My getaway in DC

So two weekends ago I made a trip down to DC to visit Tia. It was nice to spend a weekend out of the city. I flew down on Friday morning and stayed until Monday night. As it was my 3rd time visiting her, we took it a bit easy and didn't worry too much about seeing too many sights. We did spend Saturday at Mount Vernon, the former estate of George Washington. Here we are with George and Martha:

Here's his mansion
This is George Washington's tomb
And this is his back porch, which has a great view of the Potomac
Tia's hangin' with Ben while Nick and Nick Jr. are getting their kite ready to fly

We, of course, had a GNO, which got a bit silly at the end...(we love our self-portraits)

This is another picture from their photo shoot on Sunday We did spend Monday touring the Pentagon, which was really cool, but there were no cameras allowed, so...I have no pictures of it. We walked all around, seeing the 9/11 memorial and chapel, the press room, the hallway where the Secretary of Defense's office is, the Joint chiefs' offices, and even the shops. I was amazed to learn that the Pentagon has their own post office, jewellers, dry cleaners, CVS Pharmacy, not to mention a dozen fastfood places. It pretty much has everything but apartments (although it wouldn't surprise me if some of the employees spend long nights)!

Oh, what fun...

Well, our fun weekend started when the girls came on Wednesday afternoon. I met up with them after work and we got some hot dogs at Greys Papaya then went to the temple. Tommy arrived the next morning and we headed off to the Philharmonic...only to discover that they were sold out. So we resorted to plan "B" and went to the American Museum of Natural History. That place is huge! Here we are in the...South American(?) section. Heather, Tommy and Lisa were trying to be like the men in costume behind the glass.

We went straight to the Yankees game from there. The game was a bit slow starting, but got quite interesting in the end. The Yankees were down 6-2 (or maybe it was 6-3...I know, I'm really accurate!) only to come back and win the game 8-6, thanks to a few runs and a homer by A-Rod. The fans were out of control!

After the game, we ate at a Jewish deli for dinner, then went to see "The Lion King" on Broadway. Amazing!! That's all I have to say about that.

Friday morning, we stopped off for some Dunkin Donuts, then went to Rockefeller Plaza. We saw the cleanup from the Today Show - it had ended just 15 min. before we got there, then walked a bit around the plaza.
After a spot of shopping, we walked several blocks to the United Nations and went on a tour. Here's the General Assembly room:

And me outside the building:

Afterwards, we made our way to Little Italy, via Grand Central terminal, for some Lombardi's pizza. We then split up: Tommy and Heather went up the Empire State Building; Lisa, Tiffany and I did some shopping nearby.

Saturday, we started the day down in Lower Manhattan. Heather and Tiffany got on the ferry to Ellis Island. Lisa, Tommy and I got on the Staten Island ferry and rode it back and forth to get a view of the Statue of Liberty and the city skyline. We met up with Christine, got some excellent cheese steaks at this hole-in-the-wall, Cordato's, near Ground Zero. We then walked to Ground zero, over to Wall St. and down to this famous bull statue. About 300 people were also there at the same time...okay, not quite 300, but it sure seemed like it. It was very difficult for anyone to get a picture by it without getting half a dozen other people in the picture with them. Crazy.

From there we went up to Canal St. and experienced first hand a Chinatown knock-off sweatshop that could only be seen by following a skinny Chinese guy down an alley, around the corner and through a back door, up 4-flights of stairs and through another set of doors. We were all in shock, not expecting such an experience in search of a Coach handbag. The thing that made it all the better was the pile of fake labels lying near the bags.

Christine left us after that memorable moment, and we made our way over to the Brooklyn bridge. We walked across it, a little over a mile long, beginning on the Brooklyn side. It was a really nice walk, in spite of all the walking we had already done that day.

We stopped back at my apartment for a bit of a rest, then Tommy, Heather and I made our way back to the Brooklyn bridge for a night view of the city. I tried to get a good shot of the city. Unfortunately, this was the only picture that wasn't blurry.
Sunday morning, Tommy left to head to Boston, and the girls and I went for a walk through Central Park before church. Here, at Strawberry Fields, the "Mayor of Strawberry Fields" nicely decorated the ... not sure what to call it .... mosaic perhaps??... anyway he decorated it, as he does every day, in memory of John Lennon.
We also walked over to Balto, for the sake of Heather and Lisa's school kids, sat for a while, then made our way to church. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, as it was the other days they were visiting. Later that afternoon, we said our goodbyes.

Today, a star is discovered...

For the past week and a half, the Tribeca Film Festival has been on in full swing in Midtown and lower Manhattan. I decided a few weeks I wanted to go, so I went down to the box office a bought a ticket to 2 different shows. The first one I saw was yesterday afternoon, called "9 Star Hotel", which was a documentary about Palestinians who live in shantys just over the border in Israel so they can work, illegally, to support their families, always on the alert for police who would send them back to their homes. It was a really interesting show, and was on a subject I didn't know much about, so I really enjoyed it.

