New York City! (Spring Break 2012)

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We arrived in New York around 7:45 PM. We went to the hotel, dropped off our stuff, and took off to find food. We ate at Shake Shack, just down the street from our hotel. We'd heard good things and were not disappointed at all. On Wednesday, we spent a nice, relaxing morning wandering around Central Park. It was nice to be out in the sun after Boston, which was windy, cold, and a bit rainy. We saw an underpass (photo at top right) that seems the type where bodies are always found on CSI. Surprisingly, there were no dead bodies anywhere in sight.

In the afternoon, we visited the Museum of Natural History. We didn't spent much time, but just ran through and saw the highlights. We had lunch at a cute little Greek place, then searched for Levain's Bakery, the reported home of the best chocolate chip peanut butter cookies in the world. It took us a while to find the cookies and, when we did, they were dark chocolate with peanut butter in them. I'm not a fan of dark chocolate, so I just got regular chocolate chip walnut. At $4 a piece, I decided to just get one, then quickly decided I could have easily had one or two more. The cookies were absolutely delicious. On our way back to the hotel, we spotted Nick Jonas. He was standing in front of the theatre where he is performing "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying." His car dropped him off in front of the theatre so he could sign autographs before going inside to get ready for the performance.

We visited the 9/11 Memorial and Ellis Island on Saturday. My great-great-great (who knows how many greats) grandmother, Jeanie Milligan, came through Ellis Island in 1904 or 1906. I'd seen the movie "Hitch," so I had unrealistic expectations about Ellis Island. I hoped to find a big book of records to thumb through, but they had computers you could use for $5 an hour. I could do the same research online at home for free. Disappointing, but...

Boston and Salem, MA (Spring Break 2012!)

We flew into Boston on Saturday night. It was cold, rainy, and we were tired, so we ordered pizza, chatted, and tried to plan out the rest of our trip.

On Sunday, we walked The Freedom Trail. I love U.S. History, so I was fascinated the entire morning. We saw the gravestones of Paul Revere, John Hancock, and Mother Goose.

We spent Monday in Salem, Massachusetts. I've taught "The Crucible" and Scarlet Letter in my American Lit classes, so I've been interested in the witch trials and Puritan history.

We met up with my friend Jamar and his wife, Sheena, for dinner that night. Jamar and I were friends when he lived in Las Vegas during the summer of 2005. We haven't kept in touch much since then, but are friends on Facebook, of course. He messaged me when he saw I was in Boston and asked if I'd be interested in meeting up. It was fun to catch up and didn't feel at all like it had been so many years since we'd seen one another.

Tuesday morning we visited the USS Constitution. We left Boston on Tuesday afternoon. The bus to New York City was only $15 and just over 4 hours. Kristin and I both sat alone and tried to get some sleep while on the bus.

Top 11 Memories of 2011

2011 was such a good year, I could easily have written 2011 favorite moments, but… These moments are listed in no particular order.

1. Walking across the River Jordan, wading my feet in the Sea of Galilee, and visiting The Western (Wailing) Wall in Jerusalem where I wrote a secret wish I will never, ever, ever, ever tell anyone if I want it to come true.
2. Looking out the restaurant window and saying, “Wait! Why is it light outside?” Then looking at my phone and realizing it was somehow nearly 7:00 AM. Talking through the night was just the beginning.
3. Being nearly run down by a horsedrawn carriage at the “Horse Taxi Depot” on Buyukada island in Istanbul, Turkey. The good part? We survived.
4. The ice cream diet. Initially, I decided to get into this whole dieting crazy of choosing one product to eat all of the time. People lose weight with the cucumber diet, the green vegetables only diet, etc. I decided if I was going to do something like this, I should choose a food I wouldn’t get tired of eating. Hence, the ice cream diet was born! This involved eating frozen custard at Luv It’s after school a few times a week because, somehow, it made the entire day seem better. (We may have become just a bit carried away…). I continued this diet throughout the summer by eating amazing ice cream in Turkey with my new friends, Yanka and Turk, AND eating gelato on the Spanish Steps in Rome with Anya, Elaina, Jenn, and Heather. Sure, we also ate gelato every other day we were in Italy, but the Spanish Steps created a surreal “Roman Holiday” moment we thoroughly enjoyed.
5. The 12 hour bus ride from Montenegro to Serbia with Heather. Oh wait! Wrong list!! However, Mattia saying ‎that Antonio’s "steak violates the Geneva Convention!" made us laugh so hard, it ALMOST made the miserable bus ride worth it.
6. Catching up with Jessica when she brought me and graduation announcement and hearing that Boo, who graduates next spring, received a MLK award for her work with SOAM. I’m very proud of these girls.
7. Dad: “What are you guys doing?” Luis: “Uh, um… just waiting to get in the car.” This will make me laugh for the rest of my life.
8. Virgin Pina Coladas for FHE somewhere in the middle of the ocean with Martin, Karen, Charlotte, and Sam.
9. "Setting. Outside the city walls of Old Town in Kotor, Montonegro. 9 PM, but very dark outside.
   Heather: It doesn't look too scary back here. There's just some sports field.
   Jeanne: And a man peeing next to that fence.
   Heather (laughing so much, her words are barely understandable): Never mind. Let's turn around.
   Jeanne: Good idea. My dad will be proud.
10. Staying in a military prison, turned hostel, in Slovenia complete with free WiFi, loud music, chocolates on our pillows, and real bars on our door to keep us safe. Add that to the cheese diet we embraced while in Ljubljana, and… other than the super shiny faces in EVERY SINGLE PIC, perfection!
11. Visiting Juliet’s balcony in Verona and leaving a letter in her mailbox. The letter she wrote in reply, which I just received this week, was exactly what I needed to hear.

2011 was a truly amazing year. The most amazing vacation in the history of mankind and meeting an “awesome” person toward the end of the year, really completely spoiled me. 2012 has a lot to live up to, but I can’t wait to see what’s in store. Bring it on!

Happy New Year!

Temple Square

Luis hadn't ever been to see the lights at Temple Square during Christmas. Since this is one of my favorite things, I insisted that we go, even though it was FREEZING cold outside.
Luckily, my friend Sasha was there with his girlfriend and his awesome camera. He took these pics for us. MUCH better than the pics some stranger would have taken for us using my phone! ;)

I love the nativities from the different countries and the luminaria with words in different languages. Every time I visit Temple Square, I walk through the same places and look for the same things. It's beautiful and peaceful, even if it is freezing cold.

Sasha's girlfriend had to leave, but he came with Luis and I to a laser show at Clark Planetarium. I love laser shows and have been dozens of times, but neither Luis or Sasha had every been. They were floored. Super impressed. We saw the Pink Floyd show and, though we didn't know all of the songs, we really enjoyed it. We even had some astronaut ice cream. :) We stayed at Sasha's in Draper that night. He made us a fantastic dinner and it was a lot of fun to catch up with him. Sasha and I met when I was a missionary in Zaparozhye and we've done pretty well keeping in touch since then, especially now that he lives in Utah.

The next morning, Luis and I went back to the conference center for Music and the Spoken Word. Again, he'd never been and it's one of my favorite things to see. Jane Seymour narrated the program, which included music, dance, and verse. Members from all around the valley volunteer their time and talents to put together an amazing concert. President Monson was in attendance and everyone stood in silent respect when he walked into the room. It's a very powerful feeling and we enjoyed feeling the spirit that music brought into the room.

It doesn't matter how many times I've been, Temple Square is still a magical place for me. I'm glad we found the time to visit on our whirlwind trip to Utah.

Need some extra Christmas cheer? Try this. ;)

Carol of the Chins
http://www.sundog.net/carolofthechins/flash/card.swf

Thanksgiving 2011

I went to Utah for Thanksgiving weekend. I talked some friends into riding with me and stayed in SLC with Kristin for a night.
The Harris family is so large, we don't celebrate the holidays together like we used to. Thanksgiving dinner was pretty quiet with just my immediate family. Luckily, the kids are getting older so it's becoming more and more fun each year. I always love playing with the kids. They are hilarious.
What are we thankful for at Thanksgiving? Jacquie, age 6, came up with a pretty decent answer to that question.



And Davey, age 6, and Charlie, 2 1/2. They are thankful for their very cool dinosaur shirts.

First Day of School Stats

IMPORTANT STATISTICS:
(Thanks to ol' FB, it's easy to compare these important facts with those from with Aug 30, 2010.)

Aug 29, 2011 Aug 30, 2010
Day 1-- done
Days remaining-- 179
# of skirts/dresses ALMOST purchased today-- 0 last year = 8
# of skirts/dresses ACTUALLY purchased today-- 0 last year = 3
# of skirts/dresses purchased in the past month—11 last year = 14
* Again, we’re comparing this with last year! See the growth here? This is incredible progress in just twelve short months.

But... new school clothes = priceless, so... :)