Happy Birthday/ Anniversary

Yesterday was a BIG day around here. David and I celebrated 20 years of being married to each other and he celebrated his 4_ Birthday. He said in 2 more years he will have been married to me as long as not being married to me, so you do the math.

We always do Something for our anniversary, but it may not BE on our anniversary. Being the big 20 this year we had high aspirations to go on a cruise or somewhere, but then things we would like to have come along, and soon poof! the trip idea goes out the window. Since the completion of the bathroom the corner has been begging for a TV, so I got David a TV and wall mounter for his gift. We virtually do not have to come out of the bathroom anymore. With the heated floor it has been by far the warmest room in our house lately, so we pull up a chair and watch our favorite Christmas shows in the bathroom, or do like Kamryn & Anna and put pilliows in the bathtub and lay there.

As for me, for the last 5 years I have been thinking that on my 20th anniversary I "needed" to have a new wedding ring. I have waited patiently for 5 years for this time. I gave subtle hints over the last 5 years, which I don't think he ever really got. So a couple of weeks ago I started giving bigger hints, maybe not so subtle. He got the hint. We went ring shopping on Saturday, and I got a beautiful ring that I really love as much as the first one.

I Love You now David even more than when I married you 20 years ago. We have 20 years more wisdom and experience, and now we know each other so much better than when we married. We know just what each other needs to be happy, we know how to help each other through stress and hard times. You are my best friend that I turn to with good news and bad. I look forward to the next 20 + years!

David's work took him to lunch at an italian family style restaurant, then I made chinese food for dinner. He was full, but ate dinner to be polite. He wanted a simple chocolate cake this year, so that's what he got. Then of course he has to have ice cream with it. So after 2 big meals this was what he had room for desert.
Happy Birthday David!

It's Beginning to Look Like Christmas

Today's photo journal is brought to you by..... (I just had flashbacks to Sesame Street and telling you it was brought to you by the letters M, C and by the Number 8!) Okay, on with the photos.
This is a pre-view of our card we are sending. Benji wouldn't look at the camera, but it was good of the rest of us. Posed, but not too posed.

Yea! This was the year that I finally got my "pretty tree". But not without a lot of grief from my children that their ornaments had been downgraded. I wanted to get a live tree again this year, but the tree on the right was our first artificial tree bought on clearance in 1993. It has had a long life, and spent the last 5 years in our crawl space. It loses needles like water through a hose. David had a Charlie Brown moment and felt sorry for the tree and decided to give it one last harrah, so it became our kid tree this year. I think it is standing a little taller don't you? Even if it is a little bald on some of the branches, with all of the ornaments it looks very festive. Every year the kids get one ornament that says something about things they did or liked that year. So multiply that by 4 kids, with one being 18 Christmases, we have a lot of kid ornaments. Throw in all of the homemade ones from pre-school through Elementary school, and it is loaded. A lot of sentimental ornaments. This year Mikaela couldn't find 1997. She was very distraught that she couldn't remember what it was, so I guess the time has come to make a record of the ornaments lest we forget.

By the way, I love the pretty tree too, it is light green and brown. I got a lot of ornaments at after Christmas sales last year. The photo doesn't do it justice.

The first measurable snowfall, and no one wanted to go out with Anna to build a snowman, so she did it all by herself. Pretty good eh?

Grandma Molyneux brought a gingerbread house with her at Thanksgiving. This has become a tradition each year that we decorate a house. The kids thought up the powdered sugar snow to make it look wintery.

Today we put the lights on the outside of the house. I love Christmas Lights!

This was Kamryn's performance at the Littleton Downtown tree lighting. She disappeared while we were waiting. I found her waiting in line with all of the kids who wanted to go on stage and sing a song while we waited. She was the 2nd to last kid to go up, and she sang "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" She did a really good job, and wasn't the least bit nervous.

Stories in Hand

I reluctantly did an online class led by Jessica Sprague who I like to read her blog http://www.jessicasprague.com/ . She is a digital scrapbook teacher for Creating Keepsakes, and she has begun her own online digital scrapbooking classes. Anyway... the class was free so I thought what the heck. I am not a writer, but maybe it will help me to remember some of those forgotten stories I have hidden away in the dark recesses of my memory. It started last week, and I still haven't completed the binder that we were supposed to have printed and bound, and looking all cute, but I did get to the memory triggers. She compares getting our stories out to snorkeling and scuba diving. First you kind of flit around on the surface looking and remembering, and then you dive deep and find those stories. It worked! I started last night writing about the greatest life lesson I learned from my mom, and ended up writing about clothes that my mom made for me and even the time she really challenged herself and made down filled "puffy coats" for my sister and me. This was way before internet, so I am not sure how she ever found the resources for the down filled coats. This was in the 70's. My mom could make anything I thought, including down filled coats. Jump forward a few more years to when I was in junior high. My mom made my jeans. Unfortunately the jeans were harder to duplicate to the real designer thing. Even though she studied the pocket stiching and everything. She really tried, but the unappreciating teen that I was they weren't close enough. I wore the jeans until a boy brought attention to those jeans and caused me mortal embarrassment. I'm not sure what he said, but I remember the feeling I had. Isn't it funny that we can remember emotions like that so well.

