There are a few places in the country that I thought I would be totally happy if I NEVER visited them. One was Alaska. I didn’t think I would ever visit Alaska, let alone marry a boy from there, but I did and I’m glad that we have been able to go there several times and enjoy the natural beauty that Alaska is, and we look forward to many more visits there. Another place I never had a desire to visit was New York City. I’ve been to other large cities, like Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, San Fransisco, Seattle, Portland, and while I enjoyed my time there, they aren’t places that I would really like to live, or spend an extended amount of time in. I grew up in Adrian, Oregon where the population sign has read 150 since I can remember, and even then we lived 2 miles out of town on a perfect 3 acres in the middle of farm land. The thought of visiting a place with a population of 8.406 million people has always been a little overwhelming and not very appealing. Manhattan alone has as many people as the entire state of Idaho, and it’s only 23 square miles! Then I became a mother, and with that blessing comes many opportunities, some of which include traveling on school trips as a chaperone. Kamee’s choir and actors group from school takes a trip to New York every two years, and this was our year.
Ron encouraged me to sign up to chaperone, but we weren’t sure we would be able to send both Kamee and myself. Then the choir director gave me the opportunity to earn part of our trip money by sewing for the Choir. I’ve already posted a little about hemming choir dresses so I won’t go into that again here, but I feel it’s important to mention another aspect of this whole experience. I did agree to go and we put down the initial down payment to hold our spots. Then we had no idea where the rest of the money was going to come from. I knew that with the hemming I would probably make about half of what we needed, but that still left $1200 plus any food money and spending money that we would need. We said a prayer and I put it out to the universe (God) and let him take care of the rest. In ways that we could not have predicted, Heavenly Father blessed us with abundance and when the time came, we had everything we needed in the bank. I didn’t have to use a credit card, and now the trip is a fond memory and I don’t have to worry about a bill coming in the mail later. I’ve been learning a lot about the law of abundance and the law of attraction, and I’ve seen them at work in my life. They are very powerful and real laws that anyone can put to work in their lives. If you want to talk more about them, please contact me. I would be happy to share what I’ve learned with you so you can start attracting the kind of life you want to live.
So, the day came and off we went. We met at the airport in Boise at 5am on a cool Wednesday morning in March. Kamee and I flew with the Drama kids, and close behind us on another flight were most of the choir kids, and the orchestra came on an afternoon flight. We got delayed in Denver for about an hour of so because the winds in New York were so bad at LaGuardia they were restricting the number of planes in the air. Some of us knew that meant the flight could be a little bumpy and we weren’t disappointed. We had one puker in our group and someone else on the plane tossed their cookies too. I was busy passing around my peppermint roller bottle to settle the tummies around me, and I made lots of friends doing so. We all got on the ground in one piece and made our way to the bus that would take us to the hotel on Manhattan’s west side. I was pretty sure the bus ride would be the scariest part of the trip. I’ve seen pretty heavy traffic, but this was ridiculous. It was just like in the movies with all the horn honking and crazy lane changes, and buildings everywhere! We got to the hotel and checked in, then we walked to a little Thai restaurant for dinner, another first for me. I was relying on the drama teachers recommendations because I didn’t know what to order. I ended up loving the food and even tried some seafood that I’ve never tried before. I didn’t like it, but I tried it! After dinner we went to Time Square for a few minutes, but were all pretty tired. We ran into the choir group and swapped flight stories and then we walked back to the hotel to rest up before the week really got started. I was pretty overwhelmed at that point, and really didn’t know if I would enjoy my time there or not. I was ready for wide open spaces and more sky. I had seen it and wasn’t that impressed.

 

Thursday dawned with blue skies and sunshine, it was beautiful! It was kind of a free day for sight-seeing, so I tagged along with the choir director and his family, who decided to take advantage of the sunshine with outdoor activities, while Kamee went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art with the Drama group. We went to Central Park and rode in a rickshaw, then to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, then back to the hotel to get ready for Phantom of the Opera, which was absolutely amazing. By the end of the day I had logged 25,004 steps! My feet were so tired, and I had a slightly better feeling about being in the city. I liked walking and riding the subway, and the roasted cinnamon almonds in Central Park were delicious, however, I didn’t think there was any way that I would ever feel comfortable taking a group of students anywhere in the city by myself. There was one good thing about it though, it’s on a grid system so I picked it up pretty quickly.

Friday was festival day. The three choir groups and two orchestra groups performed at the Riverside Church, an enormous cathedral with intricate stained glass windows and massive stone walls. The acoustics were favorable, to say the least, and all the groups were on their game! That night I went to see Stomp! and Kamee went to Chinatown and ate yummy noodles. She said Chinatown was a bit sketchy, but fun to visit.

Saturday was another free day until the awards ceremony for the the festival. It was overcast but warmer, which was very nice. I went with a group to walk across the Brooklyn bridge. On the way, we stopped at St. Paul’s Church which is very close to Ground Zero. Only one window was broken when the towers fell. They turned the church into a resting place for the workers during clean up where they could sleep, or eat and take breaks. The Brooklyn bridge was a bit crowded on a Saturday morning, and the weather was nice after some rainy days, but it was a fun walk. I ate something called a Knish. It was mashed potatoes fried with a breadcrumb coating. It was so good! We saw a big military transport plane flying with a full escort. Not sure what they were doing, but it was impressive to see. After the bridge we also stopped at Trinity Church and saw Alexander Hamilton’s grave. Then we went to Wall street and saw remnants of the wall that used to be there. It was really cool and almost more interesting to me than the stock exchange building. Then we found the famous Bull. For lunch we went to a Mexican place at Time Square. We had two hours before we had to be back at the hotel and we are almost late, they were so slow, even though the place wasn’t very busy. As we were running back to the hotel to meet the group for the awards ceremony, we saw a guy lying on the sidewalk, all bloody with puddles of blood around him and a chunky piece of something fleshy lying close to his head. It was very surreal. One of the boys wanted to stop and help, but the situation didn’t feel safe, so we kept going. The police were on their way with lights and sirens. How’s that for a real New York experience? I also saw rats in the subway, but I understand that is pretty common.

