Big Willies Go East: New York, New York

There was a HUGE blackout in the city this night! 

An excerpt from my ig post about being on the train during a power outage. We were fortunate to be able to just carry the strollers up 2 flights of stairs to the streets and walk the remaining 40 minutes, and found a bus after 20.  We got to thinking later that anyone who was wheelchair bound was probably stuck st their subway gate for hours. We didn’t see anyone stranded, but did receive help lifting the strollers up from kind locals who offered a hand. People seemed to show up with one of two responses: fear, or curiosity. Half were in a panic and half wondered out loud what was going on, and sought out alternate options for getting home. I’m happy to say the Willardsons were just curious and found a bus. 

🎶 “When the lights go down in the city...” 🎵 there are like 71k units without electricity in Manhattan.   Our hotel in Jersey last night was an absolute hole. We tried to check out the minute we arrived, but were stuck with paying for it so we kept for just one night, then found a place in Manhattan and just drove the fun bus into the city for tonight and tomorrow. We were on the subway today when the power went out, and it took us two hours just to get from the WTC to Midtown. But had we not switched hotels to one here in NY, we would have been like a zillion others who are stuck in Manhattan tonight with no way back to New Jersey since the trains headed downtown or of out of the city are closed. Our hotel in nyc still has power, and aside from a LOT of extra walking tonight, we are having a great time. The kids are loving all the different forms of public transit we’re taking. 

Church in Manhattan was again an experience. It was stake conference, so there was nowhere to sit. We spent half the meeting in the foyer, and then some families left early and we slipped in to take their empty  seats. 








I love this pic because the “stair step” heights of the children are all equal. This was at the Museum of Naturak History. We had a movie marathon night in preparation for the trip, and we watched all three Night at the Museum movies (thanks, Bentonville public library for your amazing selection of vacation prep movies over the summer.) We also watched Balto (and found the statue in Central Park), An American Tale to launch our study of Ellis Island, National Treasure 1 and 2 (takes place at Mount Vernon), School House Rock, and several kid documentaries in DC, Gettysburg, the Revolutionary War, Abraham Lincoln, etc. When we went to the Museum of Natural History, I had a website that gave us a “movie tour” so we could see all the movie characters from Sacajawea to Dexter, to Rexy, to the Easter Island rock (that is actually just a theatrical fake, but still cool.)  

Two of the children really struggled in New York. Every siren (which is often) triggered some PTSD and sent them spiraling into a dark place. It took a lot of effort on my and Aaron’s end to help them stay out of survival mode. I brought along a bag of tricks and used every calming method I know. We spent a lot of time separate from the rest of the family just breathing and blowing scented bubbles and swaddling and rocking and talking and singing and snacking to stay under control. The city is a lot to handle. Knowing their triggers and sensory seeking behaviors, we actually expected them to enjoy the buzz and rush and flurry of cars and people to watch. But the noise of the city, while exciting for them, also drove them to want constant physical and emotional and social connection to Aaron and I. We learned that 2 minutes without undivided attention was way too long, and figured out how to divide and conquer. One of us stayed completely engaged in conversation and connection (carrying, brushing, rocking, conversing, etc) with the twins and the other was with the 5 older children.  We switched back and forth and enjoyed everyone and everything. We make a good team. It was hard to see how difficult it is for the twins to handle even the slightest change in schedule, though. Their “window of tolerance” was very small on vacation, and almost non existent in the city. We are learning as we go and they know how to show us their limits. 

We ate pizza at Johns on Bleeker, Vezzio, and Patsy’s right by Levain Bakery. We also ordered a rigatoni bolognese from Patsy’s and it was out of this world good. When it came to restaurants, we found ways to split up and have one parent play games on the steps outside with the little ones until our food arrived while the other sat inside with the older kids.  

We can check NYC off the bucket list. I loved our experience, crazy as it was, and our children had a lot of memorable experiences of an awesome city. 

And we also heaved a sigh of relief as we country mice drove upstate, leaving the sound of that awesome big city behind us. 