Anyway hats off to mothers that do the very best they can for their children even when it can never be enough (according to the kids). I understand now that I am a mother how much you just want them to be happy.

Hallowe'en Chronicles

What a really fun, and busy Halloween weekend. The planets aligned so that we could have Halloween on a Friday AND very warm temperatures! It was the perfect night for mischief.


Because it was a weekend, we had all kinds of things going on...
Trick or Treaters for sure, Halloween scary movies with a basement full of teen-agers (sure why not), and maybe a birthday party.


Kamryn and Anna were Batgirl and Wonder Woman. They didn't even have to cover up their costumes with their winter parka's this year.


Derek and his friends all dressed up as "each other" He is dressed up as his friend Tyler (next to him) who is dressed up as another friend who used to go to a school with uniforms. Since they weren't allowed to "trick or treat" being 15 years old, they went "dance or treating" They had a pretty big group of kids, and they would ring the doorbell, then dance, then run away when they tried to give them candy. By they way the girl with the red wig and soccer jersey is supposed to be Derek. Some of the kids dressed as other things too, he doesn't really have a friend who is a clown, or a Barney fan club member.



















Mikaela and her friends had a party the week before where she dressed as her favorite singer
Bryce Avary from The Rocket Summer. Here she is standing by him, but apparantly I neglected to take a picture of her dressed like him.

On Saturday morning Derek informs me that his friends are all coming over that afternoon for a birthday party. This was after I have spent several weeks trying to pin him down on some details. So he texts everyone that morning, and then he works out what they are going to do. My job, to come up with a cake, and food. This is a prime example of why this kid drives me crazy. I don't work like this. I need a plan, I need details, I need more time! Is this too much to ask? Apparantly... I need to NOT make such a big deal of things, and just let it happen... according to Derek. In the end some of the kids couldn't come because they had to babysit, or they had other plans. But it was all right with him, they still had fun.

Happy 15th Derek!

Now he starts Driver's Ed next week, and before we know it, we will have another driver in the family! Wow how time flies!

Lessons Learned

Mikaela finished her cross country season last week, and it has taken me all week to find a good story. We will ultimately decide that it was a lesson learned for me.

Mikaela was very pumped for this race. It was like a gift to her because the week before had been a poor race for her, and she didn't finish very high. She thought she would not be racing at Regionals. Regionals decide who will race at State, and Mikaela has had her goal since early June to go to State this year for her final year of high school cross country. She had it written on her board and everything. So back to the gift... She was still fighting some congestion, but we were doing everything we could to break it up, and she was feeling better. She was even assigned a number with 2 "eights" in it. Her lucky number! Being in the JV race was good for her because she would know what the slowest runners got in Varsity, so she would know what time she had to beat to qualify for state. We put the time into her watch so she could pace herself. She did amazing for the first 2 miles. We ran to cheer her on at various check points, and her pace was perfect, not too fast, but enough to stay just in the lead. Then at the last check point before the finish at about .6 of a mile to go, she was starting to fade. We cheered, and tried to spur her on with her hopes of going to state. She was still in 2nd place, and could easily make it. By the last 100 yards she had slipped to 3rd, and we yelled to get her to pick up the speed, but her legs were lead by this point, and there was no telling them to go faster.

Being the competitor that I am, I was not sympathetic to leaded legs. I thought if she could just tell her legs to move it, they would. That is how it happens in all of the Disney movies right??? If you want it bad enough, then the body should comply. It wasn't a Disney finish as much as I wanted her to win for herself. In the end she let 2 more girls from her team whiz by her at the finish. She didn't beat herself up about it, she didn't cry, she was too tired. She gave it all that she had in her that day. Maybe she would have beat herself up, if I hadn't been giving her grief about "giving up". I was not the good supportive mom that I should have been. I was too busy being disappointed. How are mom's supposed to turn off how they are feeling, and say what they should, like "Good Job! What a tough race, I know you did your best!" I really wanted to say those things, but I just couldn't get it to come out.

A week ago when we thought she wouldn't be racing at regionals, I had said all kinds of supportive things like "Winning wasn't the most important thing you learned this season, learning to love running, and the friends you made, and the experiences you had, were more important." But I said those things when she finished really far back because of illness, this week was not the same.

