An Early Birthday

For me!! :) Hurray!

You see, my birthday is on Friday. But tomorrow I leave for Las Vegas and Sedona. So John and I wanted to have a birthday celebration before I left. John will be joining me in Sedona on Friday, but he won’t get in until late that night. So an early celebration it was!

We started the day off by sleeping in waaaaay late (that was unplanned though…both of us were rather surprised when we looked at the clock and it was 10! yikes! neither of us sleep in that late…usually…) and then had some delicious smoothies for breakfast. And I got to open some presents!! (we didn’t take any pictures though… I wasn’t ready for the day…ha!) I had received my own version of Adobe Photoshop from my parents on Thursday (SO excited!!! no more trial!!! hurray for unlimited photo awesomeness!!!!) and as another gift, my Mom paid for our piano to get fixed!! HURRAY! If you remember from when we first moved here, the piano had died. We thought that it had just finally enough (I did learn to play on that piano…which makes it about 17 years old) but we found a piano repair guy that works on electric pianos and it turns out we had a bad plug! Replaced the plug and done! Yay!! So glad to have it working again.

Anyway, back to more presents :) My in-laws gave me a gift card to Amazon (more on that in a moment), a fun little gadget that makes mini pies that look like pop-tarts (according to John) and my mother-in-law gave me a bunch of her old cookie cutters! There was several shapes I have wanted, and some other random fun ones. I will have to make some cookies when I get back from Arizona :) There is another present from my in-laws waiting for me at my parent’s house that I will get to open tomorrow before we leave for the airport…so I’ll have to get back to you on that one :)

And finally, John’s gift: A Kindle Fire!!!! LOVE IT! He totally surprised (and splurged on) me! He is so awesome. Apparently that was what the Amazon gift card was for, which I promptly spent on ebooks. :) I’ve already read an entire ebook on it and I’ve only had it 2 1/2 days. ha! I have a little collection starting now and I love that I have them all on the little device and I don’t have to lug a bunch of books around, especially for my trip! YAY! I love love love my new toy and I would have spent the rest of the day playing around with it, but John had some more plans for the day!

First stop, Charm City Cakes!
Alright, if you’ve been living under a rock (just kidding), Charm City Cakes is Chef Duff’s cake shop from the show Ace of Cakes! That was the show that really got me into cake decorating and my pastry journey :) I’m so sad they discontinued the show…
We didn’t get to go in, it was by appointment only, but it was enough for me just to see it :) …and it was in a reallllly sketchy neighborhood…so we didn’t want to leave the car alone for too long…

After navigating our way through a scary part of Baltimore, we made it to the National Museum of Dentistry (you might be thinking this is a weird way to spend my birthday celebration, and that’s okay, but I loved it – we’re checking things off on the bucket list!). I had no idea teeth could be so interesting :)
The royal dental instruments for Queen Victoria
We learned the Mayans would drill into their teeth and inlay stones! Eek!!!
A travelling dentist’s accoutrements
Old dentist chairs were super fancy looking ;) We saw one with tassels/fringes too
A plush dentist tool toy…who knew?
And of course, George Washington’s fake teeth!

There was also a cool exhibit on forensic dentistry and how they can identify people based on information they gather from teeth. Crazy! Yeah, I didn’t know there was such a thing as forensic dentistry either…

After all that we went to dinner at Outback Steakhouse. It’s tradition. Because that was what I always requested for my birthday dinner growing up. And it was delicious! I probably ate an entire day’s worth of calories in that single meal, but oh, it was so worth it. :) 

And so I’ve got to say it was a pretty good early birthday!

Road Trip to Philly

Well, kind of. Because technically, we took the train into Philadelphia after driving to Pennsylvania earlier this week. But that was after my mom and I drove 6 hours back and forth between SVU and my parent’s house. So I’m calling it a road trip. Because there was definitely enough driving involved.

But I digress…

So. Let’s start at the beginning (a very good place to start – ha! you were expecting that, weren’t you?). My mom went back to school to get her Master’s of Library Science. Cool, huh? I had no idea how involved being a librarian was until now… but anyway, she has spent the last 2 years as a full time student and a mom with 2 kids still at home. (I am not one of those 2, by the way…just to make sure we’re clear on that ;) and she finished up all the online book work in June (AND at the same time this is all happening my dad was getting his MBA, taking night classes on top of working – he also finished in June – it was just a little crazy at their house…)  but the last thing she needs to do to finish is 12 weeks of student teaching this fall. In Pennsylvania. Yes, we all knew about this from the very start, and this is what the program required.

So where am I going with all of this? (I’m getting there, I promise) Well, this last week I got to go up with my Mom and sister to Pennsylvania to meet the librarians Mom is going to be working with and see where she will be living during the week when she’s student teaching (she’ll go home on the weekends).

