14 Years

OK, if you a frequent visitor/reader of my blog, you'll notice I cheated a bit and back-dated some entries from our trip to New York. Is that bad? Oh well, I figure this is more of an e-journal for myself anyways, so I guess I will do what I want to.

I did neglect an entry on October 7th, however, as I was bit busy getting ready for the trip.

October 7th marked our 14th Anniversary and things could not be better! A lot has happened in the past 14 years:
-Bought a house (1995 - our 1st anniversary)
-Had Emmy (1998)
-WB graduated from U of L
-Had Azia (2000)
-Moved to Utah for Medical School
-Had Parker (2003)
-WB graduated from U of U Medical school
-Went to Disneyland
-Moved back to Lethbridge
-Bought another house
-Sold our first house
-Had Cardiff (2005)
-WB finished residency (2006)
-Went to Mexico
-WB started his own practice
-Bought a lot and started building our dream home (2007)
-Had Sawyer (2008)
-Went to Disneyland again
-FINALLY moved into our new house (2009)
-Went to New York for our anniversary trip

Life is good. Life is beautiful.

New York - Day 5

First of all, HAPPY THANKSGIVING! (Canadian Thanksgiving, that is!)

This is it...our last (full) day in The Big Apple. I think one of Wayne's favourite things this entire trip is the hot breakfast at the hotel. Everyday has been something different and it has all been so good! It has been really nice having a full, hearty breakfast all ready for us before we venture out for the day! Both Jade and I are really pleased with the hotel and are glad we chose this one!

It was cold today!! (Although, we heard it has been snowing like crazy back home....) We jumped back on the tour bus and toured around Central Park, up to Harlem and back to Times Square. We made a quick stop at the Museum of Natural History. This is where they filmed the movie, "The Night at the Museum" with Ben Stiller. Surprisingly, the museum has a suggested admission price, but it is up to you how much you want to pay. If you don't want to pay the suggested price, you can pay any 'donation' amount and get admission! We paid a donation and walked (very quickly) through most of the museum. Again, I thought about how much the kids would've liked to have been there! Some other interesting sites that we saw, the building where John Lennon used to live and was gunned down at, the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, the Guggenheim Museum, and lots of buildings where celebrities live (although we did not see any real celebrities). Our tour guide was an interesting guy. His pants were floods (too short), his fly was down, he had coffee dripping all over his hands and on the bus, he had this horrendous laugh (which mostly happened after his own lame jokes) and he made this really weird horse noise (without moving his mouth!) We were all laughing so hard AT him, but I think he thought we were laughing at his lame jokes. We had thought about getting off and catching the next bus, but we waited it out and now it makes for a funny story!


Today was also our taping for the David Letterman show. We had to line up to get our tickets, then we had to line up again at a later time to get in to see the show. Everything worked out smoothly and by 6pm, we were in our seats watching the "Late Show with David Letterman". It was pretty entertaining and he is a pretty funny guy. I think Mike enjoyed being able to do his full-on belly laugh and not get mocked by anyone! On the show was Uma Thurman and Tim McGraw. The taping was an hour long and then we were all swiflty escorted out of the Ed Sullivan Theatre. Our show will actually air on Friday.


After the taping, we grabbed a hot chocolate and a huge cupcake from a little over-priced bakery and jumped back on the tour bus for the night tour. It was cold, but it was fun! This tour guide was much better than the last and just as funny. We rode over the Brooklyn Bridge and got a great night view of the city of Manhattan from the Brooklyn side.

This really has been my dream date with Wayne! We just celebrated our 14th Anniversary and I have had the best time with him on this trip! I am so glad that Jade and Mike were able to join us too. They are so much fun and we are glad that we get to spend so much time with them.

We were glad to hear that the kids have been doing well with Grandma Deb and we are so grateful that she offered to be our nanny for the week. As much as I needed this time away, I will be so happy to see the kids again! I feel rejuvenated and re-energized for another stint of motherhood! If anyone wants to go to NYC and needs a friend...give me a call! I'd go again in a heartbeat!

New York - Day 4

Ahhh, Sunday. There was no sleeping in today as church was at 9am. It was in the same building as the Temple which was kind of neat. It was a fairly small chapel, but it quickly filled up. To our surprise, we saw Greg Strong (a retired dentist from Wayne's building) walk in with his wife. They are supposed to be in Switzerland on their mission, but have had some visa setbacks and are now serving in the Manhattan Temple mission for now. What a small world! Of all places to run into someone from home, it happens to be at church in a city of 8 million people!

Church was...interesting. The organ played prelude at full volume and the chorister lead the music at the pulpit in front of the mic. The combination of the two made it impossible for anyone to hear themselves sing! It was testimony meeting and there were some interesting people who got up. All I have to say is "Focus, people, focus!" Too many tangeants!

