"If You're Not in New York, You're Camping Out" -Thomas E. Dewey

Back to the Big Apple! Wasn't I just here? Yes, but I love it! The last several times I have gone it was in Autumn and Winter, so it was kind of nice to be there in the summertime. Also, I typically plan my trips around a specific Broadway show that I am dying to see, and this time the trip was for more personal reasons. Not that we didn't fit a couple of shows in, (please, this is me we're talking about) but the reason for the trip was to attend the reception of my friends Brian & Isa. They actually got married back in the end of December, but had a belated reception. It was in Central Park and was super casual and it was so good to see them so happy!

My friend Adam and I (who are both friends with Brian from our BYU years) took a Thursday night red-eye flight and arrived in NY bright and early (and humidified) on very little sleep, but that hardly mattered. We stayed with our lovely friend Alli (another mutual friend from BYU- she is a nurse and her husband is at Med school at Cornell) and they graciously let us make a wreck of their living room all weekend.

Adam had been to NY before as well, but he had a little bucket list of things he wanted to do and we did a pretty dang good job of covering it considering we only had three days and Brian's reception was the main point of our trip and travel time getting all over takes up a lot. Things on the list we covered were:

1- The Metropolitan Museum (I go every time I'm in NY, but I love it)
2- The Guggenheim Museum (I had never been!)
3- The NY Public Library (I had also never gone here- really glad we did)
4- St. Patrick's Cathedral
5- Cruising out to the Statue of Liberty (Instead of taking the two hour ferry we took a speed boat- I would highly recommend it ;)
6- Top of the Rock (I had never done this either- its a look out at the top of Rockefeller Center. If you have never been to NY then you have to go up the Empire State Building, because, well, its the Empire State Building, but now that the Towers are gone, it doesn't have the best view anymore. Top of the Rock has a great view of the ESB and also of Central Park)
7- Serendipity! I can't go to NY and not go there either, apparently. I'm okay with it
8- Times Square and Broadway shows! We went to two shows, Memphis and Fela! They were both really great, and both won awards at the Tony's this past week. Memphis won the coveted Best Musical
9- Strolling/eating in Greenwich Village
10- Baseball game- the Yankees were sadly out of town, but we went to a Mets game at the new Citi Field
11- Most importantly, got to spend time with Brian and Isa and Alli and got to finally meet Alli's husband Dustin, who is great- it is so awfully thoughtful of my friends to keep marrying people that I like  ;)

Not too shabby for three quick days! Here are some pics!

Little Brother is All Growed Up and Graduated!

So this is a couple of weeks belated, because I was lazy about getting the pictures uploaded, but two weekends ago I went to Bozeman, Montana for the college graduation of my (second of four) little brother Parker (fondly nicknamed 'Bug'). My folks are still out of the country, so I was the family representative. He was a film student and it was really a lot of fun having him show me campus and show me his art classrooms and videos they have worked on and what not. It made me sentimental for school and made me think that Film would have been a pretty awesome major since, if this blog is any proof, I kinda like media stuff. Sigh, bygones. Once Bug is on a roll, he is hiring me as his personal assistant, so we're good ;)

Here is a little slide show of my brief but eventful adventures in Bozeman:

Here is a video of Bug actually walking across the podium. You know, for the folks:

TEXAS

So I just got back from visiting my sister Torry and her family in Amarillo, Texas. I hadn't seen T since June, and I am pretty sure that is the longest the two of us have even gone not seeing each other before, so something had to be done. Problem is, there's not a whole heck of a lot to do in Amarillo. I mean, this is it's biggest claim to fame:

So, we schemed this big trip to drive to San Antonio and take the kids to Sea World while I was visiting. We got the hotel all booked and everything was official. I happened to be browsing the Sea World San Antonio website the week before Christmas, and... oh. None of us had bothered to check and see if it was going to be open. Yeah, it wasn't. Neither was Six Flags. They both close up after New Years and reopen in March. So...

