The Big Apple

After a crazy late night entry into our Jersey City campground we awoke to our view out the front of the motorhome in the RV park. We made it!

We rode the subway into the city and all around for 2 days.

Our first stop was ground zero. It is amazing how much construction has occured since almost 2 years ago when Nelson and I flew home on our way home from Europe. This tour is a must do if you visit New York. The tour guides are volunteers who have some sort of connection to that day. This man volunteered for 8 months afterward folding flags for the fallen and other things. Our other guide lost her son that day. It is very moving and emotional to be there and think of what went on that day.

Next we went by the New York Stock Exchange, had a yummy deli lunch and then on to the Empire State Building.

Here it is, raining at the top.

Here are the kids in Grand Central Station at 5 PM. It doesn't look so bad, don't you think?

At 5:30 we went to the theater where Wicked is playing. The show was sold out but they have a lottery to see who gets the last 28 tickets for $25 each. Well, we didn't get any of our names called so we moved on. So sad for us, we really wanted to see Wicked.

We went to dinner at Ellen's Starlight Diner. It is a way cool diner with wanna-be Broadway stars for waiters. They take turs on the microphone singing to the customers. It was really fun.

We got tickets to Mary Poppins after not winning the lottery. It was a great show! The set and special effects were really fun.

After the show, we wandered around Times Square. It is like broad daylight with all of the neon lights.

After that, we took a bicycle taxi to the subway station to get back to our motorhome. It was a crazy ride sharing the road with real taxis and us behind bikes!

The nex day we went to Liberty island to see Lady Liberty. We were so fortunate to get tickets to the crown. July 4th of this year they started letting people in again since 9/11. They only let 240 people a day into the crown. All you need is reservations, just for crowd control, I'm sure. It was so awesome, though. Because we had crown tickets, they let us skip this HUGE line of people waiting to get in to the museum and to walk around the observation level at the base. Then when we were done with the crown, we got to go in the back door to the museum and not wait, again!! Definitely worth it.

Here we are clinbing to the crown.

Here is looking out of the first window in the crown. This is the tablet she holds.

Inside the crown. What a view from up here!

Here is the fam with the NYC skyline behind us.

...fam in front of the statue. We seriously asked several people to take our pictures before we got a good one. No one could notice that they didn't get the statue in the picture, also.

The highlight of NYC, for me at least, was the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Here are the kids in the Egyption wing. We saw mummies, armor, and great paintings.

We didn't see the thinker, but here are our thinkers. Nelson and David spent some time appreciating the masters, up close, far away and just pondering. I loved this part of the museum, Renoir, Vermeer, Seurat, and of course, my favorite, Monet. It was so great!

The stroll through Central Park was nice after being shoulder to shoulder with humanity for the past 48 hours. It is a beautiful park. We had a fun time in the Big Apple!

Boston - The oldest...

Everywhere we went in Boston was the oldest this or the oldest that. It is so great that all of these places have been preserved and history kept so we can see "where it all happened". Here we are watching a homeless guy feed what looked like perfectly good, packaged sandwiches from 7-eleven to these pidgeons. The kids were very entertained and have now wanted to feed the birds everywhere we go on this trip.
This is Faneuil Hall, another historic building in Boston, nicknamed "the cradle of liberty". It has been a marketplace and meeting hall since it was built. It is where colonists first protested the Sugar Act in 1764 and we have had no taxation without representation ever since.

This is the Paul Revere House. It is the oldest...something, I can't remember. Let's not foget I am blogging this a week later and I have seen too much to remember. Short term memory, what was that?

Here we are at the rear of the Old North Church.

The Old North Church, one if by land, two if by sea.

Sitting in the Old North Church.

Playing around in the USS Constitution visitors center. These are hammocks you would've slept in on the ship.

Practicing bringing in the sail. In real life, you would've been 100 feet in the air.

Looking up at the Bunker Hill monument. There are 294 steps to the top. We all went up, it was a hike. As Nelson and I were going down, David and Katie ran past us going up to the top again. they were timing themselves and running the stairs for the second time. After we got to the bottom, we were talking to the Ranger and someone came up and said that a 15 year old girl had passed out at the top. My heart sunk and after some questions, realized it wasn't Katie, the girl who had fainted was Asian, whew. The timing was a little scary and it was in the 80's and very humid. Glad we survived that landmark.

Bunker Hill was the last stop of 16 stops on the Freedom Trail. As we were retuning to get to the motorhome, we walked past a barbershop and decided David and Nelson needed haircuts too badly to pass it by. Here's David in the chair, surrounded by hockey memorabilia, etc.