So what did I learn? I should have remembered what my mom always told me "If you can't say something nice... don't say anything at all." But I didn't do that... and I just hope that I can earn my points back with her. Luckily she is a very forgiving girl, and I didn't teach her that either. A week later, I can say I wouldn't trade her for any State Champion runner.

Mission Accomplished!

Yea! My first marathon was a good experience on almost all accounts. After nearly 6 months of preparation for "the hill" and "the heat" I must have been prepared because I don't think they got the best of me this weekend. Okay... granted it was an unusually cold and rainy day in St. George. They seem to only have rain when I come to race there, or so I have heard. My last triathlon race there was cancelled due to slick roads. Oh well, as my preparation would have it I was well prepared in running in the rain. Both of my 2 longest runs were also in the rain, and I loved it. In fact I would say my 3 BFF's in this race were the rain, gravity, and Advil. All of them helped me to get way under my goal time of 4:30, (but secretly hoping for 4:15.) Actually I was able to run 4:11:17. As I was running I kept waiting for the infamous "wall" to hit me. When would I hit it? How hard would I hit it? How much would it hurt when I did hit it? And you know- I never hit it! I did feel tight in my legs, which I stopped to stretch a few times, but I think the Advil kept me from feeling the pain. When I crossed the finish line I was SO happy with how it went I gave the guy handing me my medal a hug. He said "You did it!" I said Yea! I did it!

It is kind of surreal to accomplish things that you have been working towards for so long. It has left me feeling a little empty the last few days. My SORE legs have kept the memory alive for me. I am just now able to go down my stairs facing forward and not backward to keep from screaming. As much as I have been in pain, I like the goal that the marathon gave me.

David made 2 of his 3 goals too. #1 he beat his goal time of 4 hours. He got 3:57: I am so proud of him! #2 he wanted to feel good at the end, as opposed to feeling awful after his last one in Houston when the temp was 80 plus degrees. He has been a little more stiff than me, but he feels good. #3 he will hopefully do, and that is to keep running after his recovery.

Partly intentional, and partly unintentional I didn't take my camera to the race, because I didn't have anyone to take pictures. I have some borrowed ones from my sister Kim (who is Boston marathon bound), and from my great running partner Shauna who also reached her goal of finishing her first marathon! Way to go girls!

BTW no pictures of David because he was off getting a massage when the camera's were out.

I think the best part of doing a marathon, or any competition is doing it with other people who you can share your pain, and your joy with! That is what makes it all worth it for me! Thanks peeps! You're the best!

Homecoming Week

So it has been a wild and crazy week around here... Sad to see it end. Every day was a dress up day at the high school. On Thursday all of the classes have field day. Freshman compete against Sophomores. Juniors against Seniors. Derek's class won handily (the sophomores) The Seniors only won by 1 point. They also won their homecoming game last night. Today they didn't have school, so the dance was tonight. I rather like having it on a Friday night, they have all of tomorrow to recuperate, and it isn't Sunday. Derek went to the dance with a group of his friends, and Mikaela asked a guy from a different school. Here are some pictures of them through the week.

Kamryn and Anna begin their off-track 3 weeks today. Didn't they just go back to school??? Another reason I am hoping our track system will soon disappear.

Time to go and chaperone the high school dance. Can't wait.... it isn't a fun place to be.

11 Days and Counting

I can't believe that the marathon is almost here. It seems like I should still have weeks of training still to do. I never thought I would be able to run a race this long, and stay healthy through all of the long runs. Even in the beginning it was my biggest fear that I would do all of the training and then have something go wrong and I wouldn't be able to run. But with only 11 days to go... I feel great! I feel better now than I used to feel on my short runs. It has been a matamorphosis I think. I am beginning to get tired of going running so many days of the week. And I am only going out 3 right now. So maybe my metamorphosis into a runner isn't quite complete. I like variety. I am ready to go back to the gym, and the pool, and out on my bike again.

It has definitely been a sports frenzy around here. Our lives are completely revolving around running, and soccer. Anna is playing her hardest again this fall. She has some good soccer sense and knows how to defend. Kamryn is doing awesome as a goalie and midfielder. She plays very agressive. Derek has become a defender this fall. He is doing great in that position, and has been starting for his Varsity team. Unfortunately the team is mostly under classmen so they are being trampled by the other team. They have yet to win a game, although they have had the lead a couple of times and then lost. Mikaela had a fantastic race this week. She won the JV race and moved up to the Varsity team for next week's race. Her time was almost a PR for her. David is getting up before dawn to put in his marathon training. He is staying healthy too, but has problems getting out of bed in the morning because he is so stiff :-)

This is the big Homecoming week at the high school. Mikaela is very involved in all of the activities. Tonight is Powderpuff football, tomorrow is Ruff & Tuff volleyball with the boys playing volleyball. Wednesday is bed races and bonfire. Thursday is the parade and the football game. Friday night is the dance. Mikaela has been in charge of all of the spirit stuff. She has to buy it and sell it at school and the games. The theme for the year is "super hero's" Seniors are Batman, and Sophomores are the Hulk. One of the other classes is Spiderman, but I can't remember the other hero. The football team is on a roll winning their last 3, even after they moved up from 4A to 5A. So it should be a "spirited" week.