Swing and a Miss

Most people know that we were able to save very few material things from our life before the fire except a handful of salvaged items and most of the garage/porch fixtures.  The things that we still have are more cherished than before, for sure.   

So, of course someone stole our sliding glass door, and then used bolt cutters to take the one thing left that was literally chained to our home. 

That porch swing held a lot of memories. Late night chats solving the worlds problems with so many friends. Watching the seasons go by and nursing/rocking 3 babies while the big kids played. I sat out there with sue moon for hours one day. It’s a homework spot, a reading nook, a place to cool off angry feelings.  We loved this front row seat to watch the colors change to fall and tulips bloom in the spring.  I cried with Kristie Carpenter on that swing when she told me she was moving away from Primrose Lane. I cried with Elizabeth Jones on that swing when we found out we could not be Wren’s forever family. Heck I’ve probably cried with everyone who has ever come over to my home, like ever, on that swing. Maybe I just cry too much.  I’ve shucked corn with neighbor friends there. All the neighborhood children have taken refuge on that swing waiting out thunderstorms so they could go back out to the island and continue their games.  Hundreds of popsicles have been consumed here and it’s been “base” for as many games as hide and go seek and tag. 

I sincerely hope that whoever has it now has kids that will love it as much as we did. They probably really need a happy place in their lives.  

I will buy another swing, and like everything else I have replaced in the past 8.5 months, press on with my list of collected truths.

1-It’s just stuff.  It’s just stuff.  We’ll get more stuff. 

2-Memories don’t burn

3-They cannot be stolen, either. 

Big Willies Go East: New Jersey is the worst and NYC is the best!

Our hotel in New Jersey was totally gross and the doors were broken. The staff proved to be an even bigger disappointment and were not of any help. We spent 2 hours on the phone with ihg customer service, who ultimately deferred us back to the hotel manager, who laughed in our faces. We were stuck paying for the rooms for the night, so we decided to stay, but checked out the following morning. Our original plan was NOT to take the van into Manhattan, and just commute to the city via the Staten Island Ferry.  Big surprise, our hotel no longer offers a shuttle to the ferry. If I could describe every encounter with locals in New Jersey with one word, it would be rude. Rude, rude, more rude, and rude again. In the face of total kindness, rude.  Rude comments about my family size, my children are ultimately what pushed us to find another hotel. 

Instead of finding a place in Jersey, we decided to just drive over to the ferry and went into the city for dinner. 

Our hotel staff sent us on a 45 minute wild goose chase  with $30 of tolls that didn’t get us to the ferry. 

We decided to just trust good ole google maps and take that suggested route and after another hour we were finally parked in a super sketchy neighborhood and boarding the Staten Island ferry. The good part of our adventure began from there! 

Liberty Enlightening the World. 

The children proudly recited The New Collosus by Emma Lazarus as we cruised by.  Lady Liberty really is a breathtaking sight. I tried to imagine the relief those tempest tossed immigrants must have felt when they arrived in the New York Harbor and saw ‘worldwide welcome growing from her beacon hand’ for the very first time.



What a view. Reese took this pic and it’s my favorite shot from our trip. 



Once we were IN the city, the twins struggled. They did not like the noise, the crowds, or the unfamiliarity. They were ok as long as they were in their stroller or being carried and one of us was giving them constant undivided attention.  Reese was certain she would get kidnapped in the city and pretty glued herself to Sloane’s stroller because “then if someone tries to grab me, they can’t steal me, because they’d have to carry the stroller, too” and I opted not to argue with her logic. Also, I legit think she believe she’s a better parent than us and wanted to keep Sloane safe when she saw how consuming the twins were of Aaron and my energy and attention. 

Anxieties aside, the kids loved the subway experience and heard several “performances” on our way to dinner  (Reese’s face! 😂😂 she said, “peopling is too hard, and it’s WAY to peoply here!) at John’s on Bleeker. 

It was great to get a little taste of the city the night before so the kids could prepare for a couple big days playing there. Everyone agreed that while most of us loved the buzz of the city experience, we are 100% country mice. The pizza was a total dream, of course. I haven’t had a bad pizza in NYC yet.   

