Celebrating 22 years in Park City

Bryan and I celebrated 22 years of marriage this summer. Realizing that our kids were clearly old enough to hold down the fort on their own without the aid of a grandma or aunt babysitter, we decided to book an overnighter in Park City for some alone time.

We headed up the canyon on Thursday evening after work and checked into the Torchlight Inn, an awesome little bed and breakfast across the street from Park City's historic Main Street. It was such a charming and homey little place...we were delighted! Bryan and I both decided we'd like to stay there again on repeat visits in the future. I especially loved the history behind it. An excerpt from their welcome letter in our room:

"The Torchlight Inn was once the site of a very famous brothel during the Silver Rush. When mining was no longer lucrative, miners left in droves leaving abandoned properties everywhere. Many of the ladies of the evening could not afford to leave Park City and so remained here. One night a major fire destroyed many buildings on what is now Deer Valley Drive, including the building that was on this current site. The madam was one of the souls who perished in the fire. Some say she still walks the halls so we leave a torchlight on for her."

The view from our balcony looking over towards historic Main Street.

This ornate and colorful wooden door stood up on the hill just off our balcony. I climbed up and inspected it a bit. As we checked out the next day I asked the owner of the place what the story was behind it. He said he liked to tell people that the door was left from the site's brothel days....rather than the true story, that when they took over ownership the door was just stuck up there in a mound of cement from the previous occupants...no idea why. I told him I liked his first story best and he should just stick with that.


After checking getting settled into the Torchlight Thursday night, we headed over to Main Street in search of some dinner and sightseeing. We ate so much BBQ that we practically had to waddle back to our room....but it sure was yummy.

The next morning after a fabulous homemade breakfast at the Torchlight, we headed over to the Park City Mountain Resort and took a ski lift way up the mountain side. The ride itself took quite awhile and it was really nice to have so much time to enjoy the views. We could literally feel the change in temperature the higher we got. Once at the top we followed a winding trail through the trees for a few hours. Eventually we had hiked our way over to a different chair lift that we took back down.

My original plans had us riding the alpine slides or coaster at that point. But dark clouds had gathered and we barely made it to our car in time before the rain came pouring down. Plan B had us heading to the Park City library instead where we spent the next few hours reading. Kind of nice, actually...to have some uninterrupted reading time seeing as both of us were in the middle of good books. When the weather perked back up we made our way back over to Main Street to try out a different restaurant for dinner...we had found quite a few the night before that sounded yummy. This time we hit an Irish pub which usually I quite enjoy. This one was only so-so...but the atmosphere was fun.

After dinner we headed up to Deer Valley to find ourselves a spot on the lawn for the Utah Symphony concert. They were playing the music from Disney's "Fantasia" that night. I was worried it would rain on us again, but the evening stayed dry even if it did get really chilly after the sun went down. We've been to multiple Utah Symphony concerts over the years but always in the grand Abravanel Hall in Salt Lake City. It was fun to experience the more casual atmosphere of the Deer Valley amphitheater. Kind of hard to beat the combination of gorgeous scenery and gorgeous music all under the starts cuddled up under a blanket with my sweetheart.

We headed home right after the concert and while I wished we could've stayed one more night, it sure was a great anniversary celebration. Happy 22nd to us!

Surgery story

I had a dream a few nights ago that I had twin babies. A girl and a boy. And then they died. And I sobbed. Morbid, I know. I have fairly realistic dreams, however I'm not one to really delve deep into the meaning behind them. If I have a dream about snakes I really don't consider it "a powerful symbol representing the awakening or continuance of spiritual growth" (as it says in "The Dream Book" that we read for book club a few years ago). I just know that I am terrified of snakes! I think my dreams tend to take the details, detritus and incidentals of the day and turn them into dreams as my brain works through them and decides what to keep and what to throw out....things I've read or watched, conversations I've had, people I've spent time with, thoughts I've been thinking. So a lot of times I will know exactly why and how a particular dream came to me...as bizarre as it may be.