Happy 1st Day of Fall! I'm not so happy that the leaves are already falling off of my privacy tree in the back yard. But I do like fall!

Few & Far Between

This is the time of year when all I really do is take my kids to soccer practice, or go to one of their games. Not really thrilling to me little alone to blog about.

Last night was a fun game. After 10 years of playing soccer Derek is now playing on the High School Varsity team. He thinks it is "cool". He likes wearing the jersey to school on game days, he likes having more than his parents there to watch him at his games. It is a lot of fun. So last night they played the cross-town rival. They beat them last year, and our football team beat theirs last weekend, so they were out for revenge. We scored on them first, but that was the only hi-light. We ended up losing 3 - 1. Derek's team has a lot of young players, so it will be even more exciting when they get to be upperclassmen.

Mikaela has had 2 cross country meets, and she is still trying to figure out what her best pace should be. She has been going out fast to keep up with the leaders, but can't sustain it. This weekend is her favorite meet, because it is a flat course. She is also busy planning Homecoming events that take place in 2 weeks. She received her Young Womanhood Medallion 2 weeks ago! Wahoo! We should make a bigger deal out of that, because it was the culmination of 5 years of work. I am proud of her.

Kamryn is also doing well in her soccer. She LOVES her new team. The coach is a lot of fun, and has done crazy stuff with the girls to help them bond. They are 2 - 1 so far in the season, and Kamryn seems to be doing well as goalie and as a field player.

Anna keeps losing teeth. We are waiting for one to fall out any time now. Heaven forbid she actually pulls it. Other than that, she is playing soccer, and piano, and hates working on math facts EVERY night.

Sweet 17!

08-08-08 is Mikaela's birthday! Wow where have the last 17 years gone? She had a really fun day. Her friends woke her up at 8 a.m. to take her to breakfast. Then she had a date with me to have cheesecake at cheesecake factory, and then she left to go to Colorado Springs for a student government retreat, so we didn't celebrate with the family yet. For practical reasons we got her a car. Mainly because we wanted our car back again.

We also got her senior pictures back, and they turned out so nice. Now her Senior year begins this week, and it is going to go by so quickly. I hope to have time to enjoy it with her. She has 2 AP classes on her schedule as well as student government, honor society, and cross country. She has been running every day in July so she is training hard to do well in cross country this year.

We are really proud of her!

First Day of School!

The girls started 5th and 2nd grade today. Anna tried to be brave, but when she got there she teared up. She will miss her1st grade teacher terribly. She will be a hard act to follow.

I think summer was just long enough. The girls did everything they wanted to, and were ready to go back today. Of course new shoes, and back packs help with that.

Mikaela and Derek still have 2 more weeks of summer, but sports practices start sooner, so really it's over for them too.

Congratulations to my sister for giving birth to twins, but only in one body! Benton Garrett Lefgren came into the world today. He weighed 11 lbs, 1 oz, and was 22 inches long. Yea they have the football scouts already looking at him.

Derek and David came home from their High Adventure camp to Maroon Bells and Snow Mass. The 14'er was a tricky one with very treacherous rocks to scale across. They made it as far as they dared go which was nearly to the top. Here's a picture of the beauty. And another of a horizontal rainbow, not something you see every day.

Toothless

Anna was one happy girl when she finally pulled her first top tooth. It has been a year since the bottom ones came out, so the toothfairy hadn't been here in a long time. This picture showed how excited she was about it.

Now she will have something to share when she starts 2nd grade on Monday. Our 5 weeks of summer are coming to an end. We are sad and happy about it. The girl's are really excited for their teachers next year, and they like getting all of the new school supplies, but I am sure the enthusiasm will wear off after a few days. This week is all about finishing summer with a bang though. Today we did slip and slide, tonight they are having a sleep over.

Summer swim team ended last Saturday with Kamryn getting an All-Star time in her back stroke. All season long she had done better in her breast stroke, and was very close to an All-Star time in that, but at the Prelim meet she didn't do well. I think she got too nervous. She qualified in Back and IM barely in the 16th and last spot. At the Divisional meet she dropped her time enough to get 7th place from 16th in back and she got the All-Star time. So she was pretty happy about that. We don't know what place she got in the IM because we had to leave after being at that meet for 7 hours in 98 degree heat, it kind of reminded me of swim meets in Houston.

