Summer Vacation - Day Six - Capitol Hill

Day six came a bit too early for us. The plan was for us to meet our group at 6:45am to travel to Capitol Hill.

It was Advocacy Day for the Immune Deficiency Foundation and we had meetings scheduled with our Congressman's staff.

Since we got in so late the night before, I went down and got our instructions, and then picked up breakfast for the family so that the kids could sleep a bit longer.

Once on the busses, we settled in for the hour and a half drive to Capitol Hill. Ryan did a fantastic job representing our family and explaining why we were there.

Summer Vacation - Day Five - Wrapping up in New York CIty, and on To Baltimore

Day Five was our last day in New York. I have to say, on one hand I wish we had more time to spend there, but on the other hand I was ready to move beyond the fast pace of the city life.

Brett and Ryan were able to attend the Manhattan Temple, while Sydney and I hung back at the hotel and packed up the rest of our room and went and had breakfast together.

After the temple, we walked through Central Park (no pictures...duh!) and made our way to our final activity while in New York, "The Lion King".

I love theater, and I especially love Broadway Theater. After watching The Lion King, the kids were sad that they didn't come with me to Phantom. Too bad so sad for them.

Immediately following  our play, we went back to our hotel and gathered our luggage. We then took the subway back into Manhattan and walked a bazillion blocks to catch our bus to Baltimore. We were so rushed to make it to the bus on time. I'm really glad we hurried --as soon as we arrived, we learned that our bus was an hour and a half late. Awesome!

A note about our bus ride - The driver was crazy. I prayed the whole way to Baltimore that we would be safe. We were driving through a terrible thunder/lightening/rain storm, and he did NOT slow down for anything.

Aside from that, it was a pleasant ride and for $20 for the entire family, it was well worth the cost.

Summer Vacation - Day Four - More New York

On Day Four we woke up early and headed out for breakfast. The plan was to eat and then to make our way to the Staten Island Ferry so that the kids could see the Statue of Liberty.

Normally, we would have planned to go to Liberty Island to actually see the Statue of Liberty, but it was closed due to the damage the statue received from hurricane Sandy. As our luck would have it, the island opened up the week after we were there. Oh well.

As seen in the last post, I apparently can't figure out the HTML coding to make my pictures sit side-by-side, so you get to see them in a big long line.

After we returned back to Manhattan, we walked and saw the World Trade Center, Wall Street, FAO Schwartz, and Grand Central Station. We were all tired from all of the walking. The kids wanted to go back to Time Square to purchase the souvenirs that they had fallen in love with. While there, Brett noticed a board that showed that many of the local broadway plays were not sold out. Imagine my delight when we saw that there were still tickets to The Phantom of the Opera!!! The kids didn't want to go, and Brett had seen it twice already so he kindly bought a ticket for me and took the kids back to the hotel to swim while I went to the play. Now that was a highlight of New York City for me!

We ended our day at the Empire State Bldg. The kids were scared once at the top and I must say, that was the most expensive escalator ride I've ever taken in my life.

Summer Vacation - Day Three New York

Monday brought some new experiences for all of us. We checked out of our hotel and did some last minute things at the cemetery and then headed back into New York. Our first stop was Ossining, NY. Brett served his mission there and thought it would be fun to go back to the area to show the kids where he lived. Just outside of Ossining is Tarry Town, home of the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, made famous by Washington Irving in his short story about the Headless Horseman. The kids weren't too thrilled that we were going back to another cemetery. I teased them that I was going to walk around to see if I could find more relatives. They didn't think I was too funny.

We got out and took a picture by a bridge and then headed to get lunch. The kids were starving.

Sydney and the Headless Ryan

We made a rule for the trip that we could not eat at a 'chain' restaurant that could be found at home. We had a hard time finding such a place, but settled on a small Chinese restaurant in Tarry Town.

