i want to be a part of it, new jersey! new york!

way, way, way back at the end of april, i took a quick trip to visit my sister, heather, in new jersey and spend the weekend in NYC. heather and thomas colluded together and surprised me with a ticket. incidentally, the first time i went to NYC was the exact same weekend in 2002. i turned 22 and 38 in NYC! it had been way too long since i had seen my sister. i had never even met her new baby who is now a year old. as soon as i was seated on my plane, i could feel all my mom stress melted away. i sat in silence with my hands in my lap for the majority of the flight JUST BECAUSE I COULD.  the stress from my daily life melted away. i hadn't been that relaxed since i don't know when. the man next to me was playing computer solitaire. he personalized the backs of his digital deck of cards with an image of a naked lady. if i had kids on this flight, i would have been too distracted to even notice that! i arrived very late on thursday night and heather was a champ who picked me up in her miniature van. we got a little lost in scary town new jersey, but we made it. i was high on traveling ALONE. we stayed up chatting even later into the night. that was the same night that the golden state killer had been captured so of course i started thinking every little sound was the golden state killer and every little reflection was the golden state killer. i'm really laid back at night. dan had installed some extra air fresheners for my stay and one made little puffs of freshness all night long in my room. i forgot about the little puffs between puffs and jumped out of my skin every time, thinking the golden state killer was breathing over me. luckily, the guest bed was incredibly comfortable and after i knocked out, i was completed knocked out.

the next morning, i was aunt of the year. i'm really good at being a good aunt in small increments. 

june waiting for the school bus. i knew reagan would want documentation of june's bus schedule. 

after june left for school, heather and i left for the city. we rode the train! it was a highlight! i loved looking out the window and seeing the towns go by. we walked from the train station to our hotel, grabbed some lunch at an italian deli style place and then we went straight to the staten island ferry. i discovered that i am a power walker. i loved walking through the city. i also really like being a tourist. i think being a tourist often receives disdain, but there's a reason certain things are an attraction. but i will say i draw the line at time square. i do not care for times square, even though it's one of the most famous things about new york. there's nothing interesting there except the discount broadway tickets. otherwise it's a bunch of MEGA-sized stores and restaurants that you would find at your local mall. no gracias. 

did you know that i can sleep anywhere? ANYWHERE. try me. i can do it.

i felt safe enough to nap here because i knew the golden state killer couldn't get me because there would be too many witnesses.

this particular outfit day was inadvertently matching in camouflage and black. 

the statue of liberty. truly awe inspiring

look at how many hair colors i have in this picture:

blonde bun

dark roots

wiry gray hair in the dark roots

alexander hamilton's grave. interesting tidbit. thomas is a big alexander hamilton fan, but dislikes musicals. now he can never talk about alexander hamilton's political impact because everyone thinks he should know all the lyrics to "hamilton". he does not.

the 9/11 memorial. this place almost seems unreal. there is a significant change in tone of the city in this section. hallowed ground. 

since you are walking 12 miles a day around the city, you indulge all you want. chocolate chip cookies, chocolate chip brownies and hello dolly bars. they were good. my stuff is better.

we tried to do some new york shopping but we didn't have the best luck. i wanted to shop at a thrift shop that was supposed to be the best of new york, but the clothing selection was subpar. it had some nice furniture. later we wandered over to an antique shop and rifled through a million record albums until we uncovered neil diamond's greatest hits on vinyl. a very high point of the trip.

that night we ate at an excellent italian restaurant that we stumbled upon in little italy. i had real live gnocchi, my favorite. i love to eat delicious food! twinkies or little debbie do not tempt me in the slightest. 

this is the view from our fantastic hotel. cary grant used to live here! we got a really great room and it felt like a dream come true! because it was! 

we were going to stay up late and talk and watch tv and we made it about 5 minutes.

the next day's inadvertent matching was black pants, adidas sneakers and cross body purses. 

i think our mutual favorite activity in new york was walking. we loved walking. like pensioners circling the mall, we walked our hearts out.

we didn't go to radio city music hall and that was fine.

we didn't go to the night show. and we were fine!

we ate gigantic sandwiches. i truly love a good sandwich. i ate 90% of this sandwich before i had to tap out.

we DID go to times square as briefly as possible. i do not like times square. it's like everything you don't like about your local mall, on steroids:

a million smelly, loud people. 

a million smelly, loud people taking selfies in the middle of the sidewalk.

mall stores the size of a small country that you already have access to at home or online so there's no point in spending time there.

applebees

the only redeeming thing there are the discount broadway tickets. we waited in line and got tickets to see beautiful: the carol king musical

i loved it! love it! i've been a carol king fan for a while but i didn't realize how prolific her songwriting catalog is. it's immense and she's a genius.  

while we were watching the show, we could hear two ladies behind us making almost identical comments to the ones that heather and i were making. it was comical and we were excited to see what we were going to look like in 35 years. 

there you have it. heidi and heather at 68 and 63. 

sweatshirt jackets, elastic waist chambray pants, short, permed hair, acid washed backpacks, thick glasses and comfortable walking shoes. 

this photo could also be entitled, 

heidi and heather in elementary school or heidi and heather next weekend.

the street view of our hotel:

central park

heather looking for the apartment building that housed gozer the gozerian. this is not it, but it still looks like spooky central. 

project runway winner and really amazing fashion designer christian siriano's brand new flagship store was just a few doors down from the hotel. i chickened out and didn't go inside but i THOUGHT about it.

