The King Has Bling

It was very ambitious of our Stake to plan a road trip Youth Conference this year. 

150 young men and women, 14-18 years old,  packed into three land yachts and headed north for three days.

Anticipation levels were high.  Here are Prince,

Courage,

and Phlip gearing up for fun.

I was chaperone to Miguel and John,

Zakee and Abe,

Henry, Allah, and Bob (not shown--off somewhere making friends...).

 

 There were also young women invited on the adventure, which made it slightly more interesting than scout camp.  Not to mention better smelling.

Some of the girls were more excited...

...than others.

 We stopped at Harmony, Pennsylvania, where we met Emma Smith and Oliver Cowdery by the Susquehanna River, and learned about key events in the early days of the church.

We stopped at the Joseph Knight farm before heading up to Rochester and a cool pool.

Not only did our leaders LOOK cheerful and under control, I think they actually WERE. 

Next day we went into Palmyra, a sleepy little village on the Erie canal,

where we met Joseph Smith and heard more about his story.

We visited the local temple, 

and got to spend some time in a grove of trees that felt as calm and powerful as a temple...

A highlight of the trip was the Hill Cumorah Pageant.  

We got there for opening night.  

With about 10,000 other people.

But we also got to meet some of the cast, including this King showing off his bling.

And the pageant did not disappoint.  Angels blew their trumpets, a ship was built, wars fought, prophets burned, cities built, a book written, buried, translated and published.

 Excuse me, sir.  Would you do Youth Conference 2012 again?

Yes.  Yes, I would.

Bombs Bursting in Air--July 4th

Lynne and Kit live in Weehawken, a nice burg on the Hudson, across from mid-town Manhattan.

The township selected one of their parks on the water and militantly kept out everyone but Weehawkeners (Weehawkers?  Weehawks?  Weehawkezoids?) and their guests.  Lynne brought a utility bill as proof.

Weehawken (and everyone else on the west side of the river) piggybacked on Macy's river-based fireworks displays, instead of popping for their own.  Macy's had four barges on the river, more or less synchronized with each other, from which they fired a million dollars (each) of Chinese products high into the air.

It was a 30-minute spectacular spectacle!

And breathtaking! 

 

Those New Yorkers really know how to throw a party, although they still haven't figured out how to manage the post-party traffic...

 Of course, with her mad Korean cooking skills, Lynne threw us a pretty nice dinner to go along with the NY party.  Kit is partying in the mountains with his boy scouts.  Fireworks of different kind...

Philly Anniversary

Hard to imagine, but we crossed the one year mark here last week.

Gabe was at scout camp for the auspicious date.

Terisa was working way too hard. 

As usual.

Since we got here, we have posted 75 entries on this blog, which have been seen by 3978 people.  That averages about 53 views per post, but actually only about 20-30 people look at each one.

We get most of our traffic from the US, but we have fans from a dozen other countries.  Russia is our biggest supporter.  Or biggest hacker.

The most popular post is the one on the Mutter Museum, with 309 pageviews.  I'd like to think it was because of the scintillating wit and the incisive photo selection.  And I'd also like three wishes from a genie.

The second place winner (158 views) was an early post on our starving student apartment.  I speculate that many people were still in shock as to why we would move to urban Philadelphia.  Come to think of it...

Interestingly enough, the third place post was about being thankful for accountants.  It seems obvious that accountants don't get enough love from the real world and come back to this post for some regular validation.

So, one year. What a great ride!

Jersey Shore

First trip to the Jersey shore.  We landed at Monmouth, where the sun was hot, the sand was bright and the crowd was not too crowdy.

The water was coolish, since it was still June, but surfers were still trying to catch the big one.

A beach wedding at a nearby hotel. 

And thanks to a surf fisher, we actually saw Snooki...

What Do You Get When...?

What do you get when you put five scary-smart, strong and super-motivated women in one of the most demanding internships in psychology for a whole year?  Five newly minted (and a little exhausted) doctors who can do just about anything.

Watch out world, you are about to be changed.

 

Congratulations to the 2011-2012 Psychology Interns from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Clockwise from left:  Josie, Katie, Whitney, Prerna and (my favorite) Terisa.

  Let the world-changing begin!