Shumways, Here We Come!

We haven’t seen the Shumway kids for many months so the excitement mounted as we traveled by train from NY to Boston. Poor Saydi hit a traffic jam on the way to pick us up but when the car pulled up this is what we saw:

We felt royally welcomed and knew we were in for quite a ride for a few days with that dynamite family! We loved being back in their cute little New England house! 

The Boston Public Gardens were at the height of spectacular! We read Make Way for Ducklings before we left. The book was in Spanish but Saydi quickly found it a read-aloud version on her phone. So fun!

 

Covered in petals

Next we went to the FINISH LINE for the Boston Marathon. There was only one more window to be replaced and you’d hardly know that anything happened.

There were what looked like filled-in pock marks all over the sidewalks for what seemed like forever. We’re not sure that was “leftovers” from the bombing or not:

Then we walked to the end of the block where the memorial stands. Pretty sobering to be there. It had just rained so they covered almost everything with plastic.

 

Directly across the street from the finish line was the fabulous Boston City Library. What a wonderful place!

On Friday we picked the kids up early and went to see our mega-creative Timothy family in Newburyport about an hour north of Boston. How blessed we are to know that family who marching to their own drummer in splendid style! The beach was too cold and windy so we went to their darling New England home saw first hand all the things they are doing with their kids. Simply unbelievable!

On Friday night we sent Saydi and Jeff for a little getaway while we had fun with the kids. On Saturday morning They cleaned like little champions to create a nice surprise for their mom for Mother’s Day.

What fun to be with them and to get such great messages from all our children on Mother’s Day. The house was full of the fragrance of lilacs, brought by a friend and adorable homemade cards from the kids. Jeff made a breakfast absolutely to die for and gifts abounded!

We ate at an astounding restaurant on Saturday night and had so much fun. But I have to say that the most fun thing of all was just being with the Shumways in their sweet home! Those were the moments that I didn’t take pictures of (darn)! Watching the little two year old Peter racing down the driveway like a Nascar driver on his little bike, reading with Emmeline and noticing how much she has changed with her great ideas and fantastic vocabulary, seeing Charlie’s list of 70 books that he has read at only seven years old and being in rapture at Hazel’s maturity and stellar piano playing (Charlie too) made memories that I’ll never forget.

Saydi and Jeff’s hospitality was extraordinary (as always) with Saydi’s gourmet cooking and their insistence the we use their bed while they slept on a leaky air mattress. What a delight to see Jeff conducing the meetings on Sunday and to observer how much difference they have already made in the ward and how much the members love them. Love love love everywhere.

Thanks to the Shumways for all that plus the great conversations and incredible example of how things should work in a house with eight people and only one bathroom!  It was awe inspiring!

We love you guys!

Our New York Baby and Fun in the Big Apple

What a little doll our NY baby is! We had so much fun playing with her for a few hours last Tuesday. She has changed so much since she was “our baby” but seemed to sort of remember us. Tal and Anita’s back garden is a little bit of heaven right there in the middle of NYC.

She has her own little woods just a few steps out the back door!

As always we enjoyed lots of stimulating conversation with Tal and Anita both at home and at a wonderful Thai restaurant near Union Square.  We liked the quote splattered on the wall:

We spent the night in the new “digs” of a good friend. It was pretty spectacular!

Definitely AWESOME, both in the small cozy apartment with those we love and in the spacious grand apartment with a friend we admire!

A New Barn/Apartment

Instead of replacing our little log cabin that went up like a tinder box in a brush fire last year, we decided to build a barn with a little apartment above it. The horses are prancing around and filled with excitement. This is their old home:

 

And this is their new one.

The apartment upstairs is just one room with a door to the bathroom but it will be a nice stop-over for kids coming from AZ and CA with grandkids!

It has a nice big deck:

Note the closet with room for a pack and play on the right!

Tack room downstairs:

And the barn itself….

There’s a beautiful view of the five fingers of the Kolob from the front deck! It’s going to be kind of fun! Come for a visit!

From the Winning Place to Winnipeg

If it weren’t for those annoying slot machines, more smoke than we have smelled since we left Eastern Europe and the sometimes sleazy advertising, I’d say that Las Vegas is one of the most fascinating places in the world to visit….for one day. The over-the top extravagance is crazy and often beyond imagination!

We are fans of Cirque du Soleil, The first one we saw in Washington D.C. blew us away with it’s creativity and incredible display of the endless limits of the human body….with 10,000 or more hours of practice. It’s just beyond belief!  There are seven Cirque shows now playing in Las Vegas. We have seen all but one (Zumanity).

So when we realized that our trip to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada for a speech would not only be cheaper but would also include only one stop instead of two if we left from Las Vegas instead of Salt Lake City we decided to take the 2 hour from St. George, where we had been all week to Las Vegas the night before the flight. We stayed at the relatively new Cosmopolitan Hotel which is just one casino away from the Aria where Zarkara, the Cirque du Soleil’s  “kid in town” was playing.

It was, of course spectacular and we learned afterward that the finale of that show is going to be presented at the Stadium of Fire at the annual fireworks show in Provo, Utah on the 4th of July. Pretty impressive!

Our hotel room overlooked the fabulous fountains at the Bellagio and we loved having a bird’s eye view of the dancing fountains that blasted off about every hour.

We had dinner at an amazing restaurant called American Fish that was pretty incredible! They served nothing but fish of every variety. The kitchen was in plain sight where we saw the wood burning stoves as well as the broilers and a wide variety of dishes cooked in copper pots. 

Fun ceiling décor:

And walls:

 

And a sumptuous dinner!

 

And on to the creative and mind boggling Zarkara:

After an over-the-top buffet the next morning, we headed for the airport. We went from 100 degrees in Las Vegas to the cold, bleak landscape of the delightful city of Winnipeg. Even though there was not a bud in sight and the cold wind kept us inside most of the time, the the good people we met with there warmed us up right away!  They were terrific!

Our hosts gave us a tour of this unique city that is just finishing an incredible new museum called the National Museum of Human Rights. It cost well over 100 million dollars and unfortunately wasn’t open yet. Our good tour guides were active in raising funds and the creation of it. The knew that every part of the building is symbolic  Each of the glass panels in the picture below is a different shape and was crafter individually. The glass represents the clouds.

  

The Tower is called the Tower of Hope. Somebody had a great idea on this! I guess we’ve got to come back and see it when we can go inside.

It was within a block of our nice little hotel

which was in the front yard of a fun Children's Museum with a “tunnel” slide and lots of terrific kids’ stuff.

 

A suspension bridge and ice floating down the river:

And a great skate park…

There is a beautiful park in Winnipeg that is bigger than Central Park in NYC.and posrts an extraordinary seafood restaurant where we were treated to an excellent dinner.   With not a mountain or a even a hill in sight, our driver told us with a smile that if your dog runs away you can watch him run for three days.

If you’re looking for a unique new place to visit, we highly recommend Winnipeg. But wait until summer!