After lunch we hopped into the car and headed for Brooklyn, NY.  The plan was for me to check into our hotel while Brett and Ryan took the rental car back to the airport and then boarded the subway back to meet us. From there we would all get subway passes and venture into Manhattan to see a few things.

 When in Brooklyn, you must have Brooklyn Style Pizza

Our first Subway ride as a family. Funny thing happened at the subway - Brett could not get his pass to work. The lady at the booth was not impressed. Since Brett had purchased 2 passes already, he only needed 2 more for the rest of the family. Well, his wouldn't work and the lady said to him "Are you trying to use that pass for all of you?" Ha!

1st Subway Ride


Straight off the Subway on 42nd Ave we saw this Sketchers store. The guy out front was holding this shoe. It's as big as the kids are.

Time Square - The kids' favorite place

Toys R Us 

Time Square at night

Summer Vacation - A Detour to a Cemetery

On Sunday we decided to take the kids to the beach. The beach in CT is different than the one in CA where you drive up, get out, and walk to it. You actually have to have a pass to get in and it cannot be paid for at the gate, you must buy it at the civic center in town which is about 5 minutes away.

If you get to the beach before 5pm, you have to pay $6 per person plus parking. If you get to the beach after 5pm you only have to pay for parking. It was 4:40 when we arrived at the guard station. With a 5 minute drive to the civic center, and a 5 minute drive back we had a few minutes to kill before going back to the guard station after 5. We had passed an old church on the way to the beach that had a cemetery that was adjacent to it. I am a sucker for old cemeteries. They are fascinating to me and I love paying my respect to people who have come before me.

As we walked onto the cemetery grounds we saw a family name that matched a family name of our neighbors back in UT. The family name is Wogskch - not a name that you see every day. Brett told me to take a picture of the headstone and send it to our friends. I got out my phone and took a picture and sent a txt message to Amy. I didn't think anything more of it and did not see a response until we got to the beach.

My text message back said "Oh my gosh! They have to be related. There are no other Wogskch's! And they are all from New York and Connecticut."

Over the course of several minutes I learned that they knew that his grandparents were buried in CT somewhere, but they didn't know where. I committed to go back to the cemetery after we were done walking around the beach.

When we returned to the cemetery I took pictures of all of the headstones that were linked to this family marker. Turns out that these graves were of his great-grandfather and great-grandmother and her parents. There is not a marker for the grandmother so I promised to go back again on Monday to see if I could find a map to the cemetery that might help me find his grandmother.

Monday morning I was able go back again and go into the adjacent church and ask for a cemetery map and any information that they had to give me. What I found was so fascinating. Grandma was buried on top of Grandpa in a a double-depth grave. There was no marker for Grandma. I was able to acquire a copy of all of the burial certificates and the deeds to the plots of land that they had purchased for $18 each.

I feel very fortunate that we were able to find this information for our friends. It was a random stop at a random cemetery in Stamford, CT. I can't help but feel that someone else had a part in it all.

Summer Vacation - Day Two - Connecticut

We awoke early Sunday morning to get ready for the day. The plan was to go to church in New Caanan, CT - an area where Brett served his mission 19 years earlier. The church was about a half hour from the hotel so we needed to be ready so we could have breakfast and then have time to make it to the church building before the 9am meeting.

Connecticut is such a beautiful state. I keep telling Brett that we live on the wrong side of the country. It is so green there and the trees are lush and beautiful. The only problem is that the price tag of living in such a beautiful area is 10k a month in rent.

There were only a couple of families that Brett recognized the names of. It was fun to sit and watch as he tried remembering who was there when he lived there. We realized that even if he did remember names, the faces would be much different. Young mothers would now be empty nesters as their children are now grown. Everyone there was so kind. I was amazed at how many people introduced themselves to our family and welcomed us to the ward. We live in such a different place. I am guilty myself of not talking with anyone..ever.

After church we drove around the beautiful town of New Caanan. We found Brett's first home, and then recreated a few other pictures he had taken when he was there.