Today I saw my second show, "Sons of Sakhnin United," also a documentary. It was a really good film about the only Arab soccer team in Israel, which is made up of Arabs, Jews and a few foreigners. The team won the national cup in 2004 and the film followed them during the year after that and how the team has shown that Jews and Arabs can work together (it also portrays a few other social and political issues, but that'll be too much to explain and that's not what I want to write about anyway). Well, after the film, I'm leaving the theater and there were 2 men off to the side of the entrance, one with a camera, and another with a microphone. Well, they asked me if I'd be willing to go on camera and say what I thought about the film. I was a bit hesitant, not being that great of a critic, but I enjoyed the film so I agreed. After I said my bit, I asked where they would be showing the footage. Anyone of you who would like to see me make a fool of myself on camera can, one day in the near future, find me on the Tribeca Film Festival website and on ESPN (it was part of ESPN's sports films of the festival). I don't know exactly when, but if you hear or see something about "Sons of Sakhnin United", you may just find me there!!

Just a quick post...

...because it's late and I don't have time to put everything up that I'd like to. I do have 2 action-packed weekends to cover after all! But I wanted to show off 2 very cute boys. I took family pictures for Tia when I was down in DC last weekend, and these two pictures of the boys turned out so well!

Here's Ben and Nick
And then, of course, a classic photo (this was at Mount Vernon)

Finally, a nice weekend

I was so excited last weekend when the weather finally decided to clear and warm up a bit. As it turns out, it was the calm before the storm...it rained all day Sunday. Anyway, I decided to make the most of the nice weekend. Friday afternoon I stopped by the flower show at Macy's. Overall, it wasn't bad, but not quite what I expected. They had a few really amazing arrangements, though.

On Saturday I made my way around town a bit. I started with a walk down Canal St., which I didn't take a picture of, but really should have. It was crazy! Loads of booths selling knock-offs and what seemed like thousands of people.

I made my way next to the Grand Central Terminal. I had stopped there briefly before with Christine when we were meeting a friend of hers there, but I wanted to go back to have a good look around. It's really quite a nice place.

My next stop was the New York Public Library. Now that was an amazing place. Not just the architecture, but the carvings and murals that lined the ceilings. The library also had an original Gutenberg Bible on display in one of their gallery rooms. Absolutely incredible!
This is the ceiling of the main reading room. It's huge! Patrons don't have access to the stacks. They have to request a book and then pick it up in the reading room. The books are transferred back and forth by dumb waiters. It's really quite interesting.
My surprise came when, as I was wandering up Fifth Ave., I came across some pipe bands down a side street. I decided to have a look and thought there must have been some sort of Scottish festival going on. Upon further investigation, I found that they were the tail end of a parade! I couldn't believe it. Apparently, last Saturday was Tartan Day, and I had stumbled on their parade. I walked further up the parade route to get a better view of the parade. If I'd known, I could have viewed the whole thing (it was much shorter than the St. Patrick's day parade, but still quite substantial).

A spirited fanI must admit, the Scots certainly had better weather than the Irish did.

I rounded off my day with the Broadway show, The Pirate Queen. It's based on the life of Grace O'Malley, an Irish chieftain from 16th century Ireland. There were some great Irish dance numbers! I really enjoyed the show!

A lovely visit to England

I had the lovely pleasure of spending a few days in one of my favorite places...England. You see, a few weeks ago I found out that 2 of my converts were going through the temple for the first time on April 4th. And as New York is a bit closer to England than Salt Lake is, I decided I would make all the necessary arrangements to make the trip over.

I left Sat. March 31st - arriving early in Manchester, Eng. on Sun. April 1st. Sarah, a friend from Sheffield, my second area, picked me up from the airport, and after crashing for a couple of hours at her place, we went to the stake center to watch 2 sessions of General Conference. I was able to see most of the members of that ward that I was friends with, which was very nice.

Monday, I wanted to take it a bit easy so Sarah took me to a reservoir just outside Sheffield, called Damflask, to go walking. It's about 3 and a half miles around, and it was a very pleasant morning. After our walk and a bit of fish and chips for lunch, I visited a few more friends.

This rock was in the middle of the path. The reservoir is popular for sailors and rowers.

I love the English countryside...

...and the daffodils were in bloom everywhere

On Tuesday, I wanted to take in some more countryside. We spent almost the entire day in Derbyshire. We started at a village called Bakewell, famous for the Bakewell pie or tart.

Then we went to this viewpoint called Monsal Head.

Afterwards we drove to Castleton, in the heart of the Peak district. There're some fantastic views there. We hiked up a bit of the mountain to see Peveril castle.

Wednesday was the day I had been anticipating, and it was a perfect day at the Preston Temple! I met up with Wynn and Monica, my 2 converts, Mary, my companion from that time, and a few other members of the Ashington branch.

(l. to r.) Wynn Sidell, Mary Boswell, me, and Monica Tuke

After the endowment session and a break for lunch, Monica had some sealing work to do, which included her own sealing to her parents. It was such a wonderful experience for me and I'm so glad that everything worked out for me to be there with them! The only unfortunate thing was that I had to come home!