All the Books

We spent all day back to school shopping yesterday. It was tiring, but productive.

We did have one big distraction though: we walked by the books.

Phoebe snapped this picture of Topher reaching for his favorite book series. When he turned and saw all those books he gasped and ran to them, then asked if he could please spend his school clothes budget on books instead.

It made my reading mom heart happy.

Foxy

Sophie noticed that we had a visitor napping in our backyard today. We could kind of see him from the kitchen, but had a better view from upstairs. This little fox slept happily in our yard at least until the sun went down. We couldn't see him anymore after that, so who knows how long he stayed.

Related

Family Search has a fun new feature. You can upload your picture and it will pull up pictures of family members that look like you. Phoebe and I have been playing with this. According to their search, I most closely resemble my paternal grandparents. I knew that I look like my grandma, but I hadn't seen the resemblance with my grandpa. Although, now that I think about it, my nose comes from that grandpa's dad, so maybe we look more alike than I thought.

In addition to family members, it can match your picture with famous people. One of the first people it matched me with is also a family member, just one that lived a long time ago. Apparently I look like my 12th-great grandma.

The Eyes Have It

Phoebe grabbed my phone a few days ago and took pictures of nearly everyone's eyes. Then, as she looked at the enlarged images, she complimented each of them on their beautiful eyes. 

I have a variation of heterochromia called central heterochromia. That means that my eyes are mostly one color (a greenish gray), but a different color (gold) right around the pupil. Several of my siblings have this as well. I only recently learned that it has a name. And now, looking at these pictures, I think it's pretty cool that some of my kids inherited it.

Viewers Like You

Peter has been slowly growing his YouTube channel over the last year. He hasn't posted as often or as regularly as he had originally planned, but he has enjoyed the process of planning and editing videos.

Yesterday he had the idea to start a shorts channel. It's connected to his original channel, but the videos are much shorter and are presented in portrait rather than landscape format. He posted his first video yesterday and the second one this morning. Both videos are of Peter playing Fortnight.

At the moment I'm writing this, the first video has 27 views. That's pretty good for a small channel and only having been up for one day. Peter's attention is slightly more focused on the second video. It currently has 843 views. That's more views than all his other videos, combined.

Peter's kind of in shock over it. He says it doesn't feel real to have so many views on one video. But he also thinks it's pretty cool.

Walk the Walk

Someday, if you happen to be so lucky, you might inherit a pair of dragon/dinosaur/monster slippers from your cousin who's not quite a year older than you. And then, you just might spend the next day stomping around your house, because such cool slippers require more than simply walking.

Paige and Emma, thanks for the slippers!

The Night Visitors

On Saturday night we did something crazy and grabbed all the kids (including the two that were already asleep) and piled everyone into the van. We drove over to the church parking lot and spent some time squinting up at the sky, trying to see the Neowise Comet. Bryan is pretty sure he saw it, but I don't think the rest of us did, there was too much light pollution.

The highlight for the kids wasn't looking at the stars, it was running around the grassy field in the dark. It's been months since they ran around outside and they kept saying how amazing it was and how they wanted to come back every night. We won't go back every night (or any night), but maybe we can find a day to all get up early enough and put on daytime clothes quickly enough to get back outside before the heat sets in.

Saturday in the Park with Tom*

I had high hopes of posting this on Friday, but mom duties won out and I had to shelve it. How on earth did you all handle the suspense of waiting the entire weekend to hear about the rest of the adventure?! Okay, I'm teasing...sort of.

Saturday morning started with a beautiful walk to Central Park. We planned to grab some breakfast on the way, but somehow all the restaurants disappeared so we had our first meal of the day from a cart. Cart food is expensive, did you know?

The highlights of that beautiful park included:

a giant chess competition surrounding Bethesda Fountain,

the awesome views from Belvedere Castle,

Photo credit: Brett 

Photo credit: Brett  

a tour through Shakespeare's garden,

Photo credit: Brett

a visit to the Strawberry Fields memorial,

Photo credit: Brett

and a celebrity sighting. Brett suggested we perform our favorite Shakespearean monologues while in the Shakespeare garden. I said no. Why? I felt super self-conscious performing in a garden whilst tourists ambled by, but I pushed through that and we retreated to a bench to look up monologues. While sitting there I saw a man dressed in black running clothes and a black baseball cap pulled low, jogging with his dog. He was talking on his cell phone and I heard him say a few words in a familiar English accent. As he passed us I realized why I recognized his voice. I gasped, grabbed Brett by the arm and said, "That was Tom Hiddleston!" She looked at me, a touch confused. She had no idea who he was. "Loki!" was my response. That's right, the actor that played Thor's mischievous brother in the Marvel movies ran by us in Central Park. She suggested we invite him to join us for our monologues. We really should have.

Yes, we have video footage of the monologues. No, I will not post it.

After Central Park, we were famished. Apparently cart food doesn't last forever. This may only impress my brother Jordan, but we got lunch from the Soup Nazi. Or rather, we got soup from the place on which Seinfeld based the Soup Nazi. There really were instructions posted to step up to the window, money in hand, order quickly, then move immediately to the left. We followed the rules, but there also wasn't a line when we got there.

The soup was amazing! I had the ravioli soup and it was one of the best things I ate all weekend. Bonus, it was also one of the most affordable. For $6 I got a cup of soup, a slice of crusty bread, and a banana, all part of the meal. I plan to go back next time I'm in the city.

Once our bellies were full, we went to our fourth Broadway show of the week. Come From Away is about what happened to the planes that couldn't enter US airspace during the 9/11 attacks and the days that followed. Thirty-eight planes were rerouted to the tiny town (that, for refueling purposes, had a giant and mostly unused airport) of Gander, Newfoundland. The locals jumped to action and fed, housed, and clothed seven thousand stranded passengers for at least five days.

