The Un-Traditional Thanksgiving

[Pictures Coming Soon...]

We had the most wonderful Thanksgiving. For our 5th Thanksgiving away from Utah we went to the Macy's 85th Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City. The day could not have been more perfect. I have so much to be thankful for.

Thanksgiving Dinner

For us, Thanksgiving started on Sunday, Nov. 20 with the traditional turkey dinner that Richard usually cooks the Sunday before Thanksgiving(1). This year was perhaps the best turkey we've ever eaten. He's been using some tips and tricks from my mom (e.g., using a turkey bag) and reading about how to improve his culinary skills online. After a few years of practice and putting all of this knowledge together he really outdid himself and cooked an exceptional Thanksgiving dinner. In fact, everything was warm and done at the same time. Here's a pic of how organized he was. He knew exactly what time to make everything and put it in the oven. We invited a few friends over to enjoy the dinner with us. They stayed and played games with us that evening.

Macy's 85th Thanksgiving Day Parade

The evening before Thanksgiving we drove to Nazareth, PA and stayed with a family in the area so we would only have an hour and a half to drive to NYC the next morning. We woke up bright and early at 5 a.m. and headed for Jersey City where we caught the 7:10 a.m. train into 33rd street. From there we took the subway to the southwest corner of Central Park. We walked around the parade route, and for a while we were one of the few people who were "smart" enough to bypass the crowds on the sidewalk--and ignore the police in the streets--and walk on the street down the parade route in front of the zillions of police officers and people. So I guess you could say for awhile we were the pre-parade. Despite the millions of people on the sidewalks, we really enjoyed walking back and forth to various "potential" spots seeking the perfect location. Right before the parade reached us we found a spot between 7th avenue and 55th street where we watched the parade. Oh the blessings of being tall. I would not like to be short and on the streets of NYC watching that parade. It would be way too hard to see anything. Being tall has great advantages.

After the parade we walked back to the Time Warner building and did a little shopping. Then we ate lunch (turkey sandwiches) in Central Park. Afterwards we walked to the Manhattan New York LDS Temple. Then we walked around Central Park and over to the southeast corner of the park where we ventured into FAO Schwartz. Then we headed down 5th avenue to 33rd street. During our walk we stopped at Rockerfeller Center, went into one of the Trump Towers, saw the Empire State Building, and took pictures of the infamous NYC Library where my brothers like to remind us is where Ghostbusters was filmed. Last, we walked over to Macy's. It was closed, but we got some great outdoor pictures of it. We've been in the store before and it is literally what the store claims, the largest store in the world.

After seeing and doing everything we wanted to that day in NYC we headed for the train and then drove home. But before we arrived home we stopped at Cracker Barrel for some grub.

The day could not have been more perfect. From the very beginning, when we planned this trip, we decided we would only go to the parade if it was decent weather and it was not raining. Not only was the weather decent, it was perfect! We dressed warm enough so during the coldest part of the morning we were never uncomfortably cold. The temperature was in the 50s and it was perfectly clear and sunny all day. In addition, we got to do everything we planned to do in the city. We never felt rushed and we just enjoyed being together. I couldn't believe that the day went even better than we planned. There were three main things we wanted to do in the city that day and we got to do all of them and more. It was literally perfect day! I am so very blessed.

Notes about this Post:

1) Why Richard typically cooks a Thanksgiving dinner the Sunday before Thanksgiving is because we typically go to someone's home for Thanksgiving. This gives him an opportunity to cook and it gives us Thanksgiving leftovers. Last year he cooked dinner for us on Thanksgiving because we had church members in the area at our home. But during the three years before that we enjoyed Thanksgiving with the Williams.

Weekend Getaway - play by play

This post is a little late in coming, but oh well. For Memorial Day weekend, Richard went catfish fishing on Friday night (May 28) and was out until the wee hours of the morning where he caught a 3 1/2 pound (22 inch) catfish. As a result of this fishing trip I didn't go to sleep until after he came home and we were both tired on Saturday afternoon. Needless to say we needed a nap. After waking up from our nap around 4 p.m., Richard suggested doing something spontaneous and going to upstate New York near Watkins Glen for the rest of the weekend. To make our weekend extra "inexpensive" he suggested getting a camp site that had showers so we could get ready for and go to church Sunday morning and then drive up to Palmyra Sunday afternoon. After talking about it for a while and then calling and finding a camp site, we grabbed some food from the fridge for our weekend adventure and loaded it in the car along with our tent, sleeping bags, and portable barbecue. Needless to say we were out the door by 6 p.m. Watkins Glen was our chosen location for many reasons, namely the glen we wanted to hike on Monday and the short distance (just over an hour) from Palmyra. It's also a prime location because it's at the bottom of one of New York's Finger Lakes (Seneca Lake). So we headed out--purchased a blow-up mattress--and made it to our campsite before 10 p.m.