The home Brett lived in while in New Caanan

Later in the evening we took the kids to the beach to walk around in the sand and put our feet in the water a bit. The kids loved seeing all of the different shells and putting our feet in the sand. We let them choose a couple of shells to bring home, but otherwise just enjoyed spending time as a family.

Summer Vacation - Day One

This year we had the opportunity of taking our kids to the east coast for a family vacation. The kids experienced a lot of 'firsts' and we had a great time together as a family. 

Day one began with a flight out of the SLC Airport to the JFK Airport in New York City. This was technically the kids' first flight. (Ryan flew with me when he was 3 months old). We split our seats so that both kids could be by a window. We wanted them to both see the beauty of the world from the air. As we began our flight Ryan looked out the window and said "Wow, you can see the curvature of the earth from here." I had a pretty good laugh at that. Ryan has always said some pretty funny things. The flight was somewhat uneventful for Ryan and myself. Brett and Sydney on the other hand had all kinds of fun. Sydney was terrified of being so far in the air. She was fine looking out the window until she saw something white. She asked Brett what that white thing was and he told her it was a cloud. She immediately shut the window. She was not thrilled at all that we were up above the clouds.

About midway through the flight we experienced a bit of turbulence. Shortly after, Brett passed our seats with a bag in his hand. He had thrown up. Poor guy felt crappy the rest of the day.

We landed at the JFK airport shortly after 3pm local time. It took us a while to get our luggage and our rental car. The kids had never been in a rental car either so it was a new experience for them. 

From the airport we drove in the crazy NYC traffic to Stamford, CT to our hotel. After checking in to our hotel, we went and got dinner. Brett still was not feeling well so it was an early to bed night for us all.

Riding Against the Wind

Several months ago Brett and I were approached by a man in our neighborhood regarding the Tour de Cure, a bike ride in which funds are raised to help aid in the research of Diabetes. His request was that we donate $5 to his cause. Because we have such a personal connection to Diabetes, we declined his request to donate, and instead decided that we would form our own team and ride ourselves.

Beyond Expectations

In order to ride the Tour de Cure, one must pay a registration fee and then raise a minimum of $150. My goal was to do just that. I am not one to ask people for money and I thought that if I could just raise the minimum amount, I would feel good about riding. Well, to our surprise, our family and friends help us raise over a thousand dollars. I am stunned, and oh so grateful for the love and support of so many. People gave for Syd.

A Bad Omen

We arrived at our starting point just before the 7:30am start time. Because we had earned so much money, we were given a VIP parking pass. As we pulled in to the start area, we found that the parking lot closest to the VIP area was almost completely empty so we decided we would park there.

We got our bikes off of the car and Brett had the thought to go and ride his bike around a bit. He had been having trouble with is rear wheel and at the last minute ended up having to put the wheel from his old bike onto his new bike. On the stand everything worked fine, but he failed to actually put weight on it. Well, as he mounted his bike and began to ride he quickly realized that there was no way he would be able to ride his bike the way it was. The back tire wobbled. I thought for sure that meant that I was solo for the day. I have ridded 100 miles several times, and even ridden 100 miles solo, so I knew that I could ride this event alone too. It wasn't the ideal situation, but I knew I could do it.

I continued to get ready while Brett went to the service booth to have his tire looked at. The start time was nearing fast and I knew what I was facing so I finished my final preparations quickly. To my surprise Brett came riding around the corner and they had fixed his tire. We were both riding.

Self Portrait at Beginning of Ride

Against the wind

I had been warded about the wind during this ride. It was hard for me to understand that anything could be that bad. I've ridden my bike in lots of inclement weather, and I figured that nothing could be too bad. Silly me.