You guys, it was transformative.

I'm sure seeing this musical the week of the eighteenth anniversary of 9/11 made it more profound for me, but beyond that, it was a fantastic piece of theatre. There are twelve actors, six men and six women, and they each play several characters. The character changes happened by adding a hat and changing how they walked or throwing on a different coat and suddenly speaking in a different dialect. The set was spartan, but the tables and chairs on that stage became airplanes and classrooms and restaurants and animal shelters and homes. Everything and everyone worked so cohesively.

This was the best show we saw during the whole adventure.

Afterward, we stumbled upon the stage door, so we got some autographs.

Photo credit: Brett

This woman was my favorite. She played Beverly, the first female pilot for American Airlines. If you have access to the soundtrack (I listened on Google Play Music), listen to her song Me and the Sky.

Photo credit: Brett  

He was so funny! His comedic timing was spot on.

Photo credit: Brett  

One other wonderful thing that happened after the show? All the audience members I passed on my way out were sharing their own experiences from 9/11, where they were, what they were doing when they found out, how it impacted them. When the show began we were mostly strangers. When it ended we were part of a community. That is the power of theatre.

Photo credit: Brett

Come From Away is a short show,  it doesn't even have an intermission, so we had a long stretch in the afternoon. One big park wasn't enough for us that day, so we made our way to Highline Park. We detoured at Carlo's Bake Shop first.

The carrot cake was shockingly not super sweet. I sampled it, sans frosting.

 Photo credit: Brett 

I had never heard of Highline Park until Brett said it was something she wanted to see. It's a park, populated mostly by wildflowers and cool art pieces, built on an old and unused elevated train line. We walked nearly the entire 1.45 miles. I'm really glad we did it.

Photo credit: Brett  

We were running out of time by the end of our walk, so we got on the subway and headed uptown, back to the theater district. We stopped at Kodama Sushi for dinner.

Photo credit: Brett  

It was scrumptious. Also, that girl totally photo-bombed our sushi picture.

 Photo credit: Brett 

After dinner and before our final activity of the night, I took a minute to call home and say family prayers with Bryan and the kids. I stood against a building near the restaurant in a well lit and populated area, Brett took the opportunity to pick up a few souvenirs. Just as I finished the call, out of the corner of my eye I saw two young men walk toward me. As they passed in front of me one of them whispered very quietly, "I have cocaine if you want some." I was so shocked my brain had trouble making sense of what I'd heard. By the time I figured it out, they had disappeared into the crowd.

I'm not sure what about me sent the message that I was interested in such a product, but they were quite mistaken. 

After my run-in with a drug dealer, we went to our fifth (Peter's reaction, "So, you're basically binge-watching Broadway") and final Broadway show: Tootsie! It was laugh out loud funny, but also had sooooo much profanity. I'm really glad I was able to see Santino Fontana in his Tony-winning role, but I don't think I'll be recommending this one.

 Photo credit: Brett 

We tried to find the stage door, but took too long and didn't get Santino's autograph. We did get to chat with the actor that played the best friend, the funniest person in the entire show, so that was cool.

Then we stumbled back to our hotel, because it had been a full day!

*Yup, this title is referencing something too!

Winner, Winner

Remember the story that Phoebe wrote for the Reflections competition at her school? Well, she won first place for Primary Literature for her school! The award ceremony was last month.

Her story was then submitted to the regional contest and she won third place there! That ceremony was on Monday night at a local university.

 

Great job Phoebe!

The Little Seamstress

Apparently last week's baking adventure sparked within Phoebe an interest in domesticity. A few days ago she asked for a sewing machine. Bryan and I told her that if she could learn to use my sewing machine and still wanted her own, then we would seriously think about it.

Guess what she's been doing since then?

The Tater Tot Warriors

Thankfully, though our power was out on Saturday, the electricity was still on at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. We had been planning this visit to the science museum for weeks, it worked out well that we needed to be out of the house anyway that day. My brother Jordan and his new bride Leah drove up from Maryland and met us for a fun day.

The kids loved this climbing net meant to teach about the connections in the brain.

Cooper, Leah, Jordan and Sophie all snagged a picture with Mr. Franklin himself.

Bryan was amused that all the kids wanted to try the Virtual Reality headsets at the museum, even though he has one they could use at home.

Look! Proof we were there!

I spent most of my time visiting and not much of it taking pictures. Jordan and Leah had to leave early to get Leah to work on-time. Thankfully we got this picture before they left. Thanks for coming to see us guys!

After that we spent some time learning about (and climbing around) the heart.

And then we studied simple machines. This was one of my favorite exhibits.

We finally made it to the main museum attraction for the day: the traveling display of the world famous Terracotta Warriors from China. Or, as Cooper called them, the tater tot warriors. This was the penultimate day of the exhibit and we were pleased that we'd gotten some of the last tickets available. At three-hundred pounds each, they were quite impressive to behold.

This is what two-thirds of a selfie looks like. Sorry Phoebe...

Did you hear about the guy who attended a private party at the Franklin Institute and decided to take one of the warriors thumbs as a souvenir? Notice that this warrior is missing a thumb? I don't know if it's the same statute, but I do wonder.

The kids tried their hands at building their own warriors.

Grandma really loved seeing the warriors. Cooper was less enthusiastic. This is the best facial expression I could get out of him. The next day he started running a fever, so this may have been germ-induced grumpiness.

The detail was amazing, especially considering they're all more than two thousand years old. The statues, not the museum patrons.

We're so happy we took the time to see the warriors, but even happier that we made time to see Uncle Jordan and Aunt Leah.