Anniversary celebration New york Trip

So Our 15th anniversary is coming up in a few weeks so Jon and I planned on doing a big trip to celebrate. These days making it 15 years seems like a big accomplishment and we wanted to do something big for it like a second honeymoon so we started to make plans to take a trip together to New York City. The kid's fall break was in October and that would give us a long weekend so we decided to do it then even though it was a month before our anniversary. So we went from Oct. 19th through Oct. 24th. the 20th through the 23rd were spent in New York City the other 2 days were spent traveling. Now about our trip....

First of all I would like to mention and thank those who made this trip possible. Thank you to Grandparents Glenis and Craig Gardiner, Linda and Ralph Rawlinson, and aunts Traci McDonald and ShaeLyn Loperena who were all willing to watch our 5 children for 5 days or help for a few days so we could go on this trip. Thank you Thank you to Glenis and Craig Gardiner who in the end had the girls and Benjamin for the whole 5 days and took such good care of them. We are sooo grateful to them for that.
Now the other honorable mention is Citi Credit card. We started putting all our food and gas and clothes on credit cards and just paying it off at the end of the month so our bank account wouldn't really be used except for bills, this was because new fees our credit union wanted to charge us. Then we heard of Citi credit cards doing a promo, that if you spend $1,500.00 in 6 months you earn 75,000 miles. Well we decided if we paid our bills on this as well as the other spending we could do this and not carry a balance and get the miles. We got 2 cards and were able to earn the miles. So we booked our flights for most of our miles 50,000 each. Our plane tickets costed us $10 each for taxes or something. Then we looked into hotels for the rest of our miles but in New York for 3 days, we would have used all our miles and still paid for most of the hotel ourselves because hotel rewards aren't as good as airline rewards. So we decided to keep our miles and pay for our Hotel ourselves. But then we realized we were going to need to spend a night in Las Vegas because our flight arrived from New York at midnight Las Vegas time which if we drove to St. George where we were leaving the children we wouldn't get there until 3:00 am. So we decided to stay the last night in Las Vegas and used our miles for that hotel. There will be pictures as I go through our trip day by day and then this next statement will seem more incredible. So we paid only $20 for our night in Vegas. Wait for pictures. You won't believe it. Thank you for our friend Ryan who let us know of the credit card deal.

Day 1.
We left provo at around 4:30 to drive the children and all their stuff to grandparents in Hurricane. We got the kids ready for bed and had one last family prayer together kissed them all lots and said goodbye then at 10:00 pm we headed for Las Vegas and the airport. Our plane was scheduled to leave at 12:50 am Las Vegas time. We made it to our gate in plenty of time then found out our flight was delayed because of rain in Chicago which is where the plane was coming from and that was our connecting flight to New York as well. So we would most likely miss our connecting flight but because we used our miles to buy our plalne tickets we were priority access status and they booked us automatically on a later flight. So we made our flight and our new connecting flight in Chicago and made it to New York City by 11:00 am Thursday Morning. Now we planned it this way because then we would have most of the day Thursday, all of Friday and Saturday, and most of the day Sunday to see everything we wanted to see. Had we flown during the day we would have lost the whole day. So we decided to fly at night and try and sleep on the plane. Now a little about the plane trip. This was my very first time flying. I thought I might be nervous but I wasn't at all. Probably because I had my best friend by my side. It seemed to take forever to load the passengers on and their carryon bags but finally it was time for take off. It was awesome I loved take off. I loved flying it was soooo much fun. I was in the middle seat but could see out the windows just fine. Landing was a different story. We get to Chicago and it's sprinkling maybe raining. I don't know if that made a difference but it seemed like the piolet had to make a lot of adjustments for landing. We seemed to keep leaning one way or the other and landing seemed to me, a novice, really rocky. Jon even said it's usually smoother than that. We got off the plane once they were able to line it up with the tunnel for some reason they were having problems with that. We got off the plane and were already booked on a new flight for 7:55am This flight I had a window seat and once we got close to New York and I was awake I saw out my window that we were flying above beautiful white fluffy clouds that would have a hole every so often where you could see the land below. It was beautiful. As I said we arrived in New York at 11:00 am another scary bumpy landing. I did not like landing. Well our luggage made our oringinal connecting flight so when we realized it wasn't on the luggage belt we headed for the baggage claim area to report it lost. Luckily it was there waiting for us. We got a cab and went to see if we could check in early at our hotel. They did let us check in early. So we went up to our room on the 23rd floor. I didn't take pictures of this room it was pretty small but from what we read so are all New York hotel rooms. It was still nice and in the center of most of the things we wanted to do. It was named Club Quarters, Opposite Rockeffeller Center. Our first thing to do in New York was a tour of Radio City Music Hall, which happened to be right across the street, at 2:00 pm. It was amazing. It is a lot bigger than it looks our pictures don't do it justice. It was a fun tour and at the end we took a picture with a Rockette. Our next event was a tour of NBC and sad as it is we were not aloud to take pictures on this tour. Our tour consisted of Dr. Oz's studio which no one in our group watched or was willing to admit that they watched him. Most of the tourists in our group consisted of Japanese people who spoke no english. It took us awhile to get through security. After Dr. Oz's studio we went and saw Jimmy Fallon's studio who had a few more fans than Dr. Oz did including ourselves. Then we saw Saturday Night Live Studio and that was a lot of fun. They are off for 2 weeks one of those being the week we were there so we didn't see anyone. But it was fun to see the studio. Then two people in the group got to do a news segment, (Jon and I did not volunteer), and we all got our pictures taken at the news desk but we didn't want to spend the money to buy it. I think that was all of the NBC studio tour. We stopped in at Saks Fifth Ave., we saw some shoes for $900.00 and $1,200.00 an evening purse for $1,000.00. Of course we didn't buy anything I just wanted to see it. That was our first day in New York.