We started the ride with a large group. One thing that Brett and I have both learned is that if you can stay with a group, the amount of work that you have to do drastically diminishes. Everyone was going SO fast. I knew that there was no way that I could keep the cadence of the main peloton. I told Brett to go ahead and that I would just catch him at the rest stop. He didn't like that idea and sat up to ride with me. Shortly after our decision to drop back, a group of riders went down on the railroad track. I was SO glad I had slowed a bit. I've eaten the pavement at the beginning of a ride on a railroad track. I am so thankful I stayed back.

The first 25 miles proved to be through some of the most brutal cross-winds that I have ever encountered. It was all we could do to keep our bikes upright.

Little Worm

Brett and I took turns pulling on the front. We tried so hard to block the wind from each other so we could each catch a break. Sometime during the course a little worm, also known as a course marshal, attached himself to the back of us. I'm all for helping pull someone during a ride, but this guy was a jerk. I would pull for a while and then drop back for him to pull for a while and he would open the gap for me to slide in behind Brett as he didn't want to do any of the work. This went on for several miles. When he was rested he would take off and we couldn't hold his wheel. Then when he was tired, he would drop back and attach himself to our slipstream again. Such a jerk. Although, I am happy to report that somewhere between miles 35 and 50 we dropped him for good. I hope he suffered.

Drawing Parallels

The wind during our ride never really let up. If we weren't riding through crosswinds, we were riding through headwinds.  Brett struggled on the ride more than he has ever struggled on a bike. His legs cramped several times and he spent a good portion of our ride together behind me. At one point in the ride he told me to go ahead. I'm not as considerate as he is I guess as I climbed the hill and continued on. I kept looking back thinking that I could see his RadioShack and figuring that he would catch up at any time. Then, a man in a RadioShack jersey passed me. It wasn't Brett that I was seeing behind me.

With Brett behind me, I found myself digging deep and trying to compare the suffering on this ride to what my little Syd has to encounter every day. There isn't a second of the day that she doesn't have to think about being diabetic. There are times that she has to face it head on as is slaps her in the face. There are other times when it lets up just a bit only to be hit from the side by a crosswind.

Diabetes is hard. It has made her feel like she is not a normal person. My hear aches as she has opened up her heart to me and shared her feelings about her struggles with this new way of life.

A Long Day

The Tour de Cure was by far the longest I have ever been on a bike. We extended our riding time by almost an hour. By the time we finished for the day we were both beat. I've learned that it is easier to ride with a purpose than to just ride. This day we were riding for Syd, and with diabetes, there will be many days that we will be riding agains the wind.

Beyond the Words of Man

This past year we studied the Book of Mormon in church. I have read the book several times. I don't always study the way I need to, but I have read it several times nonetheless. As 2012 came to a close, I found myself looking back over the year and pondering the things that I have learned in my study. I came up with a few things.

First, my testimony of this book strengthened. One of my favorite books in the Book of Mormon is 2 Nephi -- Chapter 9 to be specific. This one simple chapter has comforted me in so many instances. The words spoken there have spoken to my heart. In the early days after my sister's death, I began to pray to know whether or not she had actually seen Christ. I began reading my scriptures and I happened to be in 2 Nephi. When I reached chapter 9, I could not contain my emotion. Nothing was making me sad, but I was spoken to beyond anything that I can ever deny. Tears flowed freely. The plan that God has for his children is remarkable. "For I know that ye have searched much, many of you, to know of things to come; wherefore I know that ye know that our flesh must waste away and die; nevertheless, in our bodies we shall see God."  Oh how glorious are those words to me.


Towards the end of this past year, a dear friend lost her mother to a vicious disease, ALS. I attended her funeral and sat pondering God's plan for each of us. While I do not understand why a mother would be taken from this earth so soon, I can only find hope in the words of the scriptures. 