In this case, I'm pretty sure I know why I dreamed of babies dying. I had a hysterectomy two and a half weeks ago. It was a planned and needed surgery. Without going too far into TMI territory, let me just say that my uterus among other parts of my innards were basically falling....something that is not uncommon and also hereditary. (My mother, two of her sisters and her mother had this exact same problem and subsequent surgery.) My doctor told me many years ago that this was happening and that at some point I would need to have a surgery to take out the uterus and to repair things. This past June at my yearly exam my doctor informed me that the insides that were slowly but surely falling had indeed made it to the pelvic floor and it was time. Though it wasn't an emergency or in any way critical to have the surgery immediately, looking at our family schedule Bryan and I decided that sooner rather than later would probably be easier seeing as this summer was a bit light as far as vacations and other such commitments go. So I scheduled the surgery (four procedures in all) for three weeks later, July 21st.

In talking with my doctor, my mother and other friends who have had a hysterectomy I started to prepare myself for what to expect in terms of recovery. One friend told me to prepare for the emotional aspect. Having a hysterectomy meant of course the removal of any chance of ever having children again. And as a woman, would the loss of this reproductive ability make me feel less feminine, even if at a subconscious level? Would I grieve even if I already felt like my family was complete? I didn't give too much thought to this aspect of recovery. Because though I know that many woman are faced with a hysterectomy before they are ready, for reasons such as cancer or endometriosis damage, etc and grieve the loss of more child bearing years...this wasn't the case with me. We already had a delayed caboose baby. There is a 6-year gap between Lilian and Brandon as it is and Lilian is now 8-years old. I'm nearly 42-years old. I've known for a long time that our family is complete. I did not expect to have any emotional angst with having a hysterectomy. On the contrary, I was rather excited about the prospect of chucking the birth control pills and tampons!

But when I woke up in tears after dreaming that my twin babies had died, I knew immediately that at some level my body was indeed grieving. Now don't get me wrong...I am not sad. I don't want to be pregnant ever again. I have felt incredibly peaceful about being done having children for quite some time now and have no qualms whatsoever with officially ending my child bearing years. But it was rather interesting to discover that somewhere subconsciously I was saying goodbye to that part of me.

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As far as the surgery itself, it went well. I was nervous, but who wouldn't be? There are always risks any time you undergo general anesthesia. I had Bryan and my father-in-law give me a blessing before going in and petitioned my family for prayers (including my sweet missionary girl in London). It took three tries to get the IV in my arm that morning (the bruises have finally just now faded). Unsurprising really, considering I do have wimpy veins, but still...ouch. Being wheeled down the hall in my hospital bed clad in my very fashionable hospital gown, blue hat and compression socks I felt a little like I had entered an episode of Grey's Anatomy and was delighted to find when I mentioned it to my nurse that she too was a fan. It was nice to have a bit of a lighthearted conversation to take my mind of my nerves before entering the OR.

General anesthesia is just weird, isn't it? This is the second time I've undergone anesthesia and though this time was better, I certainly don't love it. You're completely unconscious but you aren't truly resting like you would be had you been sleeping. Like the snap of a finger...one moment you are lying on a bed in the OR and the next second you are groggily waking up in an entirely different room. It's so disconcerting! And waking up is hard...I could barely keep my eyes open and kept dozing back off even as I was feeling like I should try to be more aware. I felt so incredibly out of it as they rolled me down the hall and into my recovery room. Bryan was there and I think I wiggled my fingers at him somewhat feebly before falling asleep again. The nurses came in every 30 minutes for the first few hours to take my vitals which would wake me up and each time it felt a little easier to keep my eyes open for a little longer.

Eventually I was able to carry on a more coherent conversation with Bryan, who was using my sleepy time to read a book, even though I told him he could go home as soon as the surgery was done. After all, I said...it's not like we just had a baby in which he would want to stay so he could bond with his child. He smiled at me and said he wanted to stay because I was more important even than a baby and he was happily willing to give up his day at work (regardless of looming deadlines) to be with me, to help in any way he could. Whether that be feeding me ice chips, calling the nurse for me when I needed more drugs, searching for my iPhone in my bag when I wanted to send texts to the kids at home, but most importantly for moral support. And though I would've been fine without him there (my nurses were excellent), I have to admit it was incredibly comforting to have him there reading his book on the couch at the foot of my bed.

