York, Virginia

Well, all good things come to and end, and on the morning of the third day of our trip we had to leave the Great Wolf Lodge behind and we moved into Michael's cousin's place in Williamsburg, VA. She and her husband and five children hosted us and we had a great visit, because in addition to the ten of us, eleven other family members were there for the weekend. Late in the day on Friday we decided to take in a little history and we caravaned to York. We went to the visitor center and watched a movie about the British General Cornwallis surrendering to General George Washington in 1781 to begin the end of the Revolutionary War. Maura said it was a great shooting movie. Hayden on the other hand didn't see why he needed to be there, he had already learned about it in a book at school. A book! We were there, where it happened, standing on the battle field, touching the cannons, but he wanted nothing to do with it. Oh, these almost teenagers, what are they, tweenagers?!? The attitude.

Michael and I forcing Hayden into a picture of cannon used at the battle of Yorktown.

The Victory Monument, erected along the shore of the York River by Congress to commemorate the victory by the Americans and French over the British forces.

The cousins tried to take in the history, but honestly, they could only handle it for so long, then the silliness returned.

One of many structures in the historic area of York. During the day you can visit the various buildings and experience a little of colonial life in the 1700's. Most of the shops were closed for the day, so we settled for dipping our toes in the river and then running for Ben and Jerry's in the rain and eating ice cream until we were beyond full.

The children were more interested in finding the multiple deer that were roaming through the village area. There were too many to count really. But Maura tried to count them up and eagerly pointed out each one she saw to me, begging me to take pictures. At another time, Michael and I will have to return and take in more of the historical stuff.

Great Wolf Lodge, Virginia

The Great Wolf Lodge is a resort that has several locations in the East and is a place that our children have been dying to go to. We almost went to the one in Ontario, Canada just 45 minutes from our house, but in the end, we went to the one in Williamsburg, VA so that we could visit family there too. It was a 600 mile drive, but we spent the first two nights of the trip at Great Wolf and we were not disappointed. It is a great family friendly place and the water park is amazing and limited to guests at the hotel. Michael's aunt and uncle from North Carolina stayed for a couple of nights too so that we could get more of the cousins into the water park.

This is the main clock tower in the lobby. The children gather there for story time twice daily and for magic shows and other events.

This is a picture that we took of the main structure in the water park. It is massive and if you climb to the top there are two different slides to try. There is also a wave pool, a flowrider area, a space for toddlers, mulitple tube and raft slides, some accomodating four people at a time, a lazy river, basketball hoops in pools, and an outdoor pool along with mini golf.

About every five minutes, this huge bucket dumps water down on the structure. Maura would squeal and run away when she heard the warning bell.

Maura tried most of the slides with her daddy. She thought that she was a great swimmer with her life vest on, but we had to watch her carefully. We don't have may pictures of the older kids because they teamed up with cousins and did the slides. Sydney and her cousin Mary rode the Tornado, pictured below,over 30 times in the two days! I tried it once and decided that it wasn't worth climbing the multiple flights of stairs to be terrified and wet, but the kids loved it and after swimming from 9 am until 9 pm the second day, they slept better than exhausted newborns. It was the easiest bedtime ever and we knew that we had done it, we had found the perfect vacation spot for three busy children! The best part of the water park is no sun block needed.

The Tornado. It looks inviting from the outside, but you start at the very top of the building and enter a tube slide, then plummet down a steep slope into the funnel and slosh back and forth until you plunge into a pool below that is back inside of the building. Fortunately, the kids loved it and climbing all of those stairs was a great workout for them.

Sometimes I think I should have been a nurse...

So, sometimes weird things happen, right? Unexpected things, gross things. We all try to avoid them, but they happen. Let me explain. We spent the last five days in Virginia. I will post about the trip later, but one of the highlights of the trip was staying at the Great Wolf Lodge, which is a hotel that has an indoor water park that could rival any water park. We were having a great time, when all of a sudden, Michael snags his toe nail and it is completely severed from his toe. Painful, yes, gross, extremely. For the last several days I have been in charge of cleaning it and caring for it. It is disgusting, but hey, I help where I can, and frankly, I am not the one missing a toe nail, so I am dealing with it.

