Mother and Son Make The World Their Classroom for a School Year: December 1, 2014 (New Hampshire, Massachusetts, USA)

Since we came home from our trip we had a week at home and a few days into our return Sam's left knee swelled up. We immediately took him to a doctor and she suggested we test for Lyme along with other blood work- simply because we do spend summers in NH in the woods. Well, sure enough, Sam has Lyme disease! Here we travel all around the world and he gets a disease from a tic in our own backyard before we even left for Africa. Thankfully we identified it right away and started the 28 days of antibiotics. As of Saturday, Sam's knee had gone down significantly so the medicine is working and he has no other symptoms thankfully.

After a week in Utah regrouping and also hosting a showing of a video I put together of our trip and getting caught up on things we headed to NH for Thanksgiving. We had an awesome time. It was our first Thanksgiving at our home on the lake and it felt more like Christmas. We had almost 18 inches of snow which blanketed everything and weighed down the trees that they were literally touching the driveway. It was so fun to explore to walk the roads and go out in the boat and see everyone’s homes blanketed with snow. Thankfully Nate and Syd got to the lake on Thanksgiving Eve after a four hour drive up from Boston.Thanksgiving day felt like 4 days in 1. We went on a walk, a boat ride, had our Thanksgiving program and turkey feast for the 21 of us at the Red House. After Thanksgiving dinner we all went for a nice walk and then played games, went to my parents for dessert and there also had an indoor snowball fight with these indoor snowballs my mom bought - which was hilarious, and then we all stayed up late at our house and watched movies. We all went to bed around 1:30 a.m. After a full day of exploring, cooking, eating and walking, Friday morning we all slept in. Fun to have every member of our family at the lake except for Megan who is serving the last month of her 18 month mission in Birmingham, England. It was a memorable Thanksgiving. Like all Thanksgiving programs mom organized we were reminded of importance and significance of giving thanks for our forefathers and mothers and the sacrifices which were made for our freedoms we enjoy in this country of ours. We sang songs and read stories of Thanksgiving. Grateful for the pause to remember and had some laughs with our ridiculous headdresses we all wore- either a Pilgrim or an Indian :)

Friday Nate and I stopped and visited Kip Pitou on the way to Boston, Nate’s old boss who lives about 1 hour from our home at the lake. It was so fun to catch up with Kip. It had been a couple of years. He was in great spirits and had many great laughs. He asked all kinds of questions and we got to fill him in on the ski business that he was in for 50 years and tell him about what we were up to. Great to reconnect. We ended up at my sister’s home outside Wellesley, MA with all the cousins for a big sleepover.

Saturday we were up early and we loaded a big bus and went to Plymouth, MA, the home of the Mayflower and the Plimouth Plantation- the restored village and homes of the original Mayflower Pilgrims of 1620 and a recreated Wampanoag Indian Village. Everyone there were in their character as a specific pilgrim. It was interesting to ask questions, to walk into their homes and feel like you had walked back in time. We learned more about their voyage, that 102 came over on the Mayflower, but only half survived the first winter. They celebrated the first Thanksgiving with the 52 that survived and the Indians that had helped teach them valuable planting tactics. We learned that they lived on the boat the first winter and then started building their homes and village after that first winter. They buried their dead on “Burial Hill” which looked over the town into Cape Cod Bay. There we visited William Bradford’s grave- he was the second governor of Plymouth and these northern Colonists. We are related to William Bradford and it was exciting to hear more about his story.

My sister Julie told us a couple stories of a couple other passengers on the boat. There were a couple 12 year olds that had been counted on the boat, a boy and a girl. The boy had fallen overboard at one boat and was holding onto a rope from the side of the boat during a storm. Someone found him and pulled him back on board. He later married the 12 year old girl on the boat. They were the ancestors of FDR and Joseph Smith, our prophet. It makes me think how important the survival of these pilgrims were to the history of our country and our faith.