(My sister Melissa asked me if I was stoned in this selfie. haha. At the time I was trying to take a silly sort of wide-eyed is-this-crazy-or-what? sort of picture to send to Rebekah and to the other kids so they would know that all was fine. I texted it to my sisters as well. But looking back on it later...maybe I was still a little out of it? Because yeah I look, well...drugged at least! Realistically, not a single one of these hospital pictures are the least bit flattering and I'm having a hard time even posting them.)

My parents came to visit later that evening. And after they and Bryan left, I expected to get a good nights sleep considering I was still rather sleepy. That did not happen, however. I could not get comfortable. My lower back ached something fierce and I could not change positions other than to move my bed up and down. Between the IV, pulse/ox monitor, catheter, oxygen tubes up my nose and the pressure cuffs around my legs I was hooked up to so many tubes and wires that I couldn't roll to one side or the other. I got so bored...not being able to sleep but in enough pain that it was hard to concentrate on reading...that I found myself at 2:00 AM timing how often the pressure cuffs swelled up and squeezed my legs (to ward off blood clots). Just in case you are interested: every 15 seconds one cuff would blow up and squeeze my leg. After 10 seconds it would release and then 15 seconds later, the cuff on the other leg would start up. I was so miserable! Finally at 5:00 AM I called my nurse and begged for something stronger as far as pain meds go. My own fault really, I had been trying to hold off on the percocet and manage with just ibuprofen. I was worried the percocet would make me dizzy and nauseous. But by 5:00 AM I was rather desperate. And the percocet ended up becoming my new best friend. Sight dizziness but no nausea and finally, blessed sleep!

Bryan came to pick me up around 11:00 AM. It was heavenly to get rid of all those wires and tubes! I was incredibly weak, but after changing into my own clothes and picking up my prescriptions at the hospital pharmacy, I officially checked out and the nurse wheeled me down to Bryan's waiting car. Home was much more comfortable than the hospital and I settled into my own bed happily. The next few days were filled with plenty of naps, a lot of reading, binge watching "The Good Wife" on Amazon Prime, and reading chapter after chapter of Harry Potter to Lilian. I felt good enough to putter around the house more and more each day, though I would get tired incredibly quickly and have to sit or lay on the couch. But I had expected this. I tried really hard to not overdo or push myself too hard. I had heard many stories of people feeling better after the first week and jumping back into real life too soon...and then landing themselves back in bed, their recovery then extending longer than it would've normally. I didn't want to be that person. So though at times I felt a bit like a drama queen or like I was milking my recovery status as I sent my kids to find their dad to make them dinner, etc, I stayed down.

Day 6, I took a shower and decided it might be nice for morale to actually put on a bit of make-up and dry and straighten my hair...which ended up taking so much out of me I had to take a nap as soon as I was finished!)

Like I said before, it's now been two and a half weeks. I've been to see my doctor for my 2-week post op visit. He told me that the surgery itself couldn't have gone better, and that it looked like my recovery was pretty text book as well. He said that I was fine to ease back into normal life carefully but to listen to my body and rest when needed. No heavy lifting, vacuuming, mowing the lawn, etc. along with a few other restrictions for 4 more weeks. And so here I am. A hysterectomy is a pretty major surgery and boy howdy, I can feel it! But it feels really good to start getting back to myself, even if I won't be 100% for a few more weeks. It's nice to get out and about....I didn't drive a car or even leave the house for nearly two weeks. Interestingly enough I was not stir crazy. On the contrary, it was actually really nice to be more or less forced to just be still. I was not itching to get out of the house...I really enjoyed having the guilt-free time to read, sleep, and just be. After the crazy year we've had up to this point, this surgery has given me time to rejuvenate which I think was very much needed. But as wonderful as it was to be still for a few weeks, it is nice to little by little get back into the swing of things, and though I am still weak and a little sore, I am indeed on the mend.