We went anyway. Why not? It was only a quick trip anyway, drive down Friday, play on Saturday, drive back Sunday, so we found plenty to fill the time. We got off a little late on Friday so by the time we got to San Antonio it was a little late to do anything. Saturday we drove a ways out of town to this Safari Park which ended up really fun with the kids. It was kind of a random thing- you drive through and feed the animals out of the window, and they just have all these animals from around the world tossed in there together- African and Asian ones along with bison, burros and even a couple of Texas Longhorns. (The biggest thing we were able to pet were the longhorns by the way- huge and as tame as a puppy. I wanted to take one home and ride it to work every day) Anyway, it was a nicely put together place and the kids loved it. Next we went to a tour of these giant ancient caverns. The kids didn't love that quite as much, but the rest of us did. Caves are just cool, okay.

After that we headed back to the hotel (named Crockett, after, you guessed it, Davy Crockett, one of the heroes of the Alamo which our hotel was right across the street from). So then we toured the Alamo and strolled along the River Walk, which is just as great as I had heard, and finished out the evening with dinner at The Rainforest Cafe, which is always a good time. We were seated by this anamatronic elephant and Eva was in a snippy mood after the long day and kept complaining that it would't stop staring at her. Then we told her it was because she had such pretty hair, and after that she was enamored and giving flirty eyes to the beasty the rest of the meal. No confidence issues with that one ;)

I didn't leave til Tuesday and Monday was just a wonderful relaxing day, going around with T and the kids- a walk in the park, feeding the ducks, pushing them on the swing... doing the stuff I miss the most now that they're in Texas. We capped off the evening with a delicious meal at a Japanese restaurant and the next morning I flew away. The next time I see them I will have another nephew as T is due in April! Woot woot!

So here's some pics of my adventures in Texas. Next time I'm there I hope I get to see an armadillo:

♪ New York, New York, It's a Wonderful Town ... ♪

So I went to the Big Apple this past weekend to visit my friends Elisabeth & Tyler and to go to some shows. I have always enjoyed going to NY and in the last several years my visits have become more frequent and I seem to be taking annual trips now. I just love that city and I've become a little obsessed with trying to get to see the Original Broadway Casts of musicals. Elisabeth's sister Jordan came too and we had such a great time. Ty and Elisabeth moved to NY this past spring for Ty to do a year of Grad School at Columbia University and their apartment is right by the school.

We had some wind and rain the first couple of days, but it was mostly the perfect temperature and we were just moving the whole time. Jordan and I were on different airlines but both got in at 6pm on Thursday, hopped on the bus and met Ty at their apartment at 7pm to drop our stuff. Then we headed downtown and met up with Elisabeth, had dinner at a yummy restaurant called Cosi, walked around for a while and then went up the Empire State Building. It was a clear night, so we had a great view of the lights of the city, and it wasn't nearly as crowded as it can get up there. Jordan had never been to NY before, so it seemed like a good first-night-in-NY thing to do.

On Friday, while Ty was at school and Elisabeth was at work, Jordan and I headed down to South Street Seaport to get Saturday matinee tickets for something at the TKTS booth there. We ended up deciding to just wait until Saturday and wing it in the hopes of getting student or rush tickets. so then we walked around South Street, walked over to see the progress on Ground Zero and then walked over to Battery Park to get a view of Lady Liberty. Then we, a little awkwardly because I had never been before, made our way to China Town for lunch. We picked a place that looked pretty big and prominent presuming that would be a better chance of having waiters that spoke English. Not so much. It was this huge room of tables and they seat you wherever there is space so we were at this table with these two girls speaking purely Chinese. There were carts rolling around asking if you want any of the food on them and after about ten minutes of not really knowing what to do, we tried a couple things and then finally, with lots of apologetic smiles and hand gestures, sorted out how to order a chicken and noodle dish. It was all very good and quite the authentic experience ;)

After that we went uptown and browsed the Metropolitan Museum for a couple of hours and then met up with my friend Brian in Central Park. (Brian had just gotten engaged to his lovely Isa the day before! Yay! He got her a Tiffany's ring. Always the way to go if you can make it happen.) We then went to play in the amazing toy store FAO Schwartz for a while (made famous by the giant floor piano scene in the movie Big). I was excited to see that they have this new section that is like Build A Bear except its Muppets!! Then we headed to Times Square and met up with Ty & Elisabeth for pizza and went to The Lion King. Through all of my years of show-going, I had somehow never seen it. It wasn't the best-show-ever like some say, but the costumes and puppetry and the creativity of some of the scenes really is incredible and definitely worth seeing. I maybe cried during the opening sequence... and when Mufasa dies... and maybe again at the end.

