24 Hours in the Big Apple

From Palmyra we drove across the state to New York City!


There are a lot of pictures in this post. It was hard to cut them out. We felt like we were on a different planet for a day. The sights and sounds and smells were all so different from what seems normal for us. It was only 24 hours, but it was enough to get a good feel for the city.

We started with window shopping on 5th avenue.

Rockefeller Center

Goofing around in the Harry Potter section at FAO Schwarz.
Hansen budget travel tip: go for a window shopping walk on a Sunday so the kids won't beg to buy anything. (Of course this only works if your family is unaccustomed to shopping on Sundays.)




Now this is the real Lego Star Wars!


Central Park had some very colorful characters hanging around.

Statue of Liberty Guy . . .

Hansen budget travel tip: if someone is charging money to pose for pictures with them, stand to the side where they can't see you and get your shot for free!

Street dancers . . .


and a very colorful weirdo with his spray painted doggy.


We liked this little guy the best. There were at least five young raccoons in this tree. They lived in the hollow where this one is sitting.



Some more wild life in Central Park.

Time for a break and some dinner in Columbus Circle.

Times Square at night blew us away! We were enthralled with the lights, the billboards, the crowds . . .


Harry Potter was everywhere! Much to the delight of the kids!

Monday morning we took the Subway downtown to Battery Park. The NY subway much more complex than the DC metro!

The kids couldn't believe it when we said "Yes!" to having street artists do chalk drawings of us. We think these girls from Russia were apprentices or something because they were cheap and they weren't that good. :)

We sure had fun though! It will be a great,happy memory for us.


We took the Staten Island Ferry across the bay to see the Statue of Liberty. It is a free ferry.

Hansen budget travel tip: Always take advantage of the free stuff!

We walked past Trinity Church and Wall Street to the World Trade Center, aka Ground Zero. Almost eight years later there is still a huge void and a very busy construction site. It brought back a lot of memories of that terrible day. It is hard to describe how we felt actually being there.

The building that houses this pizza shop was completely destroyed on 9/11.

Hansen budget travel tip: always share your dinners--serving sizes are too big anyway. Carry your own water so you don't have to buy drinks.

Grand Central Station and the Chrysler Building. This one's for you Mom! (She used to work in the Chrysler Building for General Foods when my dad was at Cornell Medical School--we were in their old stomping grounds!)

Having a taste of authentic gelato.

Hansen budget travel tip: buy one large gelato and share. Everyone gets a couple of spoonfuls and no one feels deprived! This frugality has a bonus because on the rare occasion that you buy everyone their own gelato the kids are so surprised that they think you are the best parents in the world!


The kids really wanted to go back to FAO Schwarz to blow some money, but the walk was too long and we were too tired. So off to nearby M&M World instead. Mara was the only one with money left to spend, but they all had fun anyway!

Hmmm . . . Jeff didn't know what to think about that!

It was a crazy busy weekend! It seems like we packed a weeks worth of sights into three days (Palmyra included). The kids were amazing walkers in that big, big city. No complaints! We loved it!

Palmyra, NY

On Friday, July 17, we drove Megan to the airport, packed our bags, and waited for Emily to get home from a week at church Girls Camp. She finally arrived, happy but tired, and we quickly washed her clothes and packed her up again. We were headed for Palmyra and NYC! (Emily is on the far left in the picture. She would also like it to be known that it almost killed her to go on this trip so soon after Girls Camp, she was soooo tired!)

On Saturday we spent the day exploring the church history sites in Palmyra. This is a monument on the top of the Hill Cumorah in memory of the miraculous way that Joseph Smith received the golden plates from the angel Moroni.

This is the small log cabin (restored) that Joseph Smith was raised in, along with his 10 siblings.

This is the room that Joseph was sleeping in when he first met Moroni and was told of the ancient record that was buried in the nearby hillside.

The beautiful Palmyra temple overlooking the Sacred Grove.

The Sacred Grove is behind us.

We had a great experience exploring the Sacred Grove. It was raining when we first visited, so we came back later in the afternoon. There truly was a sacred feeling in that grove of trees. To think that this is where God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ appeared to the young Joseph is almost overwhelming. Mark said, "I feel like I am walking where Jesus walked."

Later that night we found our seats for the Cumorah Pageant.

This is the amazing stage.


The opening scene included the entire cast of 600. It was a fantastic pageant about the Book of Mormon with Hollywood special effects! Sadly, a thunderstorm came through right before the finale. We huddled under a blanket during the downpour waiting for it to blow over. They had to cancel the last ten minutes of the show. :( We loved what we saw though!

On Sunday morning we had a family devotional near the Grove. It was a special time for our family as we all expressed our feelings for the Gospel and for the Restoration that came through Joseph Smith. We are so blessed and grateful to have the Gospel of Jesus Christ in it's fullness! This is why we need to share it with the world. How can we keep this to ourselves?!

Fourth of July

Hayley's friend, Megan, arrived on the Fourth of July to spend a week with us! We have been looking forward to this for a few months now, but it also means that our time here is almost up.

After much deliberation about where we should watch the fireworks we decided to go to the big concert again like we did for Memorial Day. We had to get there several hours early, so we packed a dinner and some games and settled in.

It was a great concert. Neil and I know we are getting old because we were thrilled to see . . . .

Yes! Barry Manilow! And we knew all of his songs too. The kids were like, "who's Barry Manilow? Why do I know this song?" (Because I have his Greatest Hits album!) We also saw Aretha Franklin and the Sesame Street gang! Only in DC, right?

This is Jeffrey in action. He had five older boys surrounding him and listening to him. It was a hoot. He also always seems to get people to give him stuff. Maybe he's going to be a politician.

Fireworks!

Happy Fourth of July!

Checking off the List

Neil went through the entire Washington DC guidebook to see if there was anything important that we still needed to do. Happily we have seen almost everything we want to! So our last couple of weeks here we are checking a few more things off our list. It is fun to see some of the unique things in the area.

First, we dropped Hayley off again (we just got her back!). She went on a two night, 12 mile backpacking trip with some girls and youth leaders from church in Washington National Forest.

The Smithsonian hosts a Folk Life Festival on the National Mall every year. We decided to check it out after hearing two amazing African American storytellers from the festival on Monday night at the Kennedy Center. There were three sections to the festival: Las Americas, Wales, and Giving Voice (African American). The kids are listening to a storyteller from Wales in this picture.

He told some funny stories about "Jack." It was interesting to learn more about Wales and hear the Welsh language and music.

We loved the Mexican Mariachi group. They had wonderful voices. Exactly what you'd expect!

These guys were fun too. They did a concert called "MLK the Hip Hop Way." It was inspirational hip hop--believe it or not! They had a great message of self reliance and morality that they shared through rap and hip hop. It was Martin Luther King's message.

The Smithsonian Carousel was on Jeffrey's list. Check! So, where else can you hear Welsh, Mariachi, and Hip Hop all in the same stretch of lawn? !

We had so much fun canoeing on the Potomac in April that it was on all of our lists to do again. On Friday we tried the C&O Canal. The boys liked to hide under the trees on the side and ambush the girls in the kayaks. :)

I enjoyed getting the girls to sing canoeing songs and making up dramatic stories about the "unsuspecting canoers heading towards the treacherous falls around the bend."

It was a great afternoon. When we were done on the canal, we walked down a street in Georgetown and bought some fudge. A few more check marks on the list!