But why did we drive to SVU? Well, my brother and cousin were going to EFY this week!

They went last year and were SOOO excited to go again! I can’t wait to hear how the week went! But it was a 3 hour drive out there…and then another 3 hours back to pick up my sister…and then another 2 hours to my apartment. We spent the night at my place and then drove ANOTHER 2 hours to Pennsylvania! Side Note: Has anyone else noticed that the sign welcoming you into Delaware is super unenthusiastic? Plain dark blue sign. “Welcome to Delaware.” No offense to Delawarians…but you could be a little more excited about us coming by ;) At one point during the drive my sister was having trouble seeing her video game screen with the sun and we found her like this in the back of the car (I don’t think she knows I got this picture…hee hee hee)

My mom will be student teaching for 6 weeks at a middle school, and then another 6 weeks at an elementary school, and so we met with the two different librarians she will be working with during the fall. They were super nice and you can really tell they love what they do, and their enthusiasm was infectious. It helps that I LOVE books and the library. We got a tour of their libraries and then we went to lunch and had a lovely time getting to know them. I think my mom is going to have a great time!

We also got to check out the place where my mom will be staying and it is so cute! She sent out an email to the wards up in the area of the schools and found someone who rents out a little apartment over a three car garage. My mom has all the pictures on her camera, but I can tell you it’s the perfect arrangement AND a steal of a deal! (because you KNOW how much I appreciate a good deal! ;)

After we got settled in, we got to play! In the neighboring city, King of Prussia (yes, that’s the city’s name) there happens to be what is known as the biggest shopping mall on the East Coast. So of course, we had to check it out. After stopping by the big candy store and stocking up on gumballs (Jennifer) and sour candy (me), we found a Claire’s at which my sister probably deliberated for 20 minutes trying to decide which earrings she wanted to buy. I messed around with the other accessories, and when she had finally decided on some earrings, Jennifer joined me. These have got to be the weirdest glasses I’ve ever seen.

I was on a quest for new dress shoes so we stopped at several stores to fulfill my quest. So far: failed. WHY does no one carry sizes 5-6?! Small feet are sooo fashionable, so really…you should carry my size. ;)

After a tasty dinner at Chili’s we turned in for the day, because we had plans for a day in Philadelphia the following morning. Or…late morning, because we slept in way late. I’m still amazed at how long Jennifer can stay in bed. She’s like my brother Jason! (he could sleep till noon if we let him) We took the train in and since we had never been to Philadelphia, we decided on a bus tour of the city to see the highlights of what Philadelphia has to offer. So fun!

Chinatown
City Hall’s top half is there on the right…I forget what this building in front was…
The library
I think one of the most interesting things we learned on the tour was that for statues of people mounted on horses, the position of the horses legs/hooves actually mean something! This statue is of Joan of Arc – and the fact that the horse she is riding here has 2 hooves up tells us that she died in action. 1 hoof up means wounded in action. I never knew! Cool, huh?
The art museum

And of course, you can’t go to Philadelphia without getting a Cheesesteak! (although I keep hearing a “real” cheesesteak is made with cheese whiz…umm…eww…we got ours with provolone…)
We had eaten breakfast super late, so we just split the sandwich in three and shared. Pretty tasty!! :)

Then it was about time to start walking back to the train station to leave. We made a few stops on the way though, namely to grab some delicious frozen yogurt and to see Independence Hall

And then ONE more food stop before we got on the train: a soft pretzel! (I guess these are famous in Philadelphia too??) 

The really funny thing is that we were going to a BBQ that night at the elementary school and needless to say….we didn’t eat much by the time we got there…although I think between the three of us we ate an entire watermelon ;) After all the BBQ and library fun we crashed to get rested for our drive back the next day.

So excited for my mom to have this awesome experience student teaching! AND we got to have a girl’s getaway to check it out! :) Too fun! And now I need to pack for our trip to Arizona this next week! eeek! So excited!

New York, New Yorrrrrrk!

Actually, it was upstate New York, not New York city, but that was the best title I could come up with at the moment. And it will probably be just fine, because I don’t ever want to go to New York city, so chances are slim that I’ll blog about being there. (knock on wood, right? ha!)

Anyway.

We went on a little trip with my family and some family friends to upstate New York. One of the main things we were going to do while we were there was to go to the Hill Cumorah Pageant. So. Awesome.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. On Thursday we traveled endless hours (okay, like six) in the car to upstate New York to just outside of Rochester. We stayed in this dinky, somewhat scary and falling apart Days Inn. (We didn’t plan to stay in a scary hotel…the online pictures always look so nice!) At least we were just sleeping there. With 200 of our closest friends also going to the Pageant. ;) Anyway…Friday was the day we planned to see the Pageant. But it didn’t start until 9:15…PM. (it needed to be dark and it was held outside) So we spent the day in Palmyra, seeing church history sites and getting very hot and sweaty.