Plymouth

The kids' latest pastime is making hemp bracelets. I think someone learned how at the pageant and now everyone has bracelet fever.
The good with the bad. Nelson gets the worst job, sorry about that.

Here is Plymouth harbor. Caroline is trying to get there the hard way (notice her down on the rocks).

Here it is! Plymouth Rock, 1620. David was a little disappointed I must admit. He thought the rock would be MUCH BIGGER.

This is the Mayflower II. This boat actually sailed from England to Plymouth. It is amazing how small it is. 120 feet in length and 120 passengers. Not much elbow room.

This is at Plymouth Plantation. It is a reproduction of a Wampanoag villlage and a 1627 English village. The people dress in period costume and play the roles of its residents. It rained all day so we were glad to step indoors for some presentations.

David posing with a tomahawk.

This is inside a pilgrim house. In one of the houses the man had books on his shelf and he said he read at night to his wife. Nelson asked if his kids read. He said"my kids? Well, I have goats if that's what ye mean."

To end the day we had lobster for dinner at the Lobster Hut in Plymouth. It looks out over the marina and they give you these way cool bibs. The kids were saying "Why do we have to wear bibs?" They thought it was weird but after eating they realized why. It is soooo messy, but so good.

Say cheese!

See? What a mess!

Michael has found his true love, lobster.

Pageant Quebec Vermont Maine New Hampshire Massachusetts

Well, I am really behind getting our adventures updated so this one is long. Last Friday there was a special activity for the 14-17 year olds at Zion's Camp. Nelson and I were in charge of running this water activity and the groups rotated through. They had to fill these tubes with water and there are holes all over the pole. Here is Katie and her cast team in the relay.

Here is Michael and his team doing the same thing.

Here is nelson helping our cast team.

Date Night!! We went out to Mark's Pizzeria with the Erickson's and Wakamatsu's on Saturday night before the pageant.

This is after the pageant. Nelson and Michael are changed into their second costumes. Nelson is a new world disciple and Michael is a Lamanite warrior. Do you love the Boufant?

After the pageant Saturday night, we put all 7000 chairs away. It took 45 minutes to set them up and around 30 minutes to put them all away. Then we had a cast party until 1:30 AM. We sang, watched video of rehearsals, work crew, etc, had pizza and ice-cream and sang the song of Cumorah. Michael and Katie stayed longer and said goodbye to all of their new friends. It took a while to drag them back to the motorhome but they finally came.

We had a bit of a wild hair/change of plans. We left Palmyra and drove to Montreal, Quebec to attend church. C'est tres difficile a comprendre les Qeubecois parce-qu'ils ne parlent pas la Francaise pur.

Funny Canadian sign.

Next we made it back into the good 'ol USA and went to Sharon, Vermont. This is the birthplace of Joseph Smith. We are standing in front of the monument that was erected 100 years after his birth.

We needed to stop so I could make tacos for dinner so we pulled off the road. There was a river below us so of course we got in swimsuits and went for a dip.

Here they are playing in the Contoocook River.

The scenery is just gorgeous!!

Next we went to Kittery, Maine. For those of you not interested in Abbott family history, you might want to skip this part. This is the house where George D. and Annie Boulter lived, 14 Love Lane. They are Nelson's Great grandparents. Nelson's parents have a painting in their house of a ship in port in Portsmouth, NH which is right across the river from Kittery. When he was a young boy, 10 or 11, he really wanted to go to sea but he knew his parents wouldn't let him, so he stowed away on this ship. As an adult, George was quite an influential man. He owned the Boulter Savings and Loan, a ferry company and was a state senator. There is a dam named after him nearby. When Nelson's grandmother, Violette, was 5 years old, President Taft visited the Boulter family at their home. He reached down to pat her on the head and remarked at what a cute boy he was. She promptly kicked the president in the shins. What a story!

Nelson's grandparents and great grandparents are buried in the cemetary here.

Here are the individual headstones.

After the family history tour, we went to Hampton Beach, New Hampshire. We must've arrived just after all of the ice cubes they dumped in the water had melted. Brrrrr... No, it wasn't that bad. After your feet and legs were numb it wasn't cold at all. We all got in, all the way to the tops of our heads, yes. The waves were tiny in comparison to the waves we swam in this last year in Hawaii but we body surfed none the less. The sand was really nice. It would've been nice to spend the whole day there...but on to more things!

Bye bye beach!

Our next stop was the birthplace of the American Revolution, the old North Bridge, where the shot heard round the world took place. It is really cool to be in all of these places where history took place.

Here is a musket demontration. It was loud!

This is us in the Hartwell Tavern. This was a prosperous farm where people stopped on their way between Concord and Boston. After this we went to see the new Harry Potter movie. What an exciting day!