The evening also gave the children plenty of sights that sparked discussions about lifestyle, health choices, privilege, inclusion, safety, and compassion.  If I were a homeschooler, our time in NYC really would have been the sociology project of a lifetime. What was funny, was that for every stare my children gave, WE received 10 stares back! Taking 7 children out for pizza (or anywhere we went, actually) is a sight to behold. People in the city were super kind though, and  generally enchanted by our crowd...kind of like they’d just seen a butterfly, or a rainbow. 😂😂

Big Willies Go East: Pennsylvania Country Log Farm Bed and Breakfast

Pennsylvania continued to woo my heart with our bed and breakfast. 

Oh this farm was so gorgeous. Breathtaking views in every direction and every inch was meticulously manicured. 
The inkeepers served us a hearty feast for breakfast, family style, at their large dining table. We had baked oatmeal, two types of quiches (from their farm fresh eggs, of course!) baked French toast, fruit, and chocolate chip pancakes. All of it was just incredible. After breakfast, farmer Jim arrived and bell rang to call the children to do farm chores. They fed the goats and sheep, gathered eggs, and let animals out to pasture. Then farmer him loaded us up and took us for a hayride that toured their working dairy farm. The kids got to see up close (and a little too personal) farm hands with long-up-to-the-shoulders rubber gloves checking the cows for pregnancy. 

I learned that cows are milked 3-4 times a day and each gives up to 10 gallons of milk! That’s a lot of leche! I also was fascinated to learn about their sustainability. The cow stalls are shoveled into drains on the sides of the barn. This feeds the manure into a pipe that takes it underground to a mile or so up the road to a distillery where the methane gas from the cow manure is converted into enough energy to run the farm, and 200 local homes!  Who thought of this? Who had the brain to say, “hey, we’ve got an excess of cow poop piling up here. Let’s turn it into electricity and not only service our own farm, but make a profit!” And how is it even possible to convert manure gas into energy?! Brilliant I tell ya. 

Back on the farm, Reese and Soren fell in love with the kittens and goats. The 4 younger kids rode bikes and tractor cars in the covered barn and played on the swing set. It was such a dream. At one point, a baby goat jumped toward me to get to my food bucket, but overshot and cleared the fence! I caught him quickly and heaved that naughty little nanny back over into safety. 

Date night with the Willies

Aaron and I let the girls babysit and slipped out for a late date the other night. We hit up Table Mesa for our favorite dessert, key lime tres leches. They took our favorite dish, the pork flautas, off the menu a couple years ago, but we always ask the chef if he will make them for us, and occasionally, he says yes! We lucked out and split an order. Always so yummy.  Now that our girls are old enough to babysit, we find that we don’t go on dates as often as we used to, because we sometimes feel bad making them stay home on a weekend night to work. This reasoning is ridiculous, I know, but the twins have so many daytime appointments that the girls have been helping with babysitting the other children a lot, this summer. So we save the babysitting nights for when we have tickets to a concert or a play or a wedding or something concrete with a reservation or ticket, not just an ordinary night out to just be alone and have an uninterrupted conversation. But this particular date felt like old times, as we hit up the go to date spot we’ve been going to for like 10 years. It was like old times, and for a minute, we forgot how complicated and stressed and grief stricken and busy our lives have become. 

After dinner, we checked out the crowds gathered on the square with telescopes. To commemorate the 50 year moon landing, people were sharing their telescopes with the community to have a look at the planets. That bright star in the sky is Jupiter. And upon closer look through a massive telescope, we could see the big red spot and swirling storm in amazing detail! And 3 little moons in orbit! Then we saw Saturn through another telescope. It’s rings looked like an Atari graphic. Jupiter is visible in the summertime to the naked eye. But it blew our minds that someone discovered Saturn orbiting out there, with a telescope in the right place at the right time.  The universe is so big and we are so small. And all creations are truly magnificent. I pondered the hymn How Great Thou Art on the way home and considered how incredible is is that our “big” dilemmas are perhaps not so big. But as small as we are, we all matter so much to God.  We are small, and we are important. And everything will work out.

And Aaron is a great date. :)