We left after Sacrament meeting and took a round-a-bout way back to our hotel. We walked by Julliard School of Fine Arts, the Lincoln Center and the Intrepid Air and Sea Museum (which Parker would have LOVED to see)! We then ventured out using the Subway system. We made our way back down to Wall Street and Battery Park, then caught the Staten Island Ferry. This was a FREE ferry and it goes right by the Statue of Liberty. We got a good glimpse of Lady Liberty then turned right around and came back on the next ferry.

My cousin Michelle and her family live in Brooklyn and we had been hoping to meet up with them at some point. Things just weren't working out. Jade and Mike left to head back to the hotel and Wayne and I were just getting ready to take the subway to Brooklyn for a fireside. Then Michelle called and said they had come over and were by the ferries. We managed to find them among the hundreds of people there and got to visit with them for a brief time. It probably wasn't more than 15 minutes before Wayne realized it was already 5pm and we were to be in Brooklyn at the church by 5:15pm. There was no way this was going to happen. Unfortunately, we had to end our visit with Michelle and Tristen fairly abruptly as we began to run to the nearest subway station. I felt so bad that they had come all that way (40 min drive) and then we had to leave!

A couple of weeks ago, Wayne made contact with a seminary teacher named Sister Tejeda and asked if she would be interested in hosting a fireside for the youth. She was more than excited and made the arrangements to have Wayne come talk and sing to the youth. She invited 5 branches (all hispanic), including one branch that drove 1.5 hours from New Jersey to be there. Wayne spoke about the importance of choosing good and appropriate music and shared a few of his songs. He even sang one in spanish for them and they were very appreciative. It was a really great evening. The youth seemed quite receptive and Sister Tejeda and the other leaders were so very grateful. "Thank you, thank you, thank you! The youth really need things like this and they just don't get it around here!" she said to us. She called us her heros and continued to express her thankfulness to us for coming to do that for her students.

Brother Tejeda personally escorted us back to the subway station and made sure we got on the right train. (We were in a part of Brooklyn that was a bit scary, so they wanted to make sure we were safe!) It truly was a great way to spent our Sunday evening.

New York - Day 3

We went back to the Rockefeller Center for a tour of the NBC Studios. We saw them prepping the Saturday Night Live set for the live taping, the NBC Nightly News set and some other fun studios. Pretty fun, but we weren't allowed to take photos, so no picture memories

We jumped on the bus tour which is a hop on/hop off bus and rode it down to China Town, Little Italy, the site of the World Trade Center buildings and by Battery Park. We didn't think it would take so long to get around, but with all of the stops, it would've been faster to walk to where we needed to be.

We found our way to our last show, STOMP, which was playing off-Broadway. (When they say off Broadway, they really mean OFF Broadway...it was way out towards the southern part of Manhattan.) It was playing in this really tiny theatre. We had tickets in the 5th row and so we were quite close to the performers. It was a pretty good show, but Wayne, Jade and I had all seen it before. It was a loud performance, but Wayne still managed to fall asleep through part of it. I don't know how anyone could sleep when people are banging on garbage cans!

We made our way back to Times Square and did some more shopping for souvenirs. We went to a huge M & M store and the biggest Toys R Us store in the world.

We were all pretty tired and so we decided to just take it easy and had an early night. Some rest is definitely needed!

New York - Day 2

This morning came way too early! But there is so much to do...

We enjoyed a great breakfast at our hotel and headed out for the day. We made our way back to Times Square and over to 30 Rockefeller Center (home of the NBC studios). This is the place to get the best view of the city! The observation deck is on the 69th-71st floors of the Rockefeller Center. From here you get unobstructed views of the city, including a GREAT view of the Empire State Building! Central Park was amazing to see from above. The planning geniuses who conciously kept that large of a green space right smack in the middle of city...brilliant!

On our way out of the building, we stopped in at the gift shop and caught a quick glimpse of Jimmy Fallon as he was finishing up his appearance/signing. Our first celebrity sighting!

Wayne had planned for us to bike around Central Park for a couple of hours. There are a number of bike rental places around the park. We had reserved 2 tandum bikes, but when we got there, they admitted they made a mistake and gave one of our bikes away. So Wayne and I rode 'real' bikes and Mike and Jade took the tandum bike. As we were leaving the store, we noticed a sign that said "No Bikes Allowed on Sidewalks. It is illegal and dangerous." We kind of chuckled and joked that they thought the sidewalks were dangerous...but then the employee told us that it really is illegal to ride bikes on the sidewalks and that we would have to ride on the road. Are you kidding me?? Do they really think that riding a bike on the road with all of those crazy yellow taxis is safer than the sidewalk?? So a few deep breaths...and off we went to Central Park. We weren't quite sure where we were supposed to ride, so after getting caught for a brief moment in an intersection, I decided to just cut in front and cross the intersection to get to the other street. CRAZY!!!! I didn't get hit by a truck or taxi, but I did get honked at!!

