New Jersey: Please Touch Museum

 Monday was the last day for me to visit Drama Queen, Teach, and the rest of the family in New Jersey. Twizlet and Twizzler were supposed to go to school on Monday, but since it was the last day for me to visit, Teach agreed with me that we would go to that fun museum that she tells me that Twizzler loves. It's an interactive museum called Please Touch. There were so many fun exhibits that a lot of children could play with there. It kind of reminded me of one fun museum that was sort of like that when I was in kindergarten. 

There were many modern day exhibits to interact in, like riding in cars, blasting off little rockets, grocery shopping, doing housework, experiencing banks, making art, going through a hedge maze, and playing with water. But the most amazing exhibit that I ever saw was one that I believe could be a good attraction for a Disney park. It's from the Disney and Pixar movie, Inside Out. They show the most iconic emotional characters and it's amazing environment of what it's thought to be what it's like in the mind of emotion. For example, they had five different mirrors, each one containing the emotions. And it was also fun to play with the different colored building blocks with Twizzler. It was quite funny, because every time I try to stack some blocks Twizzler always had the tendency to knock them down. 

In another part of the museum, we spent a lot of time inside the grocery shopping exhibit, Twizlet and Twizzler really liked going through that part and Teach was showing Twizzie around. Twizzie didn't always like it when one of us is holding her while sitting down. She preferred to be walked around, so we did as best we could to keep her happy and active. And Teach was still trying to teach and interact with Twizzler on the exhibits. After the grocery exhibit, we walked towards an art studio where it was open for a limited time before it had classes. So, Drama Queen, Twizlet and Twizzie went in to do some art projects of their own while Teach and I tried to keep Twizzler interactive around the areas, like playing with a busy board and stacking giant foam blocks.

After a little while of waiting for Drama Queen and the other kids to come out with their art projects, we moved onto an exhibit that's best known as a story written by Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland. It had little mirrors built in different structures of illusion and even tiny rooms. They even had a little croquet game set up in the hedge maze. After that, we went upstairs and found the water table. It was Twizzler's favorite exhibit, since he loves playing with water. It was kind of hard for him to reach over to touch the water toys on the water tables, so I helped him out with reaching.

After we had a little snack at the eatery, Twizlet wanted to explore a little more, so right between the Alice in Wonderland and water table exhibits, there was a fun looking treehouse where it teaches kids about natural surroundings, I even took this picture of Twizlet riding on a turtle. And speaking of riding, there was one more attraction that was the most memorable part of the museum, a carousal. Twizlet and Twizzler always liked to go on to ride on the ponies. I helped Teach with Twizlet and Twizzler to ride on the carousal. It was fun to ride on it with them. After that, while I was taking a break and Twizlet was still riding, Drama Queen had me and Twizzler take a picture of us in a photo booth. Twizlet joined in after riding the carousal too. It was a great souvenir to take home with us.

After a little while, when it was dinner time, I decided to take them out to dinner and pay for the meal. I wasn't quite sure what would be the most fun restaurant to try. Teach and Twiz gave me some options of fun diners like the Lamppost Diner. I decided to choose that and it was closer to their home. We ate there and had some delicious food. I ordered a pepperoni pizza steak sandwich. It was really tasty, I wish Dad would've tried it that way whenever he made French Dip sandwiches. Maybe someday he'll do that. After eating out, we went back home to spend the last bit of time that I had with them before leaving for the airport the very next morning. At four thirty in the morning in that time zone, Teach drove me off to the Philadelphia airport where she picked me up. And I got myself boarded on the plane back to Utah. It was really fun visiting New Jersey. I miss them already, just like they miss me already too. I can hardly wait to see them again when they come to Utah for a family reunion this summer.

New Jersey: Twizzie's Baby Blessing

 On Sunday, I went to the stake center where Teach, Drama Queen Twiz, and the kids go for church. It was a fifteen minute drive for them and I think I understand that it was the closest church they go to, just like I mentioned that the Philadelphia temple was the closest temple for them. It was a special day for little Twizzie, because Twiz has asked me to join the circle along with other family members to bless Twizzie. Before I came to New Jersey, they were worried that Twiz's side of the family wouldn't come to Church to support Twizzie's blessing. So it was the best opportunity to go to their church while visiting them and help Twiz with the blessing. Surprisingly, Twiz's side of the family did come for the blessing, especially his parents and relatives. Twizzie was dressed in her mother's baby gown when she had her baby blessing a long time ago, but I'm pretty sure Mom has mentioned that previously. It sure is a wonderful legacy to pass on through family generations. I wonder if it would become a family heirloom to Teach?