a amazing church of prodigious proportions. 

after we rode the train back from the city, heather and dan treated me to the BEST MEAL. pupusas, which i had never had before and were the perfect blend of deep fried and cheese and then probably the best ice cream i've ever had from a place called "last licks". go there. if you're in the tri-state area, pop and lactaid, put on your fat pants and go there.

me, freezing my buns off before church. i slept all through sacrament meeting and heather and dan sit on the front row. i was right next to a very bright window, so my sleeping was on full display for the ward. 

i flew home. it was hard to leave my sister, but it was nice to sit on a place and eat a jumbo bag of sour patch kids and read a ridiculous novel about a secret billionaire heiress trying to live an average life and her arranged marriage husband who used to be a computer hacker/gang member. 

when i got home, my mom surprised me with a cleaning lady for my birthday to clean my house from top to bottom. i did 8 loads of laundry while she cleaned. we were a great team. i hope she comes back to hang out with me again. 

38 started out pretty spectacular. i occasionally will look at these pictures to remind me of that "one time my house was clean" for a few hours.

swim swam swum

 this year, the girls signed up to do swim team. i've always been very apprehensive about swim team in the past because our experience with our neighborhood in south carolina was not the best. it was more intense than educational. i didn't feel like the head coach was interested in working with a kid with autism either. we ended up quitting after a week. plus, i had a newborn. i'd avoided swim team ever since. this year we encountered some people from church who encouraged us to try it again because it was such a fun and laid back experience for them. we signed up with several friends from church in a nearby neighborhood pool(instead of our own neighborhood) because we knew a few of the girls who would be coaching. immediately it was a positive experience. scarlett was on the actual swim team and athena blythe did the swim lessons portion. they met each morning at 830, monday through thursday for 45 minute sessions. i truly loved getting out of the house early each morning and getting our day started. i'll never claim to love being an morning person, but i love being a person who can get plenty of stuff done. that forces me out of bed each and every time. 

scarlett and i were both SO STRESSED before her first meet. i didn't even want to do any meets! she insisted so i went with it. we were most stressed about arriving to the meet on time. neither of us were actually worried about the events, just the punctuality. having a refusing to nap 3 year old makes afternoon activities thrilling. will herschel fall asleep randomly? will he throw a tantrum when we need to be loading up? several times, the answer was yes. 3 years old are pretty difficult on me emotionally and physically. 

pre-meet nervous smile:

scarlett warming up at her first meet:

scarlett especially loved the swim meet sharpie art. most kids washed theirs off immediately, scarlett's would last for days. i even bought two sets of 12 colored sharpies so that we could get really fancy. 

i think the best thing scarlett learned at swim team was hard work because swimming is HARD WORK! not just the staying afloat aspect but the perfecting the technique aspect. we were lucky enough to have a great girl from our church work with scarlett three times a week on extra technique practice. worth every cent. i could see a vast improvement in ability and confidence. scarlett was never the fastest but the week she dropped 7 SECONDS on her time made me feel like i won a gold medal and i was just standing there yelling. all my yelling practice is finally working.

scarlett also had some really great friends on the team. 

good friends make all the difference. 

still working on the dive form. diving is so tricky. and probably overrated. i think i heard michael phelps say that once. "just flop in. extra points for a big splash." that's how he won all those gold medals.

athena blythe enjoyed swim team too, but i know she was a PAIN to work with. her coach, "ronnie" was very firm and athena blythe was finally able to be more compliant. lots of kids in a bunch of splashing water was a lot for her to push through. 

coach ronnie is the one looking at athena blythe with the laser beam eyes. those laser beam eyes came in very handy on pulling athena blythe back into the group. 

 "oh hey, we're taking pictures? i've got some poses for you!"

i think if the beginning swim group would have started with a race, athena blythe would have been much more amenable to practicing. she kept announcing she won and wouldn't stop talking about racing kids when it was over. 

herschel was dead to the world on the way to the final meet and he made us late and spent a good 45 minutes on my shoulder, sweating and drooling down my back. so, everything i was worried about happened. the best part was all the help i received from other swim moms. so many people willing to keep and eye out or my kids when i was distracted or running late or generally struggling with the reality of my life.

athena blythe did the entire lap unassisted at the last meet. then demanded a trophy.

the car mat brings kids together. other kids came along and played for a while and there was peace on earth for short periods of time.

a swim meet rainbow:

athena blythe needs constant activity. she's excellent at finding constant activity. she was able to easily insert herself in the rival team's concession stand. the people running the stand loved her and gave her jobs that she readily completed. she was the juicer on the snow cones and retrieved selected concession stand orders. they even tasked her with giving change to the customers after the adults counted it out. Athena blythe is the most industrious kid i know. i'm sad to admit it's too often to my chagrin because she takes matters into her own hands, supervision and cleanliness be darned, but it really is one of her best qualities. she will not be deterred once she's decided to create something to accomplish something.

swim team was a really great experiences for scarlett and athena blythe. i wish reagan would do it because even though swim technique eludes him and his arms and brain don't like to work in tandem, he's figured out a way to stay afloat reagan-style and he seems to enjoy the pressure of the water on his body. herschel is going to do it next year because he loved watching the kids swim so much and picked up a few things that he would practice at the pool in his puddle jumper. the cost was extremely reasonable. the meets were long but the pace was constant and the weather wasn't bad this summer. luckily we had mostly overcast meets. i loved that everyone cheered for everyone. that's how i want my whole life to feel. lets all cheer for each other.