On Saturday we went straight to Times Square and got tickets for the matinee of Burn the Floor, and then we headed up to my beloved Serendipity for lunch, which is one of my NY traditions. The Frrrozen Hot Chocolate (no, that is not a misspelling) is the main reason to go there, but the food is also extremely unique and delicious. We also stopped at the adorable little boutique Laila Rowe by Serendipity and got a couple of fun accessories. Then it was back to Times Square for Burn the Floor. Though the show is technically on Broadway, it isn't a storyline with a plot, it is a fast-paced dance show, mostly Latin and Ballroom. It was really good and I especially loved it because Pasha and Anya, who were contestants in Season 3 of my beloved So You Think You Can Dance, were in the show so it was fun to see them.

Then Ty came down to meet us and we went over and tried our luck to win tickets in the Wicked lottery they do every night because neither Ty or Jordan had seen it yet, but it is always sold out, so unless you buy your tickets months in advance for full price or want to pay like $250 for Premium tickets, this is the way to do it. Sadly, no such luck. So then we were sort of down to the wire with what shows still had tickets available, because we had been hoping on Wicked, so we frantically ran around to the box offices of different shows and ended up getting tickets to Shrek. We had dinner at Stardust, a burger place where the waiters sing and dance on the tables, and then hustled to the show. I sort of went into Shrek not expecting a lot, but it turned out to be very funny and the sets were really impressive.

Here's the thing. Show Tune people. I am one. Its like meeting other Mormons random places or other Americans in a foreign country- there's an automatic kinship. Unlike other trips trips I have taken to see shows in NY (like when I went to see Thoroughly Modern Millie or Jekyll & Hyde or Wicked or The Light in the Piazza or In the Heights...) there wasn't one particular show that I was willing to give my left arm to see (and that is saying something, because I am left-handed, you understand ;). There were plenty of shows that I wanted to see, but nothing I was bursting my heart out about. This was a little disappointing because I love the anticipation of knowing that I am finally going to experience/witness/enjoy something that I have been looking forward to so much. On the other hand, it was kind of nice to not be so stressed out about making sure I got good (and always expensive) tickets to one thing especially.

That being said, after Lion King, Burn the Floor and Shrek, although they were all entertaining, I still hadn't been to something that really, really affected me. So, on Sunday (which was our first fully sunny day), we went to Sacrament at 11am with Ty & Elisabeth and then J and I went to Times Square and I got a ticket for the 7:30pm show for that night for Next to Normal. This is a show that came out early this year and won Best Actress and Best Score at the Tony's in June and I own the soundtrack of. I had really wanted to see it, but I didn't push that we all go because I wasn't sure that it would be for everyone. (Like Jersey Boys- completely incredible, but sort of a lot of language. call me desensitized ;)

We headed back to Ty & Elisabeth's apartment and met up with them and packed lunches and spend the afternoon strolling beautiful, ginormous Central Park. Then I split off from them and headed down to see Next to Normal. Wow. I mean, its really a pretty simple set and not fancy costumes or anything- its a family drama where the mother is bi-polar and has depression and hallucinations and how it affects her family. The music was rock style and there are only six people in the cast, with no ensemble, giving it a very intimate feel. the whole cast was so amazing and the story was so tragic and moving and hopeful. I don't know how these actors can handle doing it every day- it must be soooo emotionally draining! I was very glad I ended up going though, because it was my 'wow' show for the weekend. The one that stays with you after you exit the theater. I wish I had gotten to see Elisabeth more, but all in all the weekend was a great success!

* Too many pics to intersperse them within the post, so here they are in a slide show (and even these ones I narrowed down a bit ;) -

Now, of course, my head is whirling around with the potential of another NY trip next year!There are a few musicals starting in the next several months that interest me very much:

SPIDER-MAN Turn Off the Dark - For real. The music was written by Bono & The Edge and it is directer by crazy-yet-talented Julie Taymor who made the movie Across the Universe and the extremely affecting movie of a Shakespeare play Titus with Anthony Hopkins. (If you know me, you know I get a laugh from horror movies and I love thrillers, but that movie really got to me.)