Right after Sacrament, we drove another fifteen minutes down to Twiz's parents' house for a luncheon. We had hoagie sandwiches, chips, and desserts. We also visited the relatives at the luncheon for a couple of hours while also trying to keep Twizzie entertained throughout. Not only was it a blessing for me to come to support Twizzie, but it was also a blessing for the family to have Twiz's side come to support. We are all having faith and hope that Twizzie will remember this special event throughout her life and that she will receive many blessings in the future. 

 

New Jersey: Ben Franklin Institute

 On Saturday, Drama Queen the family and I went down to Philadelphia to visit one of the most interesting museums. Philadelphia is pretty much their downtown place to visit museums, monuments, and even the Eagles sports games. Before I came on the trip, we were going to go to Sesame Place, where it's Twizzler's favorite park, but it was raining that day, so we went to the Ben Franklin Institute Museum instead. It was an interesting museum in Philadelphia, especially where we can learn a bit about Benjamin Franklin in history.

This entrance is where we stood by the statue of Benjamin Franklin. It's almost like seeing the statue of Abraham Lincoln, only not. The museum had quite a lot of fun and different exhibits to see. There were Earth, Electricity, The Heartbeat, Space, The Brain, The Train, The Airplane, and the Machine. A lot of the exhibits had some fun interactive ways to learn about the things in life and in history. One of the biggest and most interesting attractions was going through the inside of a heartbeat. It was like going through a children's playground, only by hearing loud beats. Drama Queen thought it was really narrow inside and I believed her, because in some parts, I had to walk sideways to get past. 

In the Earth exhibit, we were learning about how the environment should be replenished and why it's important to keep it that way, even if it struggles economically. One interactive way in the Earth exhibit was trying to stack a metal X's and magnetic poles to see if they could survive a small earthquake. In the Electricity exhibit, we found the attraction on Benjamin Franklin's scientific experiment with a kite and key. We touched the key and it gave each of us a little zap. It was really shocking. In the Train exhibit, Twizzler and Twizlet were very excited to see what it's like inside the old fashioned locomotive. It was really huge from where we were standing at the bottom. And after that, Twizzler wanted to play in the little kids area with the little toy train sets.

 

In the Brain exhibit, it had a lot of mind-blowing exhibits! They had a little dark play area for kids to climb up to see what it's like inside the brain. Twizlet kept playing on it for almost half an hour, it's like she wanted to stay inside her brain for a long time. In the Airplane exhibit, they had a lot of interactive booths, like zooming a paper airplane and even pumping up air to see how fast they can get a plane to take off. In the Machine exhibit, they had some interesting games and puzzles of how to use the five main tools of machinery. One of them was learning how to use gears, pulleys, and levers. I was even surprised to see how the Apple technology has been updated since the beginning of the first Apple Macintosh computer.

In the Space exhibit, they had interesting ways of how to understand the Solar System and how scientists used telescopes to look in space. Twizzler really liked interacting with the touch screen computer games at the museum, especially when learning how to build a train, an airplane, and a rocket. After a lot of the excitement in those exhibits, we grabbed a bite to eat at the Eatery in the museum. I thought it was really fun to see the Ben Franklin Institute museum to relearn all the things that we have been taught in school and to see them at the museum. 

One first and last thing that we did before and after the museum was that Teach was trying to show me the Philadelphia temple that was closest to their home. We drove through the busy town and stopped at a red light right next to the temple and it gave me the best photo opportunity as you can see. It was really a beautiful as well as many other temples throughout the world. I can just imagine there being a temple in New Jersey closest to Teach's home. It would be a blessing for them someday. And speaking of blessings, I want to explain about a special event that happened in New Jersey with the family while I was there with them. That will happen in the next post.

New Jersey: Relaxing and Playing

 There have been one of those days while visiting with Drama Queen, Teach, Twiz, and the kids, that it was all just a day to relax and spend time together at the house. Other than Twiz working, Drama Queen, Teach and Twizzie were really fun to hang out with. Teach took me to a gas station called Wawa where they have delicious pies called TastyCakes and they even have their own hoagie restaurant. Their hoagies were so good, they're almost like the sub sandwiches at Subway.

While visiting with them in the afternoon, we had a lot of good talks about how I can still improve my life a bit more, even if I was still grieved over my divorce, I could still find a few mental therapists who would be supportive with my medical insurance. But that's not the only thing that we ever do. 

A lot of times, whenever I'm walking around or sitting in the family room with them, they have their own TV marathon on a competition show called Survivor. It's quite a long show if you ask me. I only partially watched some of it, because a lot of times, I've always been playing with little Twizzie. She's quite a cute and smiley baby. Even after the first day I met her, she began copying and cooing at me. It was one of the most precious moments. I still wish I could become a dad someday, but I've already mentioned that before.

Anyway, one other thing happened on the relaxing day was that Teach made an interesting casserole that she never made before. She had some leftover pepperoni pieces and sausage bits. She added them to some pasta, cheese and tomato sauce. We weren't quite sure what it was called, but it was tasty. I think it should be a new family recipe and it can be called Pizza Casserole. What do you think?

And one last thing that we do every night before bedtime, Teach and the family would do a fun and interesting way of scripture study to teach Twizlet and Twizzler. One night, they watch LDS cartoons, they look at LDS pictures and read the stories about them, and even sing primary songs, only one at a time each night. I sure wish some of the family back in Utah would do something like that as a way of studying the scriptures, but I guess some of them have outgrown those teaching techniques.

And a couple of nights, we played fun card games, like Mantis and Skull King. Those were some of the card games that I never even knew how to play until they taught me a little bit. But card games weren't the only games we played together. Drama Queen showed me a fun video game on her Xbox called Disney Dreamlight Valley. When I first looked at it and saw Drama Queen play, it kind reminded me of Curly and Baby Doll playing Minecraft back home. It was quite a fun video game to play, Drama Queen recommended downloading it on my laptop, but it never worked, because my laptop is an old Mac. I tried to download on Mom's laptop, but it didn't work either. So, Drama Queen told me Scout would help with downloading the game on the Xbox back home in Utah. And maybe on my days off work and after I got my other priorities taken care of, Drama Queen and I could video chat while playing Disney Dreamlight Valley at the same time. It would be fun, I hope. And speaking of fun, they'll be another fun thing to talk about another time, like the Ben Franklin Institute Museum. Keep in touch.

New Jersey: Aqua Buddies

 The first day of staying in New Jersey with Teach and Drama Queen was mostly a recovery day from flying on the plane since I flew all night, but after being recovered the next day, Teach invited me to go to Aqua Buddies to go swimming with her, Twizlet and Twizler. Aqua Buddies is a place where children with special needs go for a swimming lesson with their parents. We had fun getting Twizzler to swim as well as splashing around with Twizlet and many other kids. I don't have much else to say, other than showing you these fun pictures of us at Aqua Buddies. I've heard of the movie Air Buddies and it's many other adventures. The other movies are Snow Buddies, Spooky Buddies, Santa Buddies, Treasure Buddies, Space Buddies, and Super Buddies. It's too bad that their isn't one called Aqua Buddies, but imagine if it was about Golden Retriever puppies going either for a swim or riding in a submarine. What do you think?

New Jersey First Flight

 I've never rode on a plane to go to a different state until last week. Ever since the time after my divorce, I had the thought that one of my new years resolutions was to save enough money to book a flight to New Jersey to visit my sisters, Drama Queen and Teach. I almost would've thought there was no way I could be able to do that because of other expenses, but since I moved out of living in an apartment and after the divorce, and with having a wage increase at my job and working full time, it would be the best opportunity to plan the trip to New Jersey. I started saving money and spending less in January and by the time it was February, Mom helped me with booking a round trip ticket for comfort plus.

I was anxiously waiting for the last couple of months to get ready for the first flight of my life. And finally on March 7, it was the day of when the plane would first fly to Philadelphia and Teach would pick up from the airport and drive me to her house in New Jersey. On that night, Mom and Dad dropped me off at the airport and helped me understand on how to board on the right plane. They helped me make sure my big luggage was boarded at the conveyor and labeled to Philadelphia and that I got a boarding pass and my I.D. with me. I went past the TSA security area and realized that my boarding pass got lost inside the conveyor. I asked a TSA employee to see if they could find it. They said they couldn't find it, but I could hurry to the gate where the plane would be taking off. I asked the attendant at the gate desk if they could print another boarding pass for me and they did.

It was quite a relief to understand now of how I was able to solve the situation and be ready in time to board the plane and go for takeoff. When I got boarded on the plane and sat in my designated seat, I was excited and nervous at the same time. Luckily, one of the passengers was seated next to me and helped me to understand the rules and expectations for being on a plane. The plane took off and I thought it was really unbelievable to see how high up were going. I had never seen such a few of patterned city lights from a bird's eye view. The flight was a long time and it was hard to sleep, so I watched a movie called Rumble on the little tv screens behind the seats with earbuds passed down.

And after watching that, I tried to go to sleep while on flight, but it was still hard when worried about turbulences, but I didn't feel any big bump while in flight, but just little ones. So after a couple of hours, the plane was landing, and it was a bit rough, when it came to the wheel breaks skidding on the runway. We were ahead of schedule and had to wait for half an hour for another plane to leave the airport.

When the plane finally parked into the Philadelphia airport, we got off and headed towards the signs for bag claims. I was waiting for Teach to come and pick me up and I wasn't quite sure where to find her. I thought she would pick me up in a place where I thought she might be, but it turned out that I was in the Uber area and a co-passenger helped me find the private vehicles pickup area. I found Teach with her van and she drove me all the way from Philadelphia to New Jersey, which was a 20 minute drive.

Her house was really nice, yet a little small, it kind of reminds me of the homes that my grandparents lived in in Ephraim, especially the stairs that were a little steep. They had a bed set up for me down in their basement. It was a king sized mattress that was more like a love sac bean bag. It was nice and comfortable at times in the night, and it made parts of my body sore, so in the next nights, they added a mattress pad underneath to make it little less firm. The other option they had was to blow up an air mattress, but I told them that I would be fine.

So, on the times I was recovered from the flight and up on the main floor, I would hang out with Drama Queen and Teach while waiting for the kids to come home from school. When I first met Teach's youngest daughter, Twizzie, she was a bit shocked and confused to even see me. But after a few hours and a couple of days, Twizzie was always smiling when seeing me. And of course Twizzler was excited to see me at times too. Twizlet was happy to see me too. There are a lot of adventures to share with you, I hope Mom doesn't mind of me sharing a few more posts about all the adventures I had in New Jersey. For now, I thought I could explain what it was like to ride on the plane. I have a lot more to say, I hope you're looking forward to hearing more.

Aquarium Trip With Skittles

This story was written in February of this year.

I have been asked to blog for my Mom since she's been feeling tired for a lot of things. Mostly she's trying to get ready for another out-of-state trip that I'm sure she'll tell you all about if you follow on her blog. And speaking of trip, I went on an aquarium trip with my nephew, Skittles. He has a membership to the Loveland Living Planet Aquarium so I come over as a guest. It was just me and him visiting the aquarium. He pretty much knew the entire aquarium, so I sort of let him show me some parts that he had seen before.

There were a lot of interesting things at the aquarium that I've never been to before. I was mostly trying to make sure Skittles stayed with me and not get lost. He was very interested in finding all kinds of fish and urchins from the pictures above to the tank and exhibits themselves. We even got a tour guide to help us know where to find the most exciting parts of the aquarium, especially where the animals were being socially active towards guests.

The aquarium had a play area for little kids to play in. So I let him play in it for a few minutes until it was time to move on to the next parts of the aquarium. The very next thing he wanted to do was pet a stingray. It was kind of a challenging moment at the time, since, the stingrays were so very low down that he couldn't be able to reach without falling in. One eventually swam up to the surface towards us and Skittles had the chance to touch a stingray. He thought it felt funny, he kind of giggled.

We saw many other interesting animals at the aquarium. We saw penguins, big fish, otters, frogs, and even sharks. They had a little bit of a bee exhibit, but there weren't actually bees there, just a box of slots and what bees sound like when gathering honey from the flowers. 

It was a really fun aquarium to visit with Skittles, despite of him trying to run off without me and not staying with me. It would seem like he would know this aquarium by heart after having a membership pass. Maybe he'll be an aquarium tour guide when he grows up or maybe an oceanographer. You never know what he would decide to be someday. It was fun, Skittles! I'm glad I got to go to the aquarium with you.