Much thanks and kudos to not just Bryan but also Julianne and Brandon and Lilian. Julianne took over all the daily carpooling of Brandon to gymnastics and Lilian to her summer art class. She also ran errands for me, picking up odds and end things from the grocery store, and cooked her fair share of dinners for us all. Brandon mowed the lawn, vacuumed the house, emptied garbages and other household chores. And Lilian was my gopher, running to and fro to bring me things when I asked for them and tried her hardest to be a little more independent and do things for herself that normally she would've asked me to do. They all took such good care of me!

Dementors vs. Weeping Angels

We've been having a discussion at our house. And maybe we're flying our geek flag by even having this debate, but so be it. We are a family that enjoys science fiction and fantasy. Our discussion...the worst of the baddies. The creepy creatures that give us nightmares. Specifically which would you least like to run into, the one that would do the most damage to you, the creepiest, scariest, most horrifying.
So here it is: Which would be worse to deal with: Dementors or Weeping Angels?

Dementors being the creatures that guard the wizard prison Azakaban in the Harry Potter universe. The horrible, skeleton like creatures who glide (not fly like in the movie...they got that so wrong) towards you with their horrible rattling breath and rotten flesh stink, making you feel like you'll never be happy again. In fact they feed off your happy thoughts and eventually you go mad with despair. Not to mention, if you're really unlucky they may "kiss" you and the Dementors kiss is apparently worse than death because they basically suck out your soul leaving just a shell.




Weeping Angels are alien creatures from Doctor Who....stone angel statues so named because of their tendency to keep their hands over their eyes so as to not accidentally look at each other. This makes them look as though they are crying. They feed off their victim's time energy. They constantly come ever closer every time you blink and to keep them at bay you have to stare at them...it's the only way to keep them "quantum locked." (Which is why they cover their eyes from each other as well.) They are creepy and scary...their faces serene and bland until they get closer when their features become more demonic with vampire teeth and clawing hands. They can move very quickly and silently and also through images. Their aims...to touch you and send you back in time to live out your life in the past while they feed off the time energy you would've had in the present. However, they have also been known to snap your neck and rearrange your brains if it suits their desires.

So which is worse? I'm not sure we ever decided. Running into a Dementor seems to be the least desirable the two. However if you know how to produce a patronus charm, you can definitely fight them off. Weeping Angels will indeed get you if you are the one that have set their sights on. It's pretty hard to escape a Weeping Angel...I mean really, eventually you will lose the staring contest. Weeping Angels always win, but most likely (you know, if they don't decide to rip your head off) you'll just get sent back to live your life in the past.

I have had nightmares of Weeping Angels. More than once. But never nightmares of Dementors. Does that say anything? Maybe Weeping Angels are the creepiest but the Dementors are the most dangerous? I'm not sure. But there you have it. A discussion for a Wednesday afternoon.

A toasty 4th of July

The 4th of July was a bit different year, owing mostly to the fact that the air conditioning in our house went out that week....one of the hottest weeks of the summer, mind you. And you all remember how I feel about heat, yes? That we don't get along well? Yeah. And what with the heat wave making a lot of AC units go out along the Wasatch Front, combined with the holiday weekend....the soonest we could get a repair guy in to look at it was a full week after it went out. So when my house was sitting at a toasty 89 degrees, the last thing I wanted to do was go outside and then not be able to get cooled off again. (I spent most of my days hanging out under the ceiling fan in the living room. If I stayed fairly still, I could endure the heat. Lots of reading and laptop time ensued.) So no 4th of July parade or carnival or fireworks show. I just wasn't sure I could handle it.

We did decide to attend a BBQ we had been invited to at the home of some friends with five or so other families in the neighborhood. They had a pool in the backyard. And a lovely air conditioned house. And both of those things felt very refreshing...as well as enjoying the company of friends. And though we skipped the city fireworks show, we found that there were enough fireworks going on closer by that we could sit on our back porch and get quite and amazing show without even going anywhere.