We were so excited about our plans and how things just fell into place we were not expecting what happened once we arrived at our campsite. Each campsite was squished next to the other campsite. It was located at a park where people come to recreate during the day and see Eagle Gate Falls. The park was okay, but being so close to our neighbors was interesting to say the least. We were maybe 10 feet away from one of our neighbor's tents and not much further away from the other one. On one side of us the campers had blaring music coming from their vehicle that EVERYONE could hear. Unfortunately, it wasn't church music. Apparently these campers were having a big family reunion and they were kind enough to share their crazy music with everyone on site. To the other side of us was a group of young adults having a good time for the weekend. When we arrived these kids were nice enough to let us use their lantern so we didn't have to set up our tent in the dark. Once our tent was set up we went for a walk to check out the shower situation and then tried to get situated for the evening. Once in our tent the people having the family reunion turned down their music, but the kids on the other side of us decided it was time to turn on their music. Yikes! Richard and I like peace and quiet not only when we sleep, but we expect peace and quiet when we go sleep in the so-called woods (I have to say so-called woods because it was a campsite and not "real" camping). It was frustrating to say the least. Then as the night grew later, more and more friends started to arrive for the Saturday night festivities, which involved lots of beer games and music. Well, before 3 a.m., Richard and I fell asleep for about an hour and a half, but that's about it. Then he said to me, "I'm going to ask them to turn their music off." At this point we could hear that everyone was really drunk. I was scared to death that if Richard went and asked the kids to turn down their music he was going to get beaten up and so I begged him not to go. But he went anyway. Thankfully, the people were nice enough and turned off their music. Then he came back to the tent, unharmed. Within the half hour some police showed up. At this time the 19-year-old kids were told to hide in the tents. We chuckled at that. After the police left everyone got in their tents and quieted down. I was so grateful for whomever called the police, even though our neighbors thought it was us and I was not looking forward to what they said they were going to do to us for calling the cops.:) Nevertheless, they did not carry through with their threat. Then Richard fell asleep and I layed awake for most of the morning. At least most people in the camp were sleeping when we got up and took a shower, ate our bowl of cereal and headed out to find the church, but I secretly wanted to wake up the camp next to us. Church was good. We often forget what it's like to attend the family ward, especially now that we attend church on Penn State's campus, so being around families of varying ages opposed to just young adults is always fun. However, it made me grateful for the little branch we attend.

This scrapbook personalized with Smilebox

After church we went back to our campsite and ate lunch. Richard barbecued a hotdog on the grill and I had a sandwich. We would have like to have hung out for a couple hours at the campsite enjoying a nice peaceful afternoon before going to Palmyra, but the environment wasn't conducive to a peaceful Sunday afternoon. While we were at the campsite the family next to us turned up their music and made sure they were sharing some of the most vulgar music I have ever heard with everyone at the park. Therefore, we ate and rushed out of there as quickly as possible. Once out of the park things were peaceful again. We had a nice drive through the vineyards growing next to Seneca Lake and then we hit Palmyra. We first pulled up to the Hill Cumorah and took a brief nap in the car. Then we milled around for a time and made our way to the Sacred Grove, one of my most favorite places on earth. It's so beautiful and peaceful there. After walking through the grove we sat down at some picnic tables near the parking lot--and a turtle--and then pulled out our portable grill. We had hotdogs and grilled corn on the cob. Yum! After eating we drove back to the top of Seneca Lake, stopped to walk along the lake and then headed back down to Watkins Glen. On our drive down Richard decided that there was no way we were going to "attempt" to sleep at that campsite again, and I didn’t protest. Needless to say we slept at a hotel along the lake that evening. We left our tent, blow-up mattress, and sleeping bags at our campsite and took them down Monday morning. Then we spent Monday afternoon hiking up and down Watkins Glen. Despite the lack of sleep, it turned out to be a magnificent weekend getaway.

Upstate New York

This weekend we went to the Hill Cumorah Pageant in Palmyra, N.Y., with our branch. In fact, it is the second year in a row for seeing the pageant. Just like last year we camped with our branch at the fair grounds in Palmyra and had the added bonus of having my cousins, the Thompsons, come to the pageant and camp with us. Apparently next year they are changing the pageant, so this is the last time they are chronicling the many stories in the Book of Mormon.

Richard got off work a little early and we headed up to Palmyra on Friday afternoon. We were a bit worried about having to brave the pageant in the rain as it began raining at 1 p.m. in Pennsylvania and did not let up until we were a couple hours from home in Corning, N.Y. The weather even said that it would begin raining at 9 p.m. in Palmyra and rain throughout the night. We pulled into the fair grounds at the same time as President Williams who drove his motor home. We then set up our tents and headed over to the Hill Cumorah where we sat with my cousins and our friend Tanya. Fortunately the trip turned out perfect. It didn't rain after all. It drizzled a bit during the night, but nothing anybody really noticed. What a blessing. This trip would not have been nearly as enjoyable had it rained. We feel so blessed to have had those rain clouds diverted somewhere else.

On Saturday morning Richard and I walked around the Sacred Grove. It's one of our most favorite places on earth (okay, so we have a lot of fovorites, but this is definitely top of the list). I believe this is the fifth opportunity we have had to walk through the grove. Our first opportunity to see all of the chruch history sites in New York was with my parents in May 2008, the second time we went to the grove was in July 2008 for the pageant, the third time was Novemberish 2008 when we went to the Palmyra temple, the fourth was when we went to the church history sites and the Palmyra temple in May 2009 with Richard's dad, and the fifth was on Saturday.

After leaving the Grove we went to Niagara Falls where we sailed on Maid of the Mist for the second time this summer. We love going on the boat and seeing the falls up close.
The wind was blowing just enough that we were sprayed and soaked with water whenever we were close to the falls, particularly when we walked up the side of the American Falls and when we were standing on the boat in the middle of Hoarseshoe Falls.

This is turning into the summer of waterfalls. Our first time for seeing Niagara Falls was on Saturday, May 23, when we took Richard's dad. We saw our second set of falls while hiking Rickett's Glen in June. This second trip to Niagara is the third set of falls, and in the next week or two we hope to see another set of falls in upstate New York near one of the Finger Lakes. I love exploring and enjoying nature with Richard!