I worked for the first part of the day. In the early afternoon, I decided to go for a run. Because it's my birthday and I felt like running. Also because we learned that our scale has been off by 5 pounds and I fixed it last night so now I want to lose 5 pounds to get back to where I thought I was.
I ran for about 6 miles, from our apartment down through the rambles across the bow bridge down the mall all the way to the pond and gapstow bridge. And back up the east side and around the reservoir. I wanted to go to places that might have pretty colors for Fall. I found some.
The rambles (just south of the castle and above the lake) were ridiculous. Every direction you turned was picturesque.
Today was Isa's birthday, and we were originally planning on going to Tokyo Disney to celebrate, but the weather didn't cooperate (rain) so we looked for an indoor activity. We found Joypolis, Japan's largest indoor amusement park, created by Sega. Oh, and you get free admission on your birthday. It was meant to be.
We went on almost every ride, mostly simulators, but some actual rides. There were lots of interactive displays showing off the latest technologies and random funness.
We also stopped over at the Del Sol, which is right next to Joypolis.
In one of the highlights of the day, Isa won herself a birthday present in the Carnival games:
It's a squishy, light up pumpkin. And it's awesome.
You may have heard that Isa and I are Mormons. Yup. And April 6 is kind of a big day for Mormons. Here's a few key things that happened on this day over the years:
April 6, 1830 - Joseph Smith organized the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (aka, the "Mormon Church") in Fayette, NY.
April 6, 1853 - The cornerstone was laid for the Salt Lake Temple
April 6, 1893 - The Salt Lake Temple was dedicated. (Check out this ridiculously cool article about it - not cool because it was written, but cool that we can read it online more than 100 years later. Seriously, Google is amazing.)
April 6, 2000 - The Palmyra, NY Temple was dedicated.
Ok, when I started that list, I really thought there would be more bullet points. But oh well. It's still a big deal. Here's one last controversial point, just for fun:
Many Mormons believe that April 6, 1 BC was the actual birthdate of the Savior, Jesus Christ. And I have to say, I have always been skeptical, since I thought that idea was solely based on an ambiguous line of scripture. (Tangent: Time is a rather vague concept to me. It's not rare to hear me say, "I was talking to somebody the other day... No, it was last year. No. I was 14... Ish. Anyway, they said...") When somebody says to me, "It's been 5 years since I last saw you!" I don't assume they mean 5 years to the day. Likewise, I thought this scripture could be saying, 'about 1830 years ago, Jesus was born.' Until I read this article about 5 minutes ago. And now I'm pretty convinced. So take that, Christmas! (Disclaimer: Although the article as a whole is pretty darn convincing, using "the undisputed death date of Augustus Caesar" as a reference point and citing other secular sources, the tipping point for me rests in the timeline laid out in the Book of Mormon. If you don't believe in the Book of Mormon, the article may not be quite as convincing to you, although it will surely blow your mind grapes.)
That's a lot of text. I think we need a picture.
...at the St. George Temple
So yeah. Happy 181st Birthday, Mormons!
If you have any questions about Mormons, our religion, or the blog post, throw them in the comments and we'll answer them.
As I said in the long layover post, my dad turned 60 on November 15, and his one dying wish was to get the whole family together. So he and Mary Anne set everything up and flew us all to Orlando. And when I say all, I mean all of us. Me, Christopher, Jason, Jennie, and Emily, and all the spouses and kids. There were 17 of us all together. Dad rented a huge house just 10 minutes from Disney. The house was "rock-and-roll" themed, with pictures of Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, the Beatles, and other rock legends throughout every room. Very fun, just to go along with the fun-ness of Orlando and Disney.
The first day (Monday) was dad's birthday, so we all surprised him by wearing matching shirts which featured his face wearing his favorite Goofy hat, and a big "Happy 60th Birthday" over it.
Yes. We were that family. With matching shirts. And it was awesome. But mock it as you may - those shirts made it really easy to find the rest of our group. You know how I have a knack for wandering off and losing groups. I found somebody from the family every time. So that first day, we stuck together in the Magic Kingdom and traveled as a herd. Here's all of us on Small World:
You can see Dad in his Goofy hat there on the right. :)
We were so glad we were able to take a week off from work and make it all the way from Australia to be with the family for this. We had a lot of fun and I know it meant a lot to Dad that we made it (and survived it - a 46-hour journey with a 15-hour time change kinda messes with your sleep pattern).
And it would have been really sad to miss stuff like this:
Because that's just priceless. Oh, speaking of Ty, you need to watch this video. Normally I'd just put a link here, but I know you're lazy and you won't click on it and since I really want you to watch this, click play:
I love the slow motion part. Isa made that and we crack up every time we watch it. By the way, this is what happens when you ask us to babysit (Jason and Christy were on the Tower of Terror).