Plimouth Plantation is actually 3 miles away from the original Plymouth. There were several spellings of Plymouth but William Bradford had chosen to spell it with an “i” and that is how the Plantation can also by name be differentiated from the original town. IN the town they have built a monument structure over the actual “Plymouth Rock” which is much more of a symbolic rock than really had any significance at the time. Right next to it is where they have built a recreation of the Mayflower in the 1950s, Mayflower II. The ship is still seaworthy and after it was built it was sailed from Plymouth, MA to Plymouth, England. It is amazing that 102 people were on that boat. I don’t know if I would have made it!! But all 102 passengers did make the 66 day sail across the Atlantic. They died once they had arrived from different diseases as well as the Indians there died from the exposure to new diseases and lack of immunity to what the British had brought. When they arrived in Plymouth they signed the Plymouth Compact that was basically an agreed set of rules and governing laws that they were willing to live by so that they could live together in some order. They had originally meant to arrive in Jamestown, VA, but they had been blown north by storms. They agreed to settle there, outside their assigned jurisdiction actually but with their Compact they established order and then began their settlement several months after their arrival and the passing of the winter.

There are many monuments that are erected recognizing the founding women and men and the local Indians. One is recognizing that 78% of the women that were on board that died that first year. There is also a powerful monument that sits on top of a hill that commemorates the ideals and values that our country was established on. There is an image of a woman- Faith then surrounded by 3 other monuments that sit at the feet of Faith: Morality, Law and Education. The monument has the names of the 102 passengers too that made the crossing on the Mayflower. When the boat returned to Plymouth, England after the hard first winter, not one of the Pilgrims chose to return to England, even after the many trials of the first few months too. They were committed to their reasons they had taken this crossing faith, freedom and opportunity.

On Saturday night we had a nice 50th Birthday celebration for my sister Julie. Sandy had written a song that we all performed for Julie with all kinds of remembrances of her. Mom had hired a magician which was a great addition to the party. Sunday we enjoyed all going to church together as a family. It reminded me that I am grateful for the destiny of this country to be a place where people can practice their own faiths, that it is a land of opportunity where our family business was able to grow and prosper, where family gathers together in faith. In the afternoon many left to go back to Utah and Sam and I stayed on to continue our trip down the East Coast on Monday morning.

Today we arrived on the train from Boston and went to the hotel and dropped off our bags and then headed out to see the city. The city is almost all decorated for Christmas with final touches happening this week with the lighting of the Christmas Tree at Rockefeller Center. We explored around and looked at store fronts and then made our way to the MOMA. I haven’t taken Sam there and since he likes Modern art, I thought it would be interesting. It was great to walk around the Museum and remember by 12th grade Art History class and show Sam the famous Surrealists and Impressionists and Minimalists and Contemporary Artists and explain and recognizes the differences and similarities with art he knows. My favorite part of the Museum is the area that recognizes modern inventions and design that shows original record players to modern furniture to space invaders displays. Sam was interested in the museum and was exciting to show him some of this art for the first time. They had a special exhibit of Henri Matisse’s cutouts too. It was exciting for Sam to see those for the first time and for me, since I have never seen such a huge exhibit of them and to see these huge ones he did later in his life. We made it back to the hotel and went to dinner at the top of the Marquis at the View and had Emma Stephens for dinner. It was so fun to visit with her. Following dinner we went to what I think is the most entertaining show I have ever seen- The Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall with the Rocketres. They are a NYC tradition and institution with the perfect precision they execute and energy and great costumes each time they perform. Sam and I both loved it! Tomorrow we will see the 911 Museum and Memorial and catch up with my high school friend Marjorie Levy along with a few other great NYC spots.

Sam having some fun in the snow on the Razr :)

Turkey Bowl with the Harrisons

Inside the homes at the Plimouth Plantation

The Berthas with Alder, I think his name was, who is one of their ancestors on the Bertha side that came over on the Mayflower

Looking from Burial Hill down to Cape Cod Bay where the first settlers of New England built and established Plymouth

First stone church built in Plymouth, first in New England

Looking down at my father walking up through the recreated town of Plimouth (spelled the way William Bradford spelled Plymouth in his early 1600s journals)

Inside the home of William Bradford in the Pilgrim Village at Plimouth Plantation

Our distant relative the 2nd Governor of Plymouth, William Bradford

The Mayflower

Bench recognizing the founding parents of our country and their values

Wampanoag Village: tribal home from the time the Pilgrims settled in Plymouth

Historic remaking of the town of Plymouth where the first New England settlers, the Pilgrims, landed.

Stone marking William Bradford's grave on Burial Hill, Plymouth, MA

A Monument to the brave women that came to the America's that died- 78% of the women on the first boat died once they arrived due to illness within the first year

Plymouth Rock

Massasoit, the Indian that helped the new settlers and who could speak English and became a friend to the Pilgrims and with whom it is believed they had the first Thanksgiving with and others from his tribe