind. 

We had a great view of the orchestra, and could also see every drop of spit that left the Phantoms' mouth as he sang. Which was actually disgusting. 

The play was amazing.

 

Post play pics in Times Square

Naturally, it was time for dessert, so we got gelato

Matt and Madi's selection.

Makenzie and I's. She was thrilled to be taking a picture. 

The next morning Makenzie and went on a solo journey to pick up donuts for breakfast. 

En route to donuts, we stopped at Grand Central Station.

Then we picked up breakfast, and headed back to the apartment. 

But not before going to Levain bakery to try a cookie.  Donuts and cookies. Breakfast of champions. 

Again, thrilled to be taking pictures with her food. 

Dad surprised us by booking Makenzie and I a stay at a 5-star hotel for the night. So we went to go check in and drop off our luggage. 

Our ivy covered hotel. 

We spent some time checking our new digs. 

We stopped by Washington Square park, 

where Matt and Madi got their portraits drawn. 

We had to stop in City Cakes to try one of their 1/2 lb. cookies, a little pre lunch snack before we got...

Artichoke pizza. 

(recommend x100,000)

We walked around Chelsea Market, and then headed to Brooklyn. 

Where we went to Mister Dips so we could try EVEN.MORE.FOOD.

 A carrot cake dipped ice cream cone. 

A PB and Chocolate dipped cone. 

aaannddd some cheesy fries.  Anyone concerned about our diet yet?

Then we walked the Brooklyn Bridge at sunset. 

The closest we got to the Statue of Liberty. 

This was also the night of the Manhattan power outage, so getting a subway back to midtown was a long process- most of it spent in a hot, humid, and crowded subway station. But we did in fact make it back. 

It was a very strange feeling to walk out of that subway station to a dark New York, tall buildings just looming in the night with no lights on. 

A photo from that night. 

Our hotel was a block or two from the source of the power outage, so it too was in the dark. They had some emergency lights in the lobby, and handed us flashlights and snacks as we walked in. Around 11pm the power came back on. 

The morning everything was back to normal, and we went to our hotel's restaurant to have brunch.

The food was pretty dang good.

A ill lit picture of our room. 

After church with Matt and Madi, we headed down to Lower Manhattan to see the sites which included...

The Wall Street bull. There was a huge line to take a proper picture with it, so we said no to that. 

And Ground Zero. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Central Park. 

Where we ran into Matt.  

We ate dinner back at Matt and Madi's place and wound down the day there. 

The next day it was an early morning to catch our respective flights to California and Utah. 

Recommend x1,000,000 going to NYC with your siblings. (thanks, Dad!) 

Mom

The purpose of this blog floats somewhere between a personal journal and an entertaining way to keep members of my family and friends updated on the more fun parts of my life. Over the past two and a half years, there have been some pretty serious life events that have been left out because it just didn't seem like the space to talk about it.  However, I have reached a point where it wouldn't be right to let one those events go unsaid all together. 

After two years of battling with brain cancer, my mom passed away on July 10th, 2019.  I won't talk about the events that surrounded this, but I will share the life sketch I gave at her funeral: 

My mom was born on Oct 19 1965 in Anchorage Alaska, she was a miracle child for Leon and Peggy and the first of 9 children. She lived in Alaska for about the first 2 years of her life and then she moved to California. 

At age seven she moved to Ojai California, where she spent the rest of her childhood and teenage years. She loved growing up in Ojai and would say it was a paradise and the perfect place to be a child. She was very active and played soccer, loved water skiing, snow skiing, & dance.  

In Ojai she made lifelong friends, and it was where she also met my Dad, who lived just down the road. Though you could call them, high school sweethearts, they did their best to not “technically be dating”, but were together as much as possible. 

After high school she moved to Provo to attend BYU, where she joined the sportswoman club on campus, and would often rent a car to go snow skiing. 

Around this time, my dad returned home from him mission in Ecuador, and things fell right back into place, 6 months later they were engaged. 

Soon into their marriage, my dad took the opportunity to opened a chain of Letherby restaurants, and my mom became the head waitress.  They open stores in Scottsdale  and Mesa AZ and one in Denver CO.  

They decided to come back to BYU for my dad to finish his degree and it was then that they have their first child, Josh. 

After college my dad took a job with Marriott, which brought them to LA and then Colombia SC and after 2 years with Marriott, they moved back to Provo for my dad to get his Masters in Tax from BYU. 

My mom insisted on getting a degree - and decided to go to UVU to finish her schooling where she got a degree in a child development. She was a straight A student, and often told me that the hardest class she ever took was water painting. 