The next day after three hours of air conditioned church, we headed to my parents house (also air conditioned, hooray!) for a family get together.

It felt a little bit funny to be celebrating a holiday meant to honor America's freedom and independence from England...with a Union Jack flag hanging proudly in my living room. An American living in England is probably the slightest bit awkward when it comes to Independence Day. Rebekah and her fellow American sister and senior missionaries serving at the Hyde Park Chapel Visitor's Center went to Five Guys for lunch to celebrate figuring that a hamburger and fries felt like a little bit like a piece of American tradition.

"New York, New York....it's a helluva town!"

SATURDAY:
I think living in New York would be pretty sweet from an exercise perspective. The food is incredible...so many famous and amazingly yummy places to eat. And yet you do so much walking, so many stairs in and out of the subway...maybe it all equals out and you stay nice and slender? We walked all week long. My fitbit was recording record amounts of steps and miles and flights of stairs. Can you imagine the possibilities living in NYC?? But because we weren't used to it, each day my feet started getting sore a little earlier than the day before. And we were definitely tired as we tried to pack in so much each day...to see as much as we could. So Saturday morning, though sleeping in was certainly tempting, I left three tired girls in my room fast asleep and slipped out to join Ryan, Andra and Jana for a little jaunt across the Brooklyn Bridge. All were invited, only four of us decided to wake up. Apparently more than just my roomies chose to sleep in.

And I'm glad I did. Because the morning was cool and there was a nice breeze. And the bridge itself was incredibly cool! It was all I could do to not pull a Spot Collins and yell, "Never fear, Brooklyn is here!" (You "Newsies" fans will get the reference...)
The walking path is a boardwalk of sorts with half for bikers, half for walkers. And we were up above the train and automobile bridge lanes. There was some graffiti and stickers slapped on poles. There were love locks here and there which was interesting because somehow I had it in my head that that was just a European thing. The cables were remarkably thick and the bridge itself just seemed rather stately and beautiful. Apparently the bridge took 13 years to build and when it was finally finished in 1883 people were scared to cross it, worried that it wouldn't hold up. So a year later P.T. Barnum marched his circus elephants and other animals across it in a demonstration of the bridges safety (and as great advertising for his circus) and it was fun to think about that as we walked. But in a more sobering vein...it became that much more real to look back at the NYC skyline as we crossed from Manhattan into New Jersey and think about those people on 9/11 who walked across that bridge to get away from the devastation.

Our walk was completely delightful. We stopped at a little cafe for a smoothie before continuing on to the subway station to ride back. I'd like to explore Brooklyn more the next time I visit NYC.

Many of us had picked up an extra Broadway matinee on Saturday. We were all split up between "Something Rotten," "Finding Neverland," "The Fantastiks," and "The Audience." Julianne and I had picked up tickets to see "On the Town"....one of my all time favorite Gene Kelly musicals. It was a new revival on Broadway as of last September. My friend Gary told me that though the reviews were good, the audience had been lax and that he didn't think the show would still be around when I got to NYC in June. But then it got nominated for a Tony Award which gave it a boost. I'm so glad! The show is about 3 sailors from the U.S. Navy who get 24 hours leave in NYC. The front curtain was a big American flag and the conductor of the orchestra stood up the audience and led us all in singing The National Anthem before the show started! I've sung or listened to The National Anthem before numerous sporting events and even some summer concerts in the park, but never a musical in a theatre before! It makes sense considering the show but I tell you what, it was awesome! And the show itself was completely wonderful! A love letter to the city and very dance heavy...which also makes sense considering this was a Gene Kelly musical. And they stayed very true to the original choreography...it was like Gene Kelly was up there on stage in spirit. The lead female was actually a principle ballerina from the New York City Ballet Company and interestingly enough, is from Utah originally. I absolutely loved the show and was so glad we decided to pick up tickets at the last minute. Truly, of the five shows we saw I think this was my favorite...partly because of the sentimental aspect of it.