The awards ceremony was phenomenal! This is our High School’s inaugural year, yet we pretty much swept the competition and brought home 15 awards! Kamee and two others received individual awards for their solos. It was a very proud mommy moment, both as Kamee’s mom and as a choir mom. After the awards we all got in groups of three or four and hailed taxi’s to the pier for a dinner cruise, I have a great taxi whistle! The kids danced and jumped around the upper deck of the ferry, and the chaperones sat in the lower deck and rested! The city lights at night were fun to see, and the Statue of Liberty was pretty at night. That was another 25,000 step day!

Sunday morning, Kamee and I and a few others went to church with some friends of mine that live on the upper west side. The church is in the same building as the temple, and is across the street from the Lincoln center and Juilliard! We all touched the Juilliard School as we walked passed it on our way back to the hotel. I have to mention the organist that played for this sacrament meeting. He was pretty amazing, if not a little theatrical. It sounded like a recital at the tabernacle, and was very memorable. I told my friend Amanda that I don’t play like that in our meetings, lol! The rest of our Sabbath was as restful as it normally would have been, as we were constrained by the itinerary and restrictions of time on a trip such as this. So after church, Kamee and I went to Time Square. We found a dress for her to wear to Wicked, and stopped at a Broadway shop, then met some friends at the Shake Shack for lunch. Then a group of us went to Wicked!! Loved it as much as the first time I saw it in Cleveland. After Wicked, Kamee caught another show, Avenue Q with some of her friends, and I went with a group to the Rockefeller Center. I bought a falafel sandwich from a street vendor. I loved it! The street vendors and the deli’s were so good. Everything was fresh and fast. We tried to go to the top of the Rock, but the clouds came in and you couldn’t see anything so we changed our tickets for the next day and went back to the hotel.

Monday morning started out wet and rainy. We shipped all of the trophies home, so I helped carry them down the street to the FedEx place. By the time we got there we were all soaked through to the skin, and it wasn’t open!!! It was supposed to be, but wasn’t, so we stood in the rain another 20 minutes while a very nice man got on his cell and called the company. After we got the awards dried and packaged the three of us that were there, hopped in a taxi and met the group at the One World Trade Center. The rest of the morning was very emotional and draining. We went to the 9/11 memorial and walked through it. I didn’t expect the tears to flow as freely as they did. Although there were people everywhere and at times it was very crowded, I felt that it was a very personal experience and literally cried the whole way through it. I remember that day (9/11) very well, but I hadn’t really shed a tear until now. Highly recommended if you every get the chance to go.
After we finished there, I did something that I didn’t think I would be ready for…I took a group of kids, myself, and we got on the subway and went to the Natural History Museum. The subway was not as hard to figure out as I thought, especially if you stay on the west side most of the time (and you dowload the app). The museum was huge, and we were all so tired from the emotional drain from the morning and all the days of walking that had accumulated. I slept through most of the planetarium movie, but it was exciting to be in that building. We even saw the Easter Island head from Night at the Museum, so that made it all worth it. Then we were off again to get ready for our first Live Opera experience at the Lincoln Center. We saw Verdi’s Aida, performed by the Metropolitan Opera. Wow! The sets and costumes were amazing. The cast was huge and the talent was overflowing. Even though we were in the back of the top balcony, the sound was perfect and they do not mic anyone. They even had live horses on the stage pulling chariots! Again, it was a little hard to stay awake during 4 hours of opera, but I’m so glad we got to go.

Tuesday started bright and early. I went to the deli across the street for the last time on the trip to get a sandwich for breakfast. The Skyline deli on 10th was wonderful. So many fresh food choices, and yummy bagels. We loved those guys and they were so nice to us. We caught buses to the airport at 5:30am. Everything was going smoothly until we were waiting in line for the runway. Then a light came on in the cockpit. We had to return to the gate while the techs investigated the problem. About 2 1/2 hours later we were finally in the air on the way to Denver. Many people had fallen asleep when we first got on the plane and when they woke up later we were still in New York. It was a long day! They ended up holding our connecting flight in Denver for over an hour (we felt badly for the people waiting for us). They figured that was easier than trying to get 90 people on other flights to Boise. They also gave us all the leftover snacks from the flight because we didn’t have time to get lunch in Denver. By the time we got home, we couldn’t decide if we were more tired or hungry, so we grabbed a burger to go and went home.
It was a great adventure and we can’t wait to go back in two years. Next time, I’m taking Ron with me!

I can’t thank Mr. Curtis enough for organizing these trips, year after year, and for his tireless patience and enthusiasm. It is a trip that none of those who have gone will ever forget, and the experience that the kids receive is priceless! Thanks also to all the chaperones, and to all the kids for making our jobs pretty easy!