Now we are changing gears to soccer season. Kamryn has already started her season with one soccer tournament, and Derek starts doing his pre-season camps with high school next week.

We got Mikaela's senior pictures back, and they were SO cute! She had so many good ones, I don't know how I am going to narrow it down. If you would like to see them, email me and I will send you the link. The photographer is a niece of my friend Shauna, she is from Phoenix, but came here to do the shoot. Her website is http://www.kellyphotoart.com/ .

David and I are doing okay on our marathon training. I did 12 miles last week, and this week I go for 14 or 15. David has already done 18. He is busily preparing to go on a high adventure camp this weekend with Derek. They are going to one of the most beautiful places in Colorado I have heard. Maroon Bells and Snow Mass Mountain. They hike in 8 miles, and the next morning they climb Snow Mass a 14,000 foot mountain, and then come down the next day. David is kind of nervous, not about climbing that high of a mountain, but about having no toilets :-) It sounds very fun to me, I wish I was going.

Tootles!

Aging Gracefully

I have to say that having a 41 year old woman not only qualify for the Olympics in swimming, but beating all of the other "girls" in the pool was very helpful to me this week as I turned 41. I did not feel so old! I don't think I will be qualifying for the olympics, but I can swim, bike, and run and beat a few 20 something year olds while I am at it. It does make me feel better about my age.

Since my last post I competed in my first Olympic Distance Triathlon, the Loveland Lake 2 Lake. I felt pretty good about how I did, but realized I should have done a few things differently. Namely, get in a lake and swim a few times with my wet suit this year. I have swam in a lake with a wet suit a few times before, just not this year, and I panicked a little bit. After the swim the bike was a lot of fun. I hadn't raced on my bike for 30 miles before either, and there were some speedy bikers with no fear of going fast downhill. Another thing I need to work on. The run used to be the hardest part for me, and I am pleased with my progress. I didn't need to walk at all in the run, and I actually got faster after I my legs adjusted to the new exercise they were doing. I was glad to finally finish this distance, but I don't know how soon I will be trying it again. Now it is on to the next goal.... the marathon.

David and I are week 4 in our training programs already, but after being on vacation last week, we are a little behind in conditioning. I have given up trying to keep up with David now. I knew as soon as he got in shape he would leave me in the dust, and sure enough he has. So now Shauna and I are going to pull each other through this race.

Here's to healthy feet and deep muscles massages! Go 40 somethings!

Hart's Go East!

Where has the month gone? At my last post we were planning our trip east. Every spare moment I had on the computer was used up in finding great hotel and car rental deals. What we should see in each city, and procure tickets if needed. I planned, but not over planned what we would do each of the days. Did it work??? I think so, we saw quite a lot in the time that we had, but we were exhausted at the end of each day. I will give a brief photo diary of everything that we did for my reading audience (family).

May 29, 2008 We woke up before the sun to drive to DIA. We caught our flight to Philadelphia after just a little stress about checking Mikaela's bag all the way to SLC on our return flight.

We got to Philadelphia actually 25 minutes early and got to our rental car by 3:00. They tried to give us a smaller car which would seat 6, but not carry any of our luggage. We finally got on the road with our dear friend "Tom" our navigational system that would get us on the right road every time... or would he? We drove into the city wow! It's crowded! Wow- They honk a LOT here. I jump out and go to see if any tours are still available for this day. David finds parking. Wow! There are a lot of school groups touring too! No more tours for today, but come back bright and early in the morning. We do walk around some and see the Liberty Bell, and some old buildings, and find lunch at Subway (not great). We go back to our 1st stay in a hotel. As Anna put it "our hotel was small... but at least it had a bathroom" What can you expect from a Motel 6- I wouldn't say this it was a Clean, comfortable room. That night we had a pizza "Pie". Different from any pizza we had ever had. This one had the cheese, pepperoni, and then the sauce on top... Why? Why do they make pizza with sauce on top? It must be a Philly thing.

The next morning we were up early to go get tickets to Independence Hall, and we had to beat all of those school tour groups. We did, and we saw it. Quite extaordinary to see the room where the 1st and 2nd Continental Congress met, and argued, and signed the Declaration of Independence. Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison had all been there before us. Other things we saw that day were Franklin's foundation where his house once stood, and the printing office he owned. We saw Betsy Ross's house, and the Philadelphia Mint. Our memorable food stop this day was to Sully's Restaurant for some Philly Cheese Steak Sandwiches. And they were much better than Subways! By noon we were done with Philly and on our way north with "Tom" guiding the way.

Night #2 was better than the first as we made it to a Holiday Inn Express with a pool and everything. Beds for everyone on this night. We slept in a little the next day too.