In the Book of Mormon, an entire people traveled across the seas to a new land. They were inhabitants of the city that built the tower of Babel. The language had been confounded and there was confusion. They approached God in prayer, and asked Him to allow them to be able to communicate with their family. Their wish was granted. They were also led away from this land to a 'land of promise'. What is remarkable to me about this story is that they were instructed to build vessels that would transport them. The vessels were like a dish, having no windows. They needed light so they did not travel the seas in darkness. A key character in this story, the brother of Jared, gathered stones and took them to the Lord asking if he would please illuminate these stones so that they might have light. Again, because of his faith, his wish was granted.

Whether or not you believe this story could possibly be true, or even believe that there is any truth to the Book of Mormon, it speaks volumes about our relationship with God. We are not commanded to do anything beyond that which we are able. We are only asked to bring all that we have to God and ask Him in faith, knowing that he will grant us our righteous desires if it be His will. Just as the brother of Jared laid it all out on the table, we too must do the same. As we do so, we will not travel our stormy seas in darkness. We will be provided light.

The lessons to be learned in the Book of Mormon are beyond the words of Man.

Giving Thanks - Day 15

Today I am thankful for Brett. Actually, I am thankful for Brett everyday, but today I'm putting it in text.

Brett has seen things in me that I've never been able to see in myself. He loves me for me. Brett loves his children. It is a joy to watch him play with the children. He loves to tease them and they love to be teased.

Brett is a hard worker. He is always looking for new ways he can bless his family.

Brett is very giving. He does things for people silently. I love that.

Brett talks to me. Every. Day. I appreciate that. We don't keep secrets.

Brett loves to be close to me. I love that he will wrap his arms around me and hold me. There is not a safer place to be than wrapped in his arms.

I am thankful I have an eternal marriage with Brett. He is my best friend.

Giving Thanks - Day 13

Today I am thankful for Ryan. Ryan made me a mother for the first time. We have grown up together. Ryan has taught me that miracles do exist. He is a kind and loving young man. Ryan cares deeply for me and the rest of our family. I am grateful to Ryan for the man that he is becoming.

Giving Thanks - Day 14

Today I am thankful for Sydney. She has been given a hard card and she is a champ about it all. I am grateful to her for being so strong in her fight against Type 1 Diabetes. Sydney is a very tender young lady. She is thoughtful and kind, always looking out for others. Sydney is my hero.

Giving Thanks - Day 12

I am grateful for the opportunity I have had in my life to serve. There are so many people who have crossed my path and it has been my pleasure to serve them. I am a better person each and every time I can give of my time and substance to help others in need.

Giving Thanks - Day 11

Today I am thankful for my in-laws. I married into an amazing family. I am grateful to Brett's parents for how they raised him, and I am grateful to them for the examples that they are to me and my children.

Giving Thanks - Day 10

Today I am thankful for sleep. My body does  not do well when it doesn't get sleep. I am very blessed to get the rest that I need most of the time, and during those times that I don't get sleep, I am grateful even more for the times that I do.

Giving Thanks - Day 9

Today I am thankful for my siblings. I have had the opportunity to spend some time with my oldest sister. She is such a great example to me. She works so hard and is always doing for others.

My younger sisters are amazing mothers and they teach me so much.

I am also thankful for my brothers. Two of them came in to my life just once short year ago. I love them all.

Giving Thanks - Day 8

Today I am thankful for my computer. I love that I can reach out to the world from the privacy of my own home. I love that I can document my life, and research anything that I want to research just by the click of a button.

Giving Thanks - Day 7

Today I am thankful for my beautiful home. It is a place where I find refuge, and where my children feel safe. I am grateful to live where I live.

Giving Thanks - Day 6

Today I am thankful for the land of the FREE. What a blessing it is to be able to vote! I am grateful for the men and women in uniform who have fought for the freedoms that I enjoy. I am thankful for the early settlers of this great nation, for their courage to leave their lands of captivity so that they might worship how they may.

Giving Thanks - Day 5

Today I am thankful for the ability I have to allow my soul to commune with my Heavenly Father. It is a true gift to receive inspiration for my personal circumstances.