And here's another pic of Ty with Dad on the race cars. Dad never touched the wheel once. Ty drove the entire time.
So overall, super fun trip. Dad, Mary Anne, thank you for putting this all together and for making it possible for all of us to be there with you.
I've been looking forward to this day for over a decade. I felt sorry for people who had their Golden Birthdays when they were too young to do anything cool. But not me. I'd be 30. Old enough to plan something spectacular and enjoy every minute of it. I never knew exactly what I would do, I just knew it would be awesome, unique, and memorable.
And it was.
First of all, without even doing anything, it's arguably the best birthday ever because I spent the whole day with the woman I love. Isa is amazing. She's beautiful, fun, creative, and a slew of other adjectives that make normal people say "Cheese!" But that's ok. Because I love her. And she loves me. And that's an awesome feeling to have on my birthday.
And then there's the fact that we're in Australia! Again, hard to go wrong there. So we took advantage of it. The father of one of our co-workers picked Isa and I up and took us on a tour of the Gold Coast. He first took us down to the Highlands Ecovillage down in the Currumbin Valley. The village is completely sustainable and really modern and cool. And since everything is so natural and wonderful, wild animals tend to hang out there. Like these guys:
They were really chill with us, as long as we stayed on our sidewalk. Sometimes kangaroos look silly with their skinny little arms. Watch the youtube video I made about my Golden Birthday to see what I mean. We hung out there for maybe 20 minutes and then went over to another town to see our driver's sister. She said koala bears are frequently in her backyard trees, and we may be able to spot one. And we did! They're really hard to pick out. They camouflage really well. But with the help of some binoculars and some patience, we found them. Here's one of them:
Aren't they so cute? They look just like little teddy bears! So we saw wild kangaroos and wild koala bears for my birthday! How cool is that?! Who needs the Australia zoo? And as if that weren't enough, while we were hanging out there, a Kookaburra bird flew over and hung out with us for a while:
Isa had a little staring contest with it for a while, but I told her to smile for the picture, so I guess the bird won. Sorry, Ees.
Then we came back to Surfers Paradise (home for us for the time being) and Isa took me up the Q1 Tower. It's the tallest building in all of Queensland, and I was super excited to see it. We've been to the Top of the Rock in NYC, so we weren't expecting this to be anything amazing, but it was AWESOME! The observation deck itself was really modern and cool, so we really enjoyed just being up there, even without the view. But the view was really awesome too. Looking up the coast was really cool:
Doesn't it look fake? So we played around up here for a while and took LOTS of pictures. We waved in the general direction of our home in NYC:
And we stayed there until sunset and until all the lights in the city below started twinkling like they do.
And then we came back down to ground level and found some fantastic italian food. Did you know they don't tip here? Not at all. Which isn't a huge deal when you realize the waiters are paid $20/hr, but still, it's a little weird to not leave money on the table.
Then we went to the store where Isa had set up a movie (Juno - one of my favorites) with blankets and we hung out some more. I really do love her.
So to sum it all up. Best birthday ever. Thank you Isa for making this all happen and for loving me. Above all else, seeing your smile on my birthday was the best gift of all, and the rest of this was just icing on the cake. I love you.
After a month in Canada and a week-long road trip through the West, we finally made it back home to the Bronx. It's nice to be home. :) After a few days to relax, we headed down to New Jersey for my Nana's birthday party.
The whole family gathered down at Aunt Jeanmarie's house for the party, which also doubled as a birthday party for Uncle Peter, and a 25th anniversary party for Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Patty. But as much as we love all them, it was an excuse for us to be stupid on a diving board.
After failing miserably at no handed cartwheels, barrel-roll dives, and 1 1/2 flip/dives and hitting the water at various painful angles (watch the video I put together of all our craziness), we played some wiffle ball and ate A LOT of food.
Sunday we went to church and to Chris's Spartan Race. If you don't know what a Spartan Race is, watch this video. This is how Chris looked at the end of the race.
Monday was our only day to play in the City, so we took our Key to the City (remember that?) and went over to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and opened a side chapel there. This was our second time there. We went with Esther and Marie a few months ago and climbed to the top. It claims to be the largest cathedral in the world.
After that, we went to Bryant Park for our favorite use of the Key. We turned on and off one of the lights. This light:
Super fun. :) I'll post a video of that soon.
Then we went home, packed, and took off on a plane for our next adventure: Florida. Stay tuned for that fun story soon.