May 31st we went to Palmyra, New York to see the Hill Cumorah. It was a lot steeper than I thought it would be. Then we went to Joseph Smith's Farm and toured the log home, and the frame home, and then walked through the Sacred Grove. I got sweet pictures of the kids walking out hand in hand from the grove. They actually got along once in a while on the trip.

Then we had pizza again, only normal this time with the sauce on the bottom. Then we went across the street to the Printing Store that printed the first 5000 copies of the Book of Mormon. We saw people who we knew their son in High School (Marchants) They were in our tour. The printing office was very well restored, and we spent so much time there, unfortunately we didn't get to the Peter Whitmer farm. Then we went to Rochester a 1/2 hour away to see a college friend, Deborah and her family, the kids all took a dip in the pool even though it was very chilly that night.

June 1st was a Sunday so we slept a little later and went to the Sacred Grove again for our Sunday Meeting, and then went to see the Palmyra Temple. From there we started driving to New York City. We were glad we came into the city on a Sunday afternoon so we wouldn't have to deal with traffic. Even with our friend "Tom" it was very nerve racking and he led us astray a few times. Oh well what's a few extra dollars to support the nice toll people of New Jersey.

We got to our hotel in the heart of the theater district, but the cheapest I could find. The kids were excited because it had a curved staircase, and bell boys everywhere, and they valet parked our car, but when we got to our room.... it was even smaller than the 1st night.... but at least it had a bathroom... and it was clean this time (I forgot to mention Kamryn's small tantrum about the scratchy small towels, and dirty floor at the Motel 6). Milford Plaza was nice enough and they never realized we were sneaking 2 extra people into our room for 4.

After we got settled we ventured out into the city. We checked for cheap tickets to the theater, but found none to any shows we wanted to see, so we set out for Time Square. Then we walked, and walked and walked to find Lincoln Center and the Manhattan Temple. The kids did not have their walking shoes on (we were still dressed up for Sunday) and we didn't realize how far we would walk. David finally spotted the angel Moroni on the temple and we took our picture. Then we went back to Central Park and walked around and watched people. We turned down many a bicyclist wanting to drive our family around in a cart... did they really think about that? Since we missed our theater opportunity we went to a diner called "Ellen's Stardust Diner" on Broadway. They had "wannabe Broadway actors" as their waiters, and we were very entertained. We only ordered 3 orders of meatloaf to be split 6 ways, and then everyone ordered a dessert, because that is what vacation is all about. Malts were their specialty. Even though it was one of our pricier meals it was worth it because of the entertainment. The kids really enjoyed all of the show tunes they sang. Then we walked home through Time Square again, and saw all of the billboards. We went in the M& M Store, the Hershey Store, and the 3 story Toys R Us Store with a ferris wheel inside. After a very long day we went back to the Milford Plaza and crammed 6 people into our small room for a noisy night sleep. Our air conditioner was not working properly so it made a lot of noise, but they fixed it the next day.

June 2nd was another early day so we could find our way on the Subway to downtown Manhattan. We made our way to the ferry to Liberty Island and took it a little early to the Statue of Liberty. I had gotten passes online to take the monument tour which is as far as they let you go in the statue since 9/11. We had our 1st of many security checks. This time it involved a "Puffer" which blew puffs of air at your. We weren't sure what that was about, checking for explosives I guess. We waited for about 1 hour to get through this tight security. I guess the tour was worth that. We saw how big the statue is, and a model of what it looks like inside. Then we took the ferry back and skipped Ellis Island. We got a New York hot dog at a stand and ate as we walked to find Ground Zero. Our map reading skills were still being fine tuned, but we did get there. We saw a wall plaque on the side of a fire station dedicated to the fireman and policeman who died. We saw the big hole in the ground for the next buildings that will go up there. We listened briefly over the noise of construction to a tour guide tell about it. As we were leaving I snapped a picture of a fire truck leaving the station right in front of Ground Zero. Then we walked on to find Wall Street. We had watched National Treasure before this trip and we liked finding all of the impossibilities of the movie. We found Trinity church at the end of Wall Street, and we found the building where George Washington was 1st inaugurated in 1789. The building was nice and cool so we went in for a while and cooled off. Then we walked on to find the Brooklyn Bridge. They were already tired at this point, but how long can a bridge be? If I bribe them with ice cream on the other side they will go. So we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. It would have been really fun, if we hadn't been so tired. The ice cream store on the other side was a little hard to find, but we did find it, and it was worth it. Outside was a promenade area and people were posing for wedding pictures in front of the bridge. There was also a cool thing called a "telectroscope" we could look in it and see people in London in front of the Tower of London looking back at us in real time. We held up white boards to communicate, no voice. There was no more bribery so we found a subway entrance eventually that took us back across the river (2 changes in subways that were extremely confusing) to China Town and we had dinner at Green Bo's Chinese restaurant. It was early so no one else was there so we weren't so embarrassed that we couldn't eat with our chop sticks though we tried. The kids all played it safe and ordered sweet and sour, and orange chicken. I tried pork dumplings, and crab dumplings. They liked my pork dumplings, but I got all of the crab ones to myself.