We started off at the Sacred Grove, which has pathways to walk all through it. It was very beautiful and peaceful.
After the grove, we walked around the Joseph Smith farm. We saw the barn, the cooper shop and the house. Here is the barn:
After that, we drove by the Palmyra Temple. I’m glad I got this shot as we drove by, because we didn’t have a chance to go back before we left for the Pageant.
After the Smith farm, we went to the site of the publication of the Book of Mormon. So cool! We learned about how books were assembled and bound and it was really interesting.
Here is an original first edition copy of the Book of Mormon. Awesome!

We stopped by the Peter Whitmer Jr. farm as well, and took a short tour of the place where the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was first organized.

After the Whitmer farm, we went to grab some dinner. What was on the menu? Ice Cream! Yep, we had ice cream for dinner. We went to a place called Chill n’ Grill and got ice cream before the Pageant. Tasty. :)

It was finally time to head over to the Pageant, even though it wouldn’t start for another 2 hours, it was time for us to stake our claim – or a spot to watch. We ran into our friends the Rosenbergs, who were part of the cast! So fun!
We also got pictures with some other members, like some people who played Nephi and Laman.

Here’s where the Pageant would be performed. It was a pretty cool stage!
After we set up our chairs and blankets, some of us went to the visitor’s center and checked out some of the costumes they used to use. Pretty fancy!
Lehi and Sariah
A Nephite warrior
Samuel the Lamanite. Side note: We learned the Donny Osmond played Samuel the Lamanite in the Pageant at one time. Mom was super excited…and I thought he was looking way too pale to be a Lamanite in that picture Mom’s pointing to… ;)

The Pageant was awesome. I loved it! It was so fun to able to go and see it. With the Pageant starting so late, we got back to the hotel and in bed around 1AM. Whew! What a day.

On Saturday, we went to Niagara Falls. I’m just going to tell you I’ve never been, though I was apparently there with my parents when I was about a year old – therefore they insist I’ve been there already, but I’m not going to count that. I don’t remember! It’s my blog, so there. ;)

So if you have to pick only a few things at the park, I highly recommend doing the Maid of the Mist and the Cave of the Winds. The Aquarium and the Discovery Center might have been cool in the 70’s…but I don’t think they’ve really changed it since then…and as such…were a bit of a let down for us older peeps. The kids really enjoyed the Discovery Center and the Aquarium though. We started off with the Aquarium (which smelled like a family run Asian seafood market…if you get my drift). The penguins were pretty fun :)

After the Aquarium, was the Discovery Center. There was a little exhibit to walk around, and a 20 minute movie to watch. Our friends and my brother and sister made it into the movie, but my parents, John, and I did not, as there was not enough seating. So we amused ourselves while we waited.

You can tell by John’s face that he looooooved being squid. ;)

After that we had some lunch and then we went to the Adventure Theater to watch the adventure movie. I got really stressed out watching the film…it was about people going over the falls. Yikes!

Finally, after all that, we got to actually see the falls. It was my running joke that day that all I ever wanted was “to see the water fall down”. We started over at some observation areas.

Then we went on the Maid of the Mist boat ride, that takes you right up to the falls! It was so fun! We were given ponchos to wear, but we still got a little wet. I guess not putting your hood on will make that happen… ;)

Look! There are the falls!
And I managed to capture the rainbow in the mist!
The sheer size of the falls was just amazing!
And here we are, a little wet after the ride. But this is nothing compared to what we did next!

The last thing we did was the Cave of the Winds. Super awesome. You get to go on this walkway right up next to the falls and there are different levels going upward – the highest being called the Hurricane Deck, because you are practically under the water as it is coming down!! So fun!

Before the walkway, however, we had to pick up our ponchos and our special (read: tacky) walkway shoes. They were supposed to be really good at keeping us from slipping. I suppose I believe them because no one slipped. ;) But we got to keep them afterwards. Cool! Free shower shoes! *snicker*
It was so cool to be so close to the water! The raw power of the falls is just awe-inspiring.
We didn’t take any more pictures beyond this point because we didn’t want the camera to get wet. Because we got soaked at the hurricane deck! It was so much fun!

And that was our day at the falls. Definitely do the boat ride and the walkway. Those were the best parts! We finally found some dinner at a Denny’s nearby around 10pm and made the hour and a half drive back to the hotel. Which meant another 1AM bedtime. But it was a very fun trip!

After another 6 hours of driving, we were home. I can tell you right now I was glad to be going to bed at a decent hour and sleeping in my own, not-scary room, in my nice bed ;)  Thanks for the fun, family!