A Historic Weekend

I am in Philadelphia!

Due to some personal circumstances, I accompanied my grandma and my mom on a business trip to a large trade show in Philadelphia.  My parents were worried about me and suggested I go. I, gratefully, accepted and headed to the airport. It was rather spontaneous but very much needed.

  

First Day: I was in heaven! I love, LOVE history. Philadelphia is deeply rooted in our nation's foundational history. During the American Revolution, Philadelphia was the center meeting place for the Founding Fathers of the United States. Philadelphia was once one of the nation's capitals during the Revolutionary War and it served as a temporary U.S. capital while D.C. was under construction. 

I am in the right place for history. 

Independence Hall

While they set up for the show, I explored the city.       *It was so liberating to explore Philadelphia. 
                      The Liberty Bell.

I loved the quotations at the exhibits!

When I teach, this will be one classroom motto: 

"Go back to the past to build the future."

This is the EXACT ROOM where the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE (1776) and THE CONSTITUTION (1787) were signed.  Can you believe it? I am here! 

I know God was "in" this room as He guided the Founding Fathers. #bigdeal

Congress Hall: 

 House of Representatives (top)

  Senate (below)

Carpenter's Hall:

Hosted the First Continental Congress in 1774

(Just for you Troy) 

****

On Saturday night, in the hotel, the trip suddenly changed.  Warnings and Alerts dominated the news...Hurricane Sandy would be visiting us shortly. 

The show was suddenly cut short. Everything was closing. 

We rebooked our flights five different times. 

One-by-one all of them were canceling. 

Everyone started scrambling. 

People were evacuating.

On Sunday night, we somehow landed tickets for one of the last flights to leave Philadelphia. We abruptly left the show, sprinted to the hotel, threw everything into our suit-cases, and booked it to the hotel. (I sat on the dashboard in the taxi bc there was no room.) When we arrived to the stress-filled airport, we stood in line to get our bags checked...and missed our flight.  The airport was disastrous. I looked outside and the storm was rolling in, dark rain clouds blanketed the sky. 

I felt like I was in a movie.

The airport is officially closed. All planes flew out. In fact, the staff resides in the same hotel we are staying in. Roads, trains, and subways are closed.

We are officially stuck in Philadelphia.

Over 20,000 flights have been cancelled. 

The eye of the storm is heading for us tonight! 

Monday. Everything is closed. We went and bought water, food, and warm clothes for the next few days. Who knows how long we will be here. 

Call us crazy but my mom wanted me to go with her and look at the historical sites, despite them all being closed. It was terribly windy, rainy, and freezing but this is the only time we had before Sandy will bombard Philadelphia. 

One security guard yelled to us: 

"Don't you realize there is a hurricane coming? 
Get inside!" 

He saw our dedication and ended up giving us our own personal tour of Independence Hall. Bonus.

The city is barren.  

Email my mom wrote: "Rachel and I wandered around the city before-hand weather got too bad.  We stumbled upon a statue near Penns Landing.  It is life size, built as a remembrance to Irish immigrants.  I LOVE the addition of rain drops.  It seems to add additional emotion to the faces.  The memorial depicts the cruel starvation which claimed one million Irish lives between 1845 to 1850; the harrowing journey to America taken by a million more; and the indomitable spirit of those who arrived safely and resolved to face the challenges of life in a new world."

 

****

*The weather is too retched to leave now. We are all forced to stay indoors. 

*The winds are up to 80-100mph.

*We are faithfully following the news.

(There is nothing else to watch even if we wanted to.)

*It makes me sick seeing what others have experienced already. Please pray for those affected.

Warning: (1 in 5 Americans will somehow be affected by this hurricane.) #unbelievable

*Hurricane Sandy is destroying everything in her path.

*Don't worry, our room is loaded with chocolate and water. (seriously, we have food.) 

*We are safe.

*We moved from the 22nd floor to the 10th floor for safety precautions. (Advantage: We are pros at packing up our belongings for the various warnings we have received to move for one reason or another.)

 At first, I was overwhelmed and I just wanted to go home: a. I have never been in a hurricane before b. My life is running out of control here and @ home and I cannot do much about it. In fact, I do not know when I will be home. I run such a fast-paced life, it feels foreign to slow the pace down, with force of course. However, my grandma and mom have been rather hilarious in keeping my spirits up. It is scary and stressful but they have been nothing but angels through all of this. 

*Lessons Learned: I do not have control over the situation but I do have control over my feelings and responses to it and the things that matter most really become apparent at times like these. 

**Cherish your loved ones, life is very unpredictable.

*Keep everyone in your prayers, Sandy has turned inland.

****We will be hit at 7 or 8 tonight. To be continued...

My Whole Heart

Today, I came across a beautiful message my friend recently discovered that spoke to my heart in a way I cannot adequately articulate. It touched me.  I am so grateful she shared it (thank you Alyse Saarelainen) and I could not resist sharing it with you.  

Escape your responsibilities of the world for one moment.  It is worth it.

Take a deep breath.

Listen to some inspiring music: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23z40lx0Pew

And really read:

"We know that on some level Jesus experienced the totality of mortal existence in Gethsemane. It’s our faith that he experienced everything - absolutely everything. Sometimes we don’t think through the implications of that belief. We talk in great generalities about the sins of all humankind, about the suffering of the entire human family. But we don’t experience pain in generalities. We experience it individually. That means Jesus knows what it felt like when your mother died of cancer - how it was for your mother, how it still is for you. He knows what it felt like to lose the student body election. He knows that moment when the brakes locked and the car started to skid. He experienced the slave ship sailing from Ghana toward Virginia. He experienced napalm in Vietnam. He knows about drug addiction and alcoholism. He knows the pain you live with when you come home to a quiet apartment where the only children who ever come are visitors, when you hear that your former husband and his new wife were sealed in the temple last week, when your fiftieth wedding anniversary rolls around and your husband has been dead for two years. He knows all that. He’s been there. He’s been lower than all that.

Give him your whole heart, all the pieces, and let him heal you.

...If one great constant in the universe is the unfailing love of the Savior, the other great constant is his unfailing respect for human agency. He will not override your will, even for you own good. He will not compel you to accept his help. He will not force you to accept his companionship. He leaves you free to choose.

He’s not waiting for us to be perfect. Perfect people don’t need a Savior. He came to save us in our imperfections. He is the Lord of the living, and the living make mistakes. He’s not embarrassed by us, angry at us, or shocked. He wants us in our brokenness, in our unhappiness, in our guilt and our grief."

- Chieko M. Okazaki from Lighten Up

I know that my Redeemer lives.  He is the reason I live.

Give him your whole heart and let Him heal you.

I promise, you will not regret it.

Man V. Mud

I am sorry that I have been checked out of life for the last month—Good News: I am back!

My latest adventure: Man V. Mud. 

Labor Day Weekend was a giant family party for me. We caravanned to Logan to participate in one of the largest mud races in the nