Happy 61st Dad!

Dear Dad,

It's hard to believe you have been alive for so long. Thinking about being 61 seems just to hard to imagine. But I do hope, when that day comes, I can look back, reflect, and have as much to be proud of as you do.

For starters, you are and always have been a great father. I have recently been able to see the immense love you have for your children. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that you would do ANYTHING for  us.  We feel your love everyday, even when we don't show it.

And an amazing Grandpa. Luke loves you. I don't know what you did to win him over, but he prefers you out of all of us. It has been so fun watching you two together, like two peas in a pod.

Even though I hated getting up at 5am for daily scripture study, I am now grateful for the example and tone you set for our family. It was never a question what was most important in your life, us, and the gospel. I have made many of the choices in my life because of what you taught me.

I admire your talent, you are truly an amazing artist. In many ways. I don't know anyone else
that has a dad that can play the guitar, bass guitar, mandolin,
accordion, & harmonica. You also have an amazing voice. You are a
great artist and designer, I mean the cart in the A? It's ingenious! You
dress better than almost anyone I know, wonder where I got that from?
And you have such great taste in furniture, architecture, and art. I am
finally proud of the house I grew up in, sorry I didn't appreciate
it sooner Dad.
And I don't know if this counts as art, but I have always bragged that my dad is a magician. I can't wait for Luke to watch Randall the Great perform his amazing tricks.

Best of all, I love the things that make you you. Absolutes? never (he has no favorite food, color, artist, musician, etc.), you cannot tell even a white lie (even when it is someone on the phone we DON"T want to talk to), you laugh harder at our stories, jokes, & smart remarks, than anyone else, you eat only a small bowl of cereal in the morning that lasts you until mid afternoon, there is no way any of us could ever beat you at anything, you sneeze really loud,& you have very loud voice fluctuations (the last two, I have also developed through the years), you can be very laid back (when you want to be), you are cheap, you have great taste in music (can you sing and play ALL of the Shins songs?). You can carry on a conversation better than anyone, and you are a great listener.   

Thank you for being alive and being my dad all of these years! Here's to many more.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Love,
Alysha
ps. sorry I didn't get you a present, don't words mean more anyway?

Road trip recap

Monday afternoon, after some difficulties getting started in the a.m. we set off for our Smith family '07 road trip. We traveled in a rented minivan, it actually worked out to be quite comfortable. Tara sat in the back with Luke most of the trip, Whitney and I sat in the middle seats, and the parents in the front. Why people hate minivans, I will never know.

All in all the trip was great. 50% of it on the road, 20% of it sleeping, and the other 30, actually seeing the sights. Luckily the east coast provides a beautiful backdrop for a very long drive, lots of trees, lakes, and hills.

This is a very condensed version of what we did. It would take me days to write up posts for every stop, so you will see very brief highlights from them.

PALMYRA, NY

We pulled in around 8pm. Since it was late we didn't do much except for drive around trying to find something to eat, which was a very disappointing experience. But we did get up not so early the next day and explored the historic sights.

Highlights included: Joseph Smith's home, the Sacred Grove (it was as beautiful as I imagined it), Hill Cumora, visiting the old General Store and seeing how they bound the first Book of Mormon, a decent hotel with a pretty good continental breakfast, a not great "recommended" diner, Luke's obsession with the fish tank, Tara's  migraine (her preventative pills were stolen from her bag while in flight), lots of rain and mud.

NIAGARA FALLS, NY, CANADA

We spent a nice afternoon and evening here. We actually stayed in Buffalo, right outside the falls. I was in suburbia heaven, I somehow talked the family into Mexican food (not enough of that in Utah), JoAnn's, Old Navy, and a movie. The next day we headed to the falls.

Highlights included: trying to figure out the exact location they filmed Superman, getting soaked, the obvious beauty of the falls, being entertained by the Canada side of the falls (very touristy), watching a tight rope walker, taking lots of pictures, paying over $65 dollars in gas, and eating Canadian candy bars.

TORONTO, CANADA

After Niagara, we cruised into Toronto. It was odd knowing we were driving through another country, yet the only notable difference was the signs were also in French. We hung out in Toronto that night, went to dinner, and then spent the next day of course, shopping.

Highlights included: Yummy gelato, Luke loving the lights all over the trees, a hotel with fish ponds and ducks (Luke's favorite part of the entire trip), the best chicken nuggets I have ever had (at McDonald's), the highest building in the world, driving past the carnival secretly wishing we could stop, Whitney doing a makeover on me, & shopping.

ADIRONDACKS, NY

We didn't leave Toronto until after 3pm, and the drive to the campsite was another six. The kids weren't so excited about setting up camp in the dark, but tried to stay positive just for our dad's sake. He finally gave in when it started pouring. So we ended up staying the night in Albany.

Highlights included: Sleeping in a warm dry bed, showering, and a continental breakfast.

BOSTON, MA

Despite Albany not being a destination hot spot for our trip, we didn't manage to actually leave until the early afternoon, putting us in Boston around 3pm. Tom and Justin had already arrived, went to Harvard Square, and ate at Bartley's Burgers. We drove straight to Boston Commons and ate in a food court. We actually only hung out in Boston the rest of that evening, but it was enough to convince everyone that they needed to move there, including my parents.

Highlights included: Boston Commons, H& M (I was able to replace the hair clips I lost from my last trip to Boston), Salt Water Taffy, hanging out with Justin (he left NY last April), Beacon Hill, Luke showing off all of his sign language, actually doing some of the freedom trail, trying to figure out where they filmed the Departed, 7-Eleven's you can walk to,getting lost trying to find the hotel because we were too busy staring at the bridge we were driving over, packing up the car to leave and Whitney locking the keys in the minivan forcing us to wait an extra 3 1/2 hours in the hotel lobby until someone came to unlock it, thanks again Whit!

CAPE COD, MA

Because of our late departure out of Boston, we didn't get into Cape Cod until 5pm. And then most of the evening was spent driving around trying to find a beach. Cape Cod is hard to navigate around, you can't see through the trees.

Highlights included: The adorable cottage homes, restaurants, and churches, all in the same shade of grey. Ice cream, the beach, going out to eat to our first seafood joint, Justin and his lobster, losing our ball in the ocean (it went too far, too quickly), Whitney and Justin throwing my dad into the ocean, rock throwing contests,trying to figure out the location they filmed Splash, driving and driving to find a hotel with vacancy, and finally finding one with a swimming pool.

Overall highlights: Eating more junk food in one week than I have in the past year, spending time with my family, and watching Luke have the time of his life pretending to drive the car.

** Note: I really wished I could have documented this along the way. This  post took WAY too long.

My friend Ebay

I go in kicks. I actually stayed away from Ebay for almost 5 months, but when I needed to find a solution for my dress I became addicted, again. I watched and bid on several things from vintage fabric, mid-century furniture, to designer tops, but I only (good thing) won a few. These are the ones I lucked out on.

*Note, these photos are actually from the ebay auctions, I didn't have the energy to retake the pictures with me modeling them.

This is the slip I bought for my dress. I wanted to do something different than just a plain slip, this vintage accordion slip will hopefully look more intentional. This idea was a winning combination from Staci and Katie H.

The picture obviously doesn't do it justice. I will post the dress/slip combo once I am finished with it.

I have been loving high waisted wrap skirts lately. I just finished sewing one and am now moving on to my second. I found this one on ebay and fell in love with it, luckily I seemed to be the only one, it was pretty cheap.

These shoes I have been looking for on Ebay for over a year now. Since these shoes usually just appeal to little old ladies, I have only been able to find them in extra narrow, which my feet are not. I finally scored with a medium width and for a really great price!
Again, these are not my feet.

And lastly, I just can't help myself when I find a really cute vintage dress. 

Road trip

My family (almost all 5 of them) flew in Saturday night for an East Coast Road Trip. We take off this morning, starting in  Palmyra, then up to Niagara Falls, then over to Toronto, then down through the Adirondacks (don't know how camping is going to work out), then Boston (Tom and my brother will meet us there), then to Martha's Vineyard.

Sounds fun right? All 6 of us shoved into a rented mini van, eating junk food, listening to music? Let's hope so. We are shoving all of that into one week.

I was hoping my dad would bring his laptop so I could document while we traveled. Sadly though I will have to use my memory and my camera and report back when we get to Brooklyn.

It's been great

A couple days ago we celebrated our 5th anniversary of living in New York. It was actually on a whim that we moved here. Tom needed to finish up art school, I wanted to live somewhere new, it seemed like a fun place,at least from what I had seen on television. So we did it, sold our lease, our cars, packed up, and moved across the country.

Why have we stayed so long?

Here are our top 5 reasons.

1. OUR FRIENDS
One of the many wonderful things about being a member of the LDS church is the immediate family you have when you move somewhere you don't know anyone. Our ward is no exception. Filled with designers, artists, and many talented people, I am inspired by them, all of the time. But more than that, they are some of the best friends I could ever ask for. We seem to find any excuse we can to get together. Birthdays, BBQ's, camping, New York outings, the beach, road trips, everything is better our friends.
Leaving them will be the hardest part of moving someday.

2. BROOKLYN
When we first moved to New York, we didn't have a place to live. Before we came, I spent weeks looking online for housing options. Having never been here, I thought the areas closest to Times Square seemed the most ideal, I obviously had no frame of reference. Upon moving here, we house sat for a few weeks in Greenwich village while we explored the different areas of the city deciding on where to settle, quickly realizing we wanted to stay as far away from Midtown as possible. We looked all over the different areas of the city, and nothing felt right. Someone had recommended looking in the neighborhood of Park Slope Brooklyn. We hadn't considered Brooklyn, it seemed just to far from the store I would be managing all the way on the upper east side, but we decided to check it out.

We came out of the subway one afternoon, and stepped into the most peaceful, beautiful neighborhood we had seen yet. We knew immediately that this was it. This is where we were going to live. We found an apartment, and moved in. Brooklyn has been nothing short of wonderful.

Where do I start? Beautiful tree lined streets, great restaurants (just as good as the city's), the Botanic Gardens, Brooklyn Museum, Prospect Park, free community pools, lots of families, playgrounds on every corner, the deli right downstairs,Fairway ,  our ward, rooftop decks, walking through neighborhoods, Coney Island, the beach, I really could go on and on.   

3. DIVERSITY
I love the diversity of the people of New York. Because with that comes diversity in almost everything.

I love of course the diversity of fashion. New York is really the hub of it. I am inspired all the time just from the people walking down the street.

The diversity of restaurants is also enjoyable. Where else can you find a English Tea House, Bearded Papa's (they only serve amazing cream puffs), Rice to Riches (  20 flavors of rice pudding), Tom's diner (very eclectic and kitschy), Grimaldi's (the best thin crusted pizza ever), the Shake Shack (custard and gourmet burgers right in the middle of a park), Norma's (chocolate decadence french toast anyone?), lots of Vietnamese restaurants, bagels, Grays Papaya (yummy hotdogs, and pina coladas).  Cafe Habana (Cuban delicacies), oh how my mouth is watering just thinking of all these.

The people. Whether they are the crazies on the subway, the people hanging out on my street, the hipsters in their skin tight jeans, or the talented  musicians, artists, & writers I meet, I have enjoyed all of them in one way or another. Everyone has a story, everyone has something to learn from each other.

4. IT'S FUN
That's what they say about New York, there is always something to do, and they are right.

We grew tired quickly of the New York tourist hot spots, there is only so many times you want to venture to Times Square or to the Statue of Liberty.  But what makes New York fun to us, is the stuff that took us a while to figure out.

Lets see, concerts in the park, movies in the park, walking down new streets, going to a new restaurant or trying a new type of food, listening to street musicians, camping, going to the beach, driving through Greenpoint on a Friday night, shopping in small boutiques, walking down the promenade, hanging out under the Brooklyn Bridge, sipping spicy hot chocolate at Jacques Torres, the zoo, the aquarium, furniture shopping, I might have to get back to this. 

5.  WE BUILT OUR FAMILY HERE
We got married, and then three months later moved out here. It's rare that couples get to spend as much time together as we did our first year of marriage. By default really, our families weren't around to take us away from each other. But I wouldn't trade that year for the world. We really got to know each other, the good and the bad, but we are closer because of it, and I think we can both say, we are best friends.

All of our memories are here. Our apartment saga, our car saga (it was stolen), my pregnancy, Luke's birth, his first 18 months, our friends, our church, Tom's school, our first real jobs, our favorite restaurants, shops, activities, our first home, everything we have built for ourselves and each other has been here.

How will we ever leave?