We rode for almost 2 hours in Central Park. The park is huge! We stopped to see some of the highlights; the Bethesda Fountain, bridges that Wayne was hoping was from the movie 'Enchanted', an old castle. We even stopped to watch some hip-hop freestylers - one of which decided to do a little solo right next to me (and with me) while I tried to video tape him. Too funny! It was a perfect day...20 degrees Celcius, but by the end of the two hours, by legs were tired! On the way back to return the bikes, we found the Temple just a few blocks away. We'll be stopping there for church on Sunday.

While we were at a restaurant for dinner, Deb called us from our home and told me that the David Letterman show had just called looking for us. Our name was drawn in the lottery and we got tickets! We were supposed to call Jaime back and make arrangements. We played a bit of phone tag, but did eventually speak with Jaime. We asked her if we could get 4 tickets instead of just 2. It took her a while to check and talk to whoever, but she did manage to get us all tickets! We were so excited to get this call. The funny thing was that she had asked to talk to Wayne or Jasmine and Mike proceeded to pretend he was Wayne. In order to get the tickets, we had to answer a skill-testing question without any help from anyone else. Thankfully, Mike (as Wayne) got it right. Then Jaime needed to speak with Mike or Jade. Jade knew she didn't want to do the question so I pretended to be Jade. (Are you confused yet?) My question was about Allan Coulter and what he does at the start of every show....he is the announcer. It is a good think I am up late and have watched the show before! So our tickets are for a taping on Monday...we are on Jaime's Gold List!

(Getting the call confirming our tickets for the David Letterman show)

But tonight is what I've been waiting for...'WICKED'!! If you haven't heard about this musical, you need to become more culturally informed! This musical is about the two witches from Oz and how they became who they were. We'd been listening to the soundtrack at our house for the past 3 or 4 months, but to see the music with the set and costumes and the rest of the dialogue...it was PHENOMENAL!! I have been lucky enough to see quite a few musicals, but this was by far, the BEST one I've ever seen! I just kept thinking about the girls and how much they would've loved to have been there! Both Jade and I were teary eyed at the end...it was so overwhelmingly spectacular! (I honestly don't think there are enough words to describe this musical!) If you haven't heard the music from this...it is a must-hear. The music alone is moving! I would definitely pay the $125/ticket to see this one again (and again...and again!)

New York - Day 1

I have been waiting for this trip for a very long time. This year, we finally decided to do it! It has been in the planning phase for about 2 months and I am more than ready for some time away...without kids!

We had a very early start to our day, waking at about 3:15am to make the 2 1/2 hour drive to Great Falls for our flight. We flew out of Great Falls at 7:30am and had a very short stop in Denver. When we landed, we had just less than 20 minutes before our next flight started boarding and it was just our luck that our next gate was at the complete opposite end of the terminal! We were running...where are those courtesy carts when you need them?? We made it just as they were boarding passengers. Unfortunately, our seats weren't together. The ticketing agent told us to just wait until the very end and she thought she could get us seated together since another flight was delayed. We really lucked out as we were upgraded (slightly) to seats with a bit more leg room.

We flew into Newark, New Jersey. Everything went smooth getting our bags and finding our shuttle to the hotel. However, the ride to the hotel was a bit scary. Everyone talks about 'those crazy New York' drivers, well, it is more than true! We were inches away from hitting pedestrians and side-swiping cars! We were swerving around traffic so much that Wayne and I both started to get nauseated. Then to top things off, the driver took us to the wrong Hampton Inn!

Once we finally made it to our hotel, we were beat!We had just a couple of hours to re-group, eat and then head over to our first Broadway show! Our hotel was PERFECT! It was just half a block from the 2 Broadway shows that we had tickets for and just 1 block away from the hub of Times Square.

Tonight, we went to the August Wilson Theatre where we saw "Jersey Boys". It is the story of Franki Valli and the Four Seasons. The music and singing was amazing, but it is set in New Jersey in the 1960's, so the language was a bit rough. I really love the music from this era and I often think I should've grown up in that time period!

After the show, we walked around Times Square and was amazed at how bright it was at 10:30 at night! All of the neon and signs just illuminate those city blocks like it was noon day!

Jade and Mike arrived shortly after we made it back to the hotel. It is going to be a fun few days with them. I'm excited for the next few days to come!