Responsible Kids!

Glenn and I decided last week that our kids are old enough now that we could leave them on their own while we took a quick one night get away for our anniversary. We left after church on Sunday and came back Monday. Of course we talked to them several times thanks to our wonderful cell phones and knew that everyone was fine throughout the time. When I walked through the door yesterday this is literally how I found William. He was staring straight ahead at the TV and chomping away. And, note the shorts, IT'S FEBRUARY!



Here he is washing up.

New York (Part 3)

Day three was mostly business. We toured another store and spent most of the day in a very old, dirty and cold warehouse buying more stuff for the store. Our guide and driver for the day was an honest to goodness New Yorker and I especially enjoyed experiencing the city driving. Lanes are non existent and signals are not necessary. You just go or get out of the way and you're not offended if someone else is in front of you or cuts in front as long as they are going. I was only afraid for my life in one instance which involved a very creative freeway exit. Surprisingly I was not car sick, even after our memorable lunch. Lunch was authentic chinese and we were the only caucasians in the very busy restaurant. It was an upscale restaurant and the food was served from rolling carts that came around to the tables. We let our guide make all the choices, especially after Glenn pointed to something that he thought looked like sesame chicken and learned that it was chicken feet. Since I'm an Idaho girl and was raised on meat and potatoes I was in over my head. I only recently started eating American Chinese food and I don't do much seafood. This place was heavy on the shrimp and mystery dishes so I was trying to eat enough to not be rude and to stave off headaches, which I get if I don't eat regularly, but I was suffering through every bite. At least now I can add Ate in Swanky New York Chinese Restaurant to my life experiences. Hopefully I didn't add anything like Ate intestines in Swanky New York Chinese Restaurant. There was a fish tank there with the ugliest red fish with blue eyes in it. I wonder if I ate any?
After our day in the warehouse we took a train back into the city. We got off at Penn station which was really cool but we didn't look around because we were on the hunt for some good ol' American food for dinner. Glenn marched us all the way back to the Time's Square area which was back by our hotel before stopping to look around. I was getting a little whiny as we passed restaurant after restaurant but we finally ended up at Planet Hollywood where I ordered a big cheeseburger. It doesn't get more american than that. In Glenn's defense he just wanted to be in an area he was more familiar with and I apologized for the whining after I got my cheeseburger. Here are the lights in Time's Square.

The next day was the day we left but our flight was in the afternoon so we made reservations to go to the temple. That was another cool thing for Glenn since it wasn't a temple when he was there. The church owned the building of course and it contained a church and some offices among other things. He had been in the building several times on his mission. It was neat to go see how they made it into a temple. The temple is on the 3rd and 4th floors and it was pretty much like any other temple except for the size. It was pretty tiny but space is not readily available there. We are just so happy that "Glenn's people" have the blessing of having a temple now!

After the temple it was back to the hotel for checkout then a last quick lunch of New York pizza and then on to the airport. Everything on this trip went so smoothly and it was just so much fun. I think I really needed a vacation because I haven't been able to stop talking about it. Thanks honey for "making" me go to New York with you. I had a blast!
Here are more pictures for a taste of New York.
Garbage on the street. If I had waited a minute longer I could have gotten a picture of a homeless guy going through the garbage on the street.

The view of 8th Ave. from our hotel room window.

This is the corner looking from our hotel room. Wicked was right next to the building with the blue awning.

Loading the taxi going in.

Glenn chatting with the cab driver and being corrected on which boroughs we were in. (It's ok honey, it's been 20 years.)

New York (Part 2)

I don't know how you beat walking into Wicked on day one but the awesomeness did continue. On the agenda for day two was an hour and a half drive up to see a store similar to ours and to talk to the manager to learn some of the ins and outs of running one. We planned on driving through West Point on the way up so we could see some of Glenn's mission sites too. West Point was really cool and it was great to listen to Glenn talk about his mission and be right there to see everything. Glenn loved his mission and West Point was his favorite area. Such good people there for sure. Here is the guard station going into the base.

Here is a house on base, I liked the Go Army Beat Navy flag hanging out front.

After West Point we came to the town of Cornwall which is where Glenn lived while he was in that area. I knew the name from the good old days of writing but it was fun to see this quaint little town. It was very cute and I was enjoying looking at all the shops when Glenn suddenly pulled over and pointed out this house where he lived!

I had to get a picture. The first time I went to New York with Glenn what I really wanted to see was the places where he lived but at that time we were in the city without a car and he said it wasn't safe to take me to those areas. So I was really happy to be able to go to this area and to see this house where he actually lived. Isn't it cute?
We arrived at the store and looked around but we had to head back quickly because the guys had put our names in for the Letterman show earlier that morning and they called us back to say we were in. So much for this part of the "business trip". I snapped some pictures of the store and we talked to the manager for about 15 minutes but that was it.