A christian, I am.

I haven't blogged for awhile now. I have tried to write when something is on my mind a lot or is really important to me. The subject of whether or not I am a Christian is something very important to me. Now people have always believed that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints are not Christians and the reasons why are many. Recently on FB I saw a video of a Mr. Jeffress claiming these same things and that got me thinking. So I decided to defend myself and my beliefs on my blog. Not because what he believes is important but for myself I would like to defend my position that being LDS or a mormon is being a Christian. Definition of a christian is this (from dictionary.com)
1. of, pertaining to, or derived from Jesus Christ or His teachings: a Christian faith.
2. of, pertaining to, believing in, or belonging to the religion based on the teachings of Jesus Christ: Spain is a Christian country.
3. of or pertaining to Christians: many Christian deaths in the Crusades.
4. exhibiting a spirit proper to a follower of Jesus Christ; Christlike: She displayed true Christian charity.
We as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ(2 Nephi 25:26) because we know that without Jesus Christ we are nothing. We can not return back to the presence of our Heavenly Father without Jesus Christ. We are not perfect and no unclean thing can inherit the kingdom of God. We cannot be saved without the Atoning Sacrifice of our Savior and Redeemer Jesus Christ. We do believe that we are to try and become like Jesus and do our best to follow Him and receive important ordinances and make covenants with Him in order for us to return to Him as well. This does not take away from His Sacrifice for us though, as some believe. No matter what we do here on earth no matter how good we are, we are not perfect and therefore unfit for His kingdom without this sacrifice, nor could we overcome death and have immortal life without Him. But Jesus, Himself taught there was more to eternal life than just believing in Him. He was asked once by a rich young man "Good Master, what shall I do that I might inherit eternal life?" Jesus said "Thou knowest the commandments, do not commit adultery, do not kill, do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Defraud not, honour thy father and mother." The young man said "Master, all these have I observed from my youth." "Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me." "And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he had great possessions." Mark 10: 17, 19-22. Jesus did not tell this man just have faith in me as your Savior and you shall inherit eternal life. His answer to this man tells us we need to do good works as well as have faith in our Savior Jesus Christ.

Our Church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is the only church set up the way Jesus Christ set His church up when He was here on earth. It is the only church with a man called of God to restore it to the earth given the priesthood keys from those who held them last even John the baptist who held the Aaronic priesthood keys and then Peter, James, and John who held the Melchezidek priesthood keys, and later Elijah who held the sealing keys, with a Prophet and apostles, temples as they had anciently, with baptism by immersion as Jesus was baptized, with the Holy ghost given through laying on of hands.

What I know is this: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is Christ's church. It is true. It teaches the gospel of Jesus Christ as he taught it. It has all the Priesthood keys as was had when Christ was here, and that were given to Peter, James and John When Christ died. I know Joseph Smith was visited by Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, who are 2 separate beings, and they called him to restore the gospel to the earth. Just as Adam was called, and Moses also being visited by God, and Samuel hearing the voice of the Lord calling him so did the Lord call Joseph Smith to be the prophet of the restored church in our time. I know the Book of Mormon is the word of God. I have read it many times. It teaches and testifies of Jesus Christ and His divine mission. I know that Jesus is my Savior and Redeemer and without His atoning Sacrifice I would be doomed to eternal misery, but because of His love and His Suffering for my sins and His dying on the cross for me and His resurrection, I can be saved from death and hell if I follow His example keep His commandments and receive the ordinances necessary to return to Him. I know that I am a Christian. In the name of Jesus Christ amen.