And if you wait around the stage door for a bit, the actors will come out and sign autographs.

It was a hard call as to whether we should see two shows in one day. Ideally, it's nice to just see one because you want to have time to process, you know? You don't want to jump into a second show before you've really had time to decide how you felt about the first. But the other line of thinking goes something along the lines of wanting to stuff in as many as possible because you're not in NYC very often and your to-see Broadway list is rather large....

So Julianne and I talked hard core about On The Town as we changed clothes, grabbed some food, and headed over to the next theatre to meet up with Alyssa and Liz for The Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder. It won Best Musical at the Tony Awards in 2014 and I'd heard it was fabulous. Julianne and Liz (along with their friend Collin) had taken a song from this show and competed it at the regional theatre competition a few months ago. Apparently competition in the musical theatre category is fierce, but they took top scores! The song "I've Decided to Marry You" is hilarious and so we decided to go see the show when we were in NYC and bought our tickets a few weeks in advance. And it was very worth it! The readers digest version of the plot...Monty Navarro has discovered on the death of his mother that he is actually a D'Ysquith...a wealthy and aristocratic family, and realizes he is 9th in line to be the Earl of Highhurst. He spend the rest of the show basically finding funny ways to off all the relatives in line ahead of him. There is one actor that plays all of these D'Ysquith family members (even the girls) and oh my, he was so great! My cheeks were sore from laughing so hard.

I know it's Broadway and all, so of course it's going to be top notch talent and production....but holy wow, you know? I was consistently and completely floored by everything we saw. How lucky are we that we were able to see five Broadway shows while in NYC?!

SUNDAY:
We had a completely free day on Sunday up until 3:30 when we were to leave for the airport. A lot of our group decided to go to Coney Island. I would've LOVED to see Coney Island...but it was Sunday and my cute roommates Julianne, Liz and Alyssa really wanted to go to church at the Manhattan Temple. Elle and her mother, Pam who live in our ward at home also wanted to go to church. Also, we have a young woman from our ward who is currently serving a mission in NYC and according to her mother, would be at church at the temple that morning. So we hopped the subway and headed to the Upper West Side at the Lincoln Center and went to Sacrament Meeting. It was a neat meeting and we were able to find Sister Smith in the foyer and give her lots of hometown hugs. (And take pictures for her mom at home.) I'm really glad we went.

After church we headed to Vive le Crepe that we discovered last time we were in town. And then with our bellies filled with yumminess we walked over to the Lincoln Center. Alyssa had a hankering to "touch Julliard" which is part of the Lincoln Center campus. They were having a little festival of sorts there...lots of tents selling arts and crafts. High end, fancy stuff of course. One guy was playing his violin accompanied by a soundtrack trying to sell CD's. He was incredible! I mean, Lincoln Center...right?

We headed back to the hotel after exploring and taking in the cultural ambience of the Lincoln Center and Julliard....a place that plays a part in future dreams for many a theatre or music student.

Alyssa is looking sad in this picture because she just realized that she lost her ring that she bought a few days earlier. She was certain she had left it on the counter while washing her hands in the bathroom back at the Lincoln Center. She was stunned when she then found it in her pocket about 20 minutes later. We teased her that it was a blessing because she had chosen to go to church that morning....  ;)

Sad faces because the NYC trip has come to an end and it's time to head to the airport. It really was a fabulous trip. We saw so and did so many amazing things....this city, I just love it so much! Julianne and I came up with a bucket list for our next trip to NYC:
*bike Central Park
*explore Brooklyn
*Coney Island
*Baptisms for the Dead at the Manhattan temple (We had planned to do this this time but she forgot her reccomend.)
*Natural History Museum
*Metropolitan Museum of Art (I've been to the Met but Julianne has not.)
*walk the High Line
*eat at Sardis
*see a Jimmy Fallon show
*9/11 museum
*get tix for the Metropolitan Opera

NYC....we will be back!