We drove straight back and made excellent time. (Think George Costanza) We got into Manhattan and had about 15 minutes before we were supposed to be there so Glenn dropped Tammie and I off near the hotel and we took the bags in while the guys returned the rental car and grabbed 4 slices of pizza which we ate as we New York style "walked" to the Letterman show. The thing that I love about New York is the ability to walk anywhere. It turned out that we were basically checking in and would need to return in 45 minutes. Did I mention that it was cold there, because it was freezing! Since we didn't need to eat we walked around for a bit and hit a gift shop where I bought some gloves. Except for Wicked, that was the best money I spent in New York City. (I should have bought a hat too.) We also bought tickets for Jersey Boys for later that night and that qualifies as the worst money we spent in New York. More on that later though. We went back and lined up for Letterman and this dude gave us this long spiel about the do's and don't's in the show. The do's was mainly laugh at anything. The don't's were such things as don't yell out, don't take pictures, don't do woo's. Too high pitched I guess. I found that I'm not very good about laughing and whooping it up without doing woo's. It was really hard. Also apparently the no picture taking rule started immediately even though we were still on the street because I got in trouble for taking this picture.

The show was pretty fun and brought back memories of my high school years when I watched it nightly. The most notable thing to me was how small the place is and how the colors look on the set compared to what shows up on the screen. Pretty cool overall. The guests that night were Renee Zellweger and Tony Dungee and Graham Nash was playing with the band. I would have wooed for the band but I couldn't. I forgot to get a picture of us under the marquee so here's a stock photo of it.

After the show we got something to eat and then killed time before the Jersey Boys show. OK so when we bought the tickets for Jersey Boys we noticed a sign that said the show contained profanity, Jersey vocabulary and something else that I can't remember but it was said in a funny way so I didn't think much of it. Of course hind site is 20/20 so I can't say we weren't warned. The show contained frequent hard profanity if you know what I mean and we ended up leaving in the first 30 minutes.


Kudos to Tammie who exited first. I kept thinking maybe that's the last of it or maybe it will change when he leaves the neighborhood and becomes famous. Anyway Tammie didn't wait, she and Brett took off and Glenn and I had to track them down later at the Cosmic Diner down the street. We had some dessert and had time to just sit and talk so it was still a nice night. That about covers it for day two. I'm going to have to continue this later again since I'm so long winded. I hope my number one blog fan can forgive me. (Yes I do have a blog fan and it's not even my mother who has to like my blog;)

New York was AWESOME! (Part 1)

We had a great trip to New York City last week. It was a business/birthday trip and I was a little skeptical about the combination. I was worried that it would mainly be a business trip but would be counted as birthday and I would hear "but I took you to New York"... It turns out there was no need to worry because we had a fabulous time and Glenn got full birthday credit for this one. We arrived on Wednesday afternoon and planned to see if we could catch a broadway show that night. We thought being Wednesday we could probably see any show except for Wicked since it's the hottest show around right now. When we got to the hotel and started to get our bearings we learned that Wicked was basically across the street from us and that there were tickets available. We were with our friends the Bellistons who had already seen it but they were game to go again so we walked across the street to see about getting tickets. We were at the box office ready to fork over big money when some guy said "please clear the lobby we will be drawing for the lottery in 4 minutes." We didn't know what that meant so we went over to him and he said put your names in and we'll be drawing for 2 front row tickets at 26.00 dollars each. So we all put our names in and waited for the lottery. I was more worried about getting it over with so we could jump back over to the box office before the crowd but we didn't know that they would be drawing 14 names out. Sure enough Tammie's name was called and we got 2 front row tickets. Since they had already seen the show and because it was my birthday they gave them to us. We purchased 2 more tickets and we were set. While I waited with Tammie to get her tickets we were talking to a lady from Salt Lake who asked us if we had seen many shows yet and we said we just flew in an hour ago! Later another lady asked us how many times we had tried for the lottery and again we said we just got there that day. It was pretty funny. I didn't know much about the show but I absolutely loved it! (I must confess that I don't think of myself as a "Musical" type of person but in truth I am, and it's ok.) The front row experience was great although we were on the side and sometimes had the performers in the way of the overall view. At the very end of the play one of the monkeys was sitting right by us and his tail flopped over the stage so I reached out and touched it. Glenn kind of rolled his eyes at me but he later admitted that when the lights went out he touched it too! It was so fun and a very memorable birthday.
Here are some pictures.
Here's Tammie getting the lottery tickets. Doesn't this picture look like she's buying tickets from a scalper? She's got the cash out and everything.

OK so they don't say "Front Row" but that's exactly where they are.

The Wicked sign. BTW it was Wicked Cold in New York City. (Haha play on words humor.)

Touching the stage from my seat and look my arm is barely extended. Yes we saw a lot of spit from those seats!

The final surprise. I bought a shirt on the way out only to find out later that Glenn had bought me one during the intermission. What a guy!