The Addams Family - Well, I guess if they can make musicals of Young Frankenstein and Shrek, then why not? Plus, Gomez & Morticia are being played by Nathan Lane & Bebe Neuwirth, so that should be pretty entertaining ;)

Ragtime (Revival) - It will be a poor man's Ragtime without Brian Stokes Mitchell and Audra MacDonald, but I've never seen it.

Dreamgirls (Revival) - You may not know that the 2006 movie was based off a 1981 Broadway musical that won six Tony Awards that year, including Best Musical. I would looooooove to here some of those belty ballads live. Maybe they can get Jennifer Hudson to reprise Academy Award winning movie role ;)

And then of course I would still like to get to Billy Elliot, but it is likely to stick around for a few years, and it isn't one that I feel strongly about needing to see the Original Broadway Cast of. I guess I'll have to get it sorted out and maybe this time it can be with the Mama cause the fam comes home this summer!

Mann Family Reunion 2009

Yep, it's official, I really am a Mann after all!

I just got back from my Mann Family Reunion. Every summer we have family reunion in McCall, Idaho - the first one was thirty-one years ago, the year my parents were engaged. McCall is two hours into the mountain from Boise and is on Payette Lake. It's not as big as say, Sun Valley, but I guess you would call it a resort town like that. It gets really crowded with snow skiers in the winter and with boaters in the summer. We had a cabin there for several years and some of my fondest memories are of this place. We've watched it change and grow over the years but it still has some of its staple places like this great little diner with a Jukebox called My Father's Place with the best fry sauce and milkshakes of my life. Also, every February they have the McCall Winter Carnival with ice sculptures. Payette Lake even has it's very own 'sea' monster, which I was proud to discover was on Wikipedia, named Sharlie.

On a side note about Sharlie, I remember when I was like five or six, and we all had hotel rooms at Shore Lodge and they had this sort of parade float looking rendition of Sharlie out in the water floating by the hotel boat dock with lights shining on it at night. One of the nights of reunion we were all crammed into one of the rooms watching Frankenstein on TV (thinking back, it was probably the Mel Brooks Young Frankenstein, but to a kid you don't get the comedy of that, its just creepy). I had to go and get something from the other room and I think I made my sister Torry and my cousin Heather come with me, but they left before me and I found myself alone in this dark room, unable to find the light or get the door open, listening to the groans of Frankenstein coming through the wall and looking at this (real-looking to me) float of Sharlie out on the dark waters. It seems so silly now, but that is still one of the most poignant and terrifying moments in my memory!

Anyway, family reunion...

Our favorite cliff jumping spot- me jumping in the yellow:

Swimming around rock islands:

Getting back on the tube after a tumble:

Brother Bug and I enjoying some delicious treats at Ice Cream Alley:

One of the random shots that my cousin's little girl Elle took while playing with my camera:

Mill Park Condominiums where we have stayed the last few years:

Shore Lodge hotel where we used to stay when I was a little kid and still go to for breakfast sometimes:

One last fond farewell to the lake until next year:

A few hours at my Grandma's farm before heading home:

So fun. My family is so great. We ski, we tube, we eat, we cliff jump, we jet ski, we eat, we hike, we play games, we watch movies, we enjoy each others company and, wait for it... we eat. Being on the water though, I just ache for it. I don't know if there is anything I love better than being on a boat, be it a speed boat, sailboat, houseboat or even a jet ski- there is nothing that compares with the spray of the water and the wind in my face. Another item that made the weekend enjoyable was the comments I kept receiving from my doting grandmother such as, 'what an attractive figure you have,' and, 'what a pretty girl you are.' Mind you, in her day what constituted an 'attractive figure' was far more shapely than is the current fashion, and also, her vision is not what it used to be. I appreciate the sentiments all the same though ;) What I am really excited for is next summer when my immediate family will all be there because my parents and two youngest brothers have missed it the last three years in a row while in South Africa (My brother Logan and my sister Torry and her family have been missing it as well, with not nearly as good of excuses, ahem, but they have all sworn to come next year). It'll be a good one. Sigh. Another beautiful summer weekend, come and gone.

I'm a Mann... wait, I'm a Briggs... Oh, I'm a Doxey... Er, I'm a Mann?

I am very close with the families of a couple of my really good friends. This is always nice, of course, but particularly when my own parents are out of the country. This past weekend I spent in Cedar City with my friends the Briggs: Kirsten (now Smith), Breanne and their mom Julie:

We went to The Secret Garden musical and also Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors at the Shakespeare Festival (both very good, and we spent the whole weekend speaking in bad German accents, for some reason):

The Secret Garden

The Comedy of Errors

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We stayed at their Grandma Dee's and spent time with their Aunt Kay and cousins. I have met these people on previous other Briggs family occasions and often feel that I am a Briggs myself. I'm okay with it.

Two weeks before this I went to Lake Powell with my friends the Doxey's. (My first time to Lake Powell ever- I know, I know ...) This is another family that I have spent a lot of time with and been to a lot of events for and met a lot of their extended family and feel right at home with. Sadly not all of my Doxey's could be there, but I had a fabulous time:

(I stole this first pic from Andi's blog ;)

I'm not really sure if I send off a lost puppy vibe or if I'm just too darn likable for my own good or what, but I surely don't mind that people I love feel inclined to adopt me, and I adore having extra families to play with. This weekend I have my big family reunion in McCall, Idaho with my Mann cousins, which I look forward to every year, so I'm sure that is all it will take for my identity crisis will be resolved. I don't really mind being a Briggs or a Doxey every once in a while though. ;)

You Look Like the 4th of July! It Makes Me Want a Hotdog Reeeeeeeal Bad!

I went to Idaho for the long weekend to celebrate the 4th of July at my Grandma's with my brother Parker and my cousins. I love my Grandma's. When I was seven and a half and my parents decided to move us from California to Idaho to be closer to family, I assumed that mean to the farm because at that age, the farm is what 'Idaho' was to me. I remember being devastated at first when we moved closer to Boise because the farm was a little kids fantasy- horses, cowboys, four wheelers and fields you could run through forever.

This is my Grandma's house that she built with my Grandpa somewhere around sixty-five years ago, I guess, when they were young and newly married. It's even on 'Mann Lane.' They were high school sweethearts and they must have been the popular couple because I have read their high school year books and all of the comments from people are, 'take care of Mary...' and, 'good luck with Charlie...' My Grandpa passed away several years ago and my Grandma is ninety now and lives in the house by herself, which is pretty impressive. I have aunts and uncles and cousins literally five minutes away, so she is by no means isolated. Anyway, its a good thing she is well enough to be there alone because we would have to drag her out with much wailing and gnashing of teeth if we tried to get her to move somewhere else, because leaving that house would be like leaving Grandpa.

I talked about this giant Birch tree in my Grandma's backyard and posted some pics on Facebook last fall. A swing has been in this tree in the backyard for 30+ years. My brother Logan and I took a little spontaneous trip out to surprise my Grandma last October and the first thing we noticed (much to our horror) was that the swing was missing. Apparently a few months before the rope was finally giving out and someone took it down and no one had replaced it. Not at all willing to let our childhood be so thrown out of whack in this way, Logan and I went to Home Depot and bought a new rope and a chunk of wood that we sanded down and painted and then I climbed the tree while Logan stood on a ladder as we tied it off in the same place as before and replicated (except that the old rope was yellow) the swing of our youth. I can't even explain the relief I felt to see a swing in the tree again! Change is inevitable, but some simple things, sentimental things, are already perfect, like everything about my grandparents and their house, and there is a satisfaction in them staying as they are.

With my parents gone the last couple of years I have mainly just been to Idaho for the holidays and for reunions in McCall in the summers, so it had been a while since I had been to the farm while it was so green and the corn was coming up, and I had forgotten how much I love it then. I love big cities and their bustle and culture and activity, and I never did actually ever live at the farm, but I guess a part of me will always be that wide-open-spaces-loving Idaho girl. We all got together on chairs and blankets on the front lawn of my Grandma's house around sunset and ate yet more food while the little kids played with Snaps and Sparklers and Smoke Bombs until the sun went down and then we pulled out the big guns. If anybody asks, of course they were all legal fireworks. What kind of people do you think we are? Moving on... it was great. I guess the farm will always be a little of what it was to me when I was seven- just sort of comfortable and free.