By now it was close to rush hour so we walked around China Town a little and then found our way home on the subway again. Later that night we walked around Time Square again, and bought souveniers.

June 3rd we had New York bagels with schmeer for breakfast and walked to Rockafeller center. Derek found his heros from "The Office" at the NBC store, and Kamryn and Anna went to the American Girl Store. It was 4 stories of doll heaven. Then we walked down 5th Ave. to see the Empire State Building. Then David took the kids back to get checked out of our hotel and Mikaela and I walked quickly down 34th street to find "American Eagle", Forever 21, and others. Then we left NYC around noon. We all decided that Manhattan is a fun place, but we would NEVER live there. A funny sign that we saw said "Fine for honking $350" HA! Everyone honks at the slightest pause in traffic. There is so many pedestrians, and so many cars on very narrow streets. Another funny thing was all of the trash. Every night the businesses put all of their trash out on the street to be picked up during the night. Ever heard of dumpsters?

We drove the New Jersey Turnpike down New Jersey, across the Delaware River and into Delaware. We saw a town called NewCastle on our route so we decided to stop there and see what it looked like. It was a cute OLD town on the river. It was settled by William Penn Himself in the 1600's. We found a tavern and went in for lunch. Still trying the native cuisine. We had pastrami on a pretzel roll and sweet potatoe fries. The others had other New Englan dishes. Wild rice soup, pot roast, but the sweet potatoe fries came with everything. They were different, and delicious. The walls of the tavern were decorated with various old maritime decorations, and outside an old "Betsy Ross" style flag hung, as well as a swedish flag, because Newcastle was settled by swedes I guess. We enjoyed this slower town very much after leaving the hustle and bustle of New York.

We drove another hour and a half across Maryland, and we came to Kensington, MD where the Washington DC temple is located. We went to the visitor center first and saw the movie "Joseph" which was about to start, and we had never seen it. It was cool to see that after visiting his home in Palmyra. When we came out of the visitor center it was raining, so we didn't get to walk around on the temple grounds. We took a picture of the temple under the visitor center awning, then left for our friends' the Roper's home in Vienna, Virginia. We got there around 9 p.m. because of bad traffic. We stayed with them for 4 nights, they were amazing hosts. We had air mattresses and more room than any of our hotels.

June 4th we headed into Washington DC fairly early to get passes to the Washington Monument. I got them for later in the day and we walked to the White House. Glenn Roper who we stayed with works on the legal staff for the Bush Administration. He got us cleared to take a tour of the White House which is hard to do unless you contact a congressman. We saw the East Wing with the Red Room, Blue Room, Parlor, and a Ball Room, and the Entrance of the White House. Because there were 2 suspicious vehicles in the area and the President was inside, we had to wait for an hour for our tour, but it was worth it. After we had to book it to the Washington Monument for our 11:45 tour of the Washington Monument. This was the first of many "just in the nick of time" moments in DC. We walked up to our tour just as he was taking the tickets. We went up to the top of the monument and looked around DC from little windows. It also had a history of this most revered President. After the tour we took some pictures by the monument, and started walking down the mall. It was getting warm and very muggy by that time. We saw WW2 memorial, Viet Nam Memorial, Korea memorial, and then we went in Lincoln's Monument. It was cool in there and we took a break. While I was looking in the gift store a huge storm blew in. The rain was blowing side ways. I was SO glad we weren't out walking in the mall still because there would have been no shelter. Obviously Lincoln Monument became a shelter to a lot of tourists. We stayed in the monument for about an hour. It was still drizzling when we ventured out again. We decided against visiting any more memorials since it still looked like it could rain again, and we headed to the Holocaust Museum. David, Mikaela, and Derek did a tour of the exhibit while Kamryn, Anna, and Michelle went to an exhibit for children. It was a hands on exhibit of the life of a Jewish boy before, during when he went to a ghetto in Berlin, and eventually a concentration camp. Because his father was a world war 1 hero he was spared along with the boy, but his mother and sister died. It was a good way to explain the Holocaust to Kamryn & Anna. Unlike New York City everything in Washington DC closes at 5:00. Even the restaurants were very empty for the evening meal. We went to a food court and then went home pretty early.