My mom loved her experience in the southern states with the more family/religious lifestyle - so they accept a job in Dallas, and moved to Texas.   

It was here that she took up jogging while pregnant with me and jogged up until the day I was born. Jogging became her addiction- no matter where she was, she had to start her day that way. Whether she was in Cairo, Cuzco, London, Serengti or at a hotel in a seedy part of Reno where she had to run laps around the small parking lot, she started the day with a run. 

Eventually we moved to Highland Village Texas- her dream neighborhood on the lake. More lifelong friends and memories were made, and here she had children number 4 and 5. 

Around the year 2000, my parents felt the prompting to move to Provo, it broke her heart to leave very close friends, the neighborhood, and our ward. But obedience was her second nature. So they moved to Utah. 

Provo was an amazing and a beautiful surprise for my mom. Though she never like the winters. I remember her telling me multiple times “I don’t know how I ended up in a place where it snows”. PV5 welcomed us with open arms and raising a family within this community was a dream come true for my mom. 

Callings of all types came her way, leading her to serve diligently in many different organizations at church, but she especially loved working with the little children. She always dedicated herself 100% to each calling - and did nothing half way.  She never had a doubt or a waiver to do EXACTLY what the lord or church leaders ask,  and was always completely dedicated to the church and its teachings. 

While my dad was completely done after child # 5, my mom felt a prompting for a 6th - you could never talk her out of what she felt was right. So a 6th child it was. Even though this meant she had to upgrade our car to a 8 seater, which she hated because it was far too large and she forever called our Ford Expedition, the Beast. 

As previously mentioned, she loved jogging, and while in Provo jogged the temple figure 8 loop everyday. However, after an accident while traveling in India she messed up her ankle, so cycling became her new exercise of choice and she lived for the challenge of the steepest hill. After cancer, she could only walk - but she walked as hard and fast as she could, so much so that others would have to jog to keep up. She always took her health very seriously, and that also included her diet. She always ate oatmeal with berries for breakfast, and a green smoothie almost every day-and there was no fruit in these smoothies. They tasted awful, but she loved it because she could taste, as she would say “the goodness”  and loved how healthy and good it was for her body. However, at the same time, she had the biggest sweet tooth. You could always tell when mom had gotten into the ice cream because all of the good chucks and toppings were picked out, leaving just the plain parts of ice cream behind. 

She loved her kids and would sacrifice anything for us - except for sleep.  Our curfew was modeled around her sleep schedule. She had black out window curtains, wax ear plugs, and a noise maker. And when traveling, one of her checked bags was designated to a sleeping pad, blanket and pillow. 

The one time she would sacrifice sleep was if it had to do with us signing up for class schedules. She always made sure we got the best teachers and schedule possible, whether we were in elementary school or college, it was a priority. Our education was very important to her, she went to every parent teacher conference, and helped us diligently prepare for the ACT. She is definitely the reason her children got into BYU. 

She was a wonderful mother. She made sure we had nutritious family dinners every night, decorated the house for every holiday-which always included a themed flag out on our porch, left a plate of treats on our beds every valentines day, and facilitated family nights every Monday. She attended our extracurricular activities, and watched many a soccer game from inside of the car to avoid the cold weather. She was the savviest shopper and truly the queen of shopping the best deals-especially at Kohl's. She made one type of cookie-one that used a cake mix and only took 4 ingredients, and it was always a crowd pleaser.  The summers were filled with afternoons at the swimming pool, and I swear I spent my whole childhood listening to Dr. Laura and Glen Beck while driving with my mom in the car.   

She had a million sayings like “something is rotten in Denmark” for whenever we misplayed notes on the piano, “rocks in your brain” for whenever anyone did anything stupid,  “that was a three hour tour” whenever an outing took a long time, and “it’s another pink moment” whenever she saw a beautiful pink sunset. 

She cried during musical numbers, had a beautiful alto singing voice, kept the cleanest house, and had an exceptional ability to dodge all photos and videos. Which always baffled me, because she always looked beautiful. 

She especially loved becoming a grandmother and doted on her grandkids as much as possible. I remember when the first grandchild was born, our house became depleted of basic supplies like toilet paper, because my mom was always spending her time with her new grandson. 

Two years ago she was diagnosed with stage 4 brain cancer, and she attacked her cancer like she did her life. With hard work, faith, and confidence in God.  She beat the odds, and was able to enjoy some wonderful months with family and friends. She lived an exemplary life, especially when it came to obedience, faith, persistence, and sacrifice.  She is an example that will bless our family for generations to come, and she will be very missed. 

Love you, Mom.