Yesterday we begin to drive home. It is 600 miles and took us about 10 hours or more with stops. All day, Michael kept telling me his ear was hurting. He took Sudafed to relieve the congestion, he popped Advil every six hours. We survived the journey, returned home, unpacked and went to bed. About four in the morning it hit him. Michael was writhing in pain. More Advil was taken, but it was doing nothing. Hours go by. We do not have a doctor in NY, most are not accepting new patients, most won't see a new patient for three to four months, so we turn to Immediate Care, aka, Insta Care in Utah. He goes in, he is diagnosed, it is severe otitis externa, or as we lay people call it, Swimmer's Ear. I have only seen him in pain like this once before, but throw the hurt toe, that he happened to stub last night, into the equation and it might rival the first incident.

My husband is truly miserable at this moment. It is sad and a little unnerving, but what is driving me crazy is that I cannot make the pain go away. Apparently, it is pretty bad. The doctor offered to write him an Rx for a pain killer, Michael refused. Several hours later, we both regret that decision. Let's face it people, if your doctor thinks that you are so miserable that they offer you narcotics, don't refuse the offer! Take the prescription, fill it if necessary, but at least take them up on the offer. If I thought changing band-aids on toes was gross, try seeing puss leaking out of an ear canal! You know what, overall, August has been a really crappy month, that is why you have not had posts from us. There were a few brilliant moments, but mostly, I am excited that I stayed up to midnight and that it is now September. It has to get better than this, right?

Part 2- Tuesday morning Michael could no longer handle the pain. He returned to the immediate care and asked to be re-evaluated. They prescribed Tylenol with codeine and he got it filled and it helped for a few hours, but then the pain was more severe. Then the left side of his face began to swell and the pain intensified some more. By Tuesday night he was miserable. We called our Bishop around 11:15 pm and asked for help. He came over and gave Michael a blessing and told us how to get to the closest ER. Around 1:00 am he couldn't take it any more and drove to the ER. They said the antibiotics he had been taking were not doing anything and the infection was getting worse. His face was swollen due to swelling of lymph nodes. He got a stronger anitbiotic, stronger ear drops that numb the ear when placed and is still taking the pain killer. This is his third day off of work, the same amount of time that I begged him to take to go to Hawaii last year! He never misses work, and counting the time he took off to go to VA last week, this is his sixth day out of the office, yet he would much rather be there. Today he says that he has never experienced pain this extreme. Who knew that swimmer's ear would be so disastrous for him? Any guesses as to how much an ER visit in New York will be? At this point, I don't even want to know.

Barely surviving in New York,
Jennifer

P.S. At this point, I am really, really missing my great Kaysville neighbors and our family members.

Letchworth State Park, NY

After experiencing Niagara Falls, nothing else quite compares, but we still enjoyed exploring one of the state parks in our area. Letchworth is interesting because it is only about 14 miles long, but there are three different water falls to see in the gorge. They claim that it is "The Grand Canyon" of the East. Well, whoever coined that phrase probably never went west of the Mississippi, but it is a fun place to visit, especially when you get there and realize that it is "Biker Day." I learned a lot about Harleys and those who ride them, plus there were two different wedding parties wandering around snapping pics in front of the falls. Who knew that nature could draw such a crowd?

Upper falls at Letchworth State Park.

All five of us, by the Upper Falls.

Multiple rainbows are visible around the falls, luckily, they do show up in the pictures.

The middle falls in the park.

This is pretty much what Western NY is like. There are literally trees everywhere on gentle rolling hills. It is green as far as you can see in every direction. But what allows for all of this luxurious green? Rain. Lots and lots of rain, and then there is the humidity factor, lately it runs about 85 percent. No lotion is needed, but we have learned that there is true wisdom in waiting to shower until the end of the day. I have never sweat so much in my life since moving to this area, but hey, it is green. No one can debate that.