June 5th we didn't go into the city as early, but we were still able to get passes to see the Capitol building. Since we had some time we decided to walk to the National Archives. It seemed a lot closer on the map than it actually was. When the kids would see a tour bus full of people they would say "Wimps!" because we were walking. When we go to the Archive building there was a line around the block because of all of the school tour groups visiting, so we decided to wait until later and we went to the National Art Museum. I liked it... the kids just thought there were too many naked people. Then we walked back to the capitol. We made it just in time for our tour again. We really liked the tour of the capitol. The statues, the paintings, the cool architecture. Security here was tight again, and this time they wouldn't let us take water bottles. It was mid-80's so I didn't think that was very nice of them. We had to go buy more water at $2 a bottle when we got out. We ate at a popular DC retaurant called "Potbelly's". We had some really good sandwiches. I guess that is about as DC cuisine as you can get. After lunch we went back to the National Archives. It was still busy, but we waited this time and got a chance to view the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. The parchments were very faded, and you could hardly read the Declaration of Independence in the dim light. Then we headed out of DC, but not before driving all over town to find a gas station (no one must get gas in the city, because there were none) While David did that I went in search of a dress to wear to the National Symphony. Glenn had gotten 4 tickets for that night's performance of Peer Geht (???) I can't remember how it was spelled. We almost didn't make it back to Vienna in time to drop of the kids to babysit and pick up Julie to take her back into town. We barely made it once again. We got to sit in the President's box when he attends the symphony, and we got to eat the presidential M&M's. It was really cool! The symphony had a choir and soloists that sang also to tell the story. It was very good, although a little crude. I recognized some of the pieces they played. The kids all really had a good time playing with Derek & Evan the Roper's kids while we were gone, and it was good to relax a bit.

June 6th we were really slow getting into DC. We went to the zoo to see the famous pandas. The zoo was full of school groups too, but smaller kids. We found the pandas, and got to see them up close even. They have 3 now. We also enjoyed the oran gutan's that would swing on ropes over our heads on the side walk. We made sure not to be directly under them. Then we found a McDonalds that Michelle jumped out and went in to order food, but because there is no parking, and no drive through David had to drive around and pick me up. We found a place on the street to park and we ate in our car... Crazy! Then we went back into the city (the zoo was on the outskirts of the city) we went to the Air & Space museum. The museum was very cool with so much to see, but we were getting really tired of museums at this point. We still had another museum to see though, the Nature and Science Museum that held the Hope Diamond and other large jewels. Michell & Kamryn really enjoyed seeing these giant jewels. Then we walked on to find a food court in the Reagan Building where Homeland Security is. We had to go through security again to go to the food court. This time we had to show ID. Every security place was a little different. Security people were VERY bossy. I thought in general everyone in DC was on a power trip, right down to the food court people. Everyone liked to feel like they had power over someone, especially the tourists.

All the times we went to DC we drove in and parked our car. It wasn't as crowded as Manhattan was, and parking was more reasonable. By the way to valet park our car in NYC it was $50 a day! and gas priced averaged about $4. It was less in upstate NY & PA, but the most in DC at about $4.30.

Finally, on the evening of our last day was the grand finale of our trip. Glenn was able to get us a tour of the West Wing. We saw the oval office, the rose garden, and the press room. We had to tour this at night after all of the employees are gone, and only when the President is out of the White House. He left on a helicopter on Friday afternoon. We loved the White House tour. I took a picture of a photo in the White House on accident before I knew I wasn't supposed to take photos in the building -only outside. It was a picture of George W. Bush looking up at his father George Bush. Then Glenn took us to see his building where he works in the Eisenhower Building. Mark Twain called it the ugliest building in DC, but it had character.

Saturday morning the 7th we decided to go into DC one last time to go to Arlington Cemetary and see the changing of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Even for early in the day, it was VERY humid, and HOT! We were lucky that we weren't there a few days later because the temperatures got much hotter after we left. Anyway we walked quite aways into the cemetary to find the tomb. It was very moving to see it. We all felt very sorry for the soldiers in their black coats standing outside in that heat.

Then we drove back to Philadelphia in what we thought would be plenty of time to get to the airport, but "Tom" had had a very long week too, and he was slacking on the job. We got to the airport, but realized we had to fill our gas tank, so we went in search of gas, and then Tom led us the wrong way to get back to the airport. Then he told us to "bear right" when we should have stayed left and we ended up paying another toll cross a bridge into New Jersey again. We were so lost, I thought we were going to miss our plane home, but "Tom" redeemed himself and found our way back to the airport again. We found the car rental place, and caught our shuttle to the airport. Again everything was "just in time". We made it back to Denver by dinner time.

Whew! What a week it was. It was a lot of fun, we have more family jokes, and the kids got closer, so I would say it was a success, but an exhausting success. It has taken me a week to put all of this on my blog because it took that long to recuperate.