Journey to Niagara Falls

It took us a few weeks to get there, but we finally found our way to Niagara Falls. We waited for Michael's brother and his wife to come up from North Carolina and join us in the adventure. We started on the American side at Goat Island and the Niagara Falls State Park. This is a picture of our family standing above the Horseshoe Falls. The force of the water sends mist shooting high up into the air that you can see from miles around. The noise is thunderous and it feels like constant rain that you cannot escape.

We decided to get up close and personal to the falls and paid to go down an elevator to the base of the Bridal Veil portion of the falls. It is called Cave of the Winds. We got really wet, especially up on the Hurricane deck. The force of the water blowing on to us was overwhelming, especially for Maura. The yellow slickers helped a bit, but we still got wet.

This is a view of Cave of the Winds from the top. You can see the deck that goes into the flow of the water.

This is American Falls and Bridal Veil falls, but from the Canadian side. After getting a bit bored on the American side and frustrated that we could only see the side or top of the falls, we crossed over to Canada on the Rainbow Bridge. Easy to do, but it requires a passport so we pulled out all five and made the crossing. The view from the Canadian side is amazing. We are going to have to go back at night when there are lights shining on the water.

Even though it had already been a long day, we decided to take a trip on the Maid of the Mist. It is a short ride, but incredible. After putting on blue slickers to protect you from the mist, the boat goes right into the mist thrown up by the Horseshoe Falls and right into the center of the horeshoe. When you stand on shore, you lose sight of the boats in the mist. Maura did not like getting wet in the morning, but she really wanted to go on the boat and did not mind getting wet in the afternoon, go figure. All I can say is, if you go to Niagara Falls, don't spend too much time doing your hair before you go, by the end of the day you will look like a wet rag doll. But it will be worth it, the views are incredible, and you have to experience the sights and sounds of it yourself to really appreciate it. I am glad that we made the journey and know that we will return many times in the future.

Italian Fesitval

Even though we don't have any Italian heritage that we know of, we could not pass up on the opportunity to go to a festival in downtown Buffalo that centered around great Italain food. We found a lot of different food options, but of course, the kids wanted pizza. Michael and I tried to be a little more daring and ate some meatballs and portabello ravioli.

Hayden thought that he had died and gone to pizza heaven. So many vendors, so little time!

After lunch, the kids found pastries and cookies.

But, Michael and I found deep fried options. Ever had a deep fried Twinkie or Oreo? Well, we haven't and it was too weird to pass up. We tried a deep fried Snickers and although it was really sweet, it was very good. Gotta love these Italian vendors!

Hill Cumorah Pageant

After nearly deciding not to go because it was raining so hard at our house, we drove out to Palmyra, NY for the Hill Cumorah Pageant. We should have had a little more faith to begin with because the weather was wonderful throughout the evening, despite the weather reports. This is our family standing in front of the stage which had been built on the hill. We had just finished eating at our stake's potluck dinner with new friends and ward members.

This picture shows more of the stage and how it is set up. It is massive, and the whole area looked much different from last November when Michael and I arrived near sunset and there were only four of us walking around on the grounds. The atmosphere was charged with energy and families were throwing footballs and frisbees, eating picnic dinners and meeting up with friends and family. It felt like a family reunion and we all felt comfortable there.

Then, after a few cell phone calls, we were able to meet up with Braden and Brianne from our previous ward. It was great to see them before the pageant and to see Brianne's costume up close. Braden would change into his angel costume later. They were smiling the entire time and were having a great experience performing in the pageant. They walk through the crowds each evening and meet with people and it was fun to visit with them and hear of their experiences. It made it much more meaningful to know some of the performers personally and we were thrilled that we were able to find them.

These two are amazing, I only hope that Hayden and Sydney can be this close in the future!



One of my favorite scenes during the pageant was the depiction of the vision of the tree of life. There was water spraying up that set the backdrop and the imagery was spectacular. There were so many great moments during the pageant, even Maura climbed up on my lap and at one point said, "Mom, that is so beautiful, take a picture, take a picture!" And of course, the music was wonderful and the costumes were incredible, especially for the Book of Mormon characters. We had a great night with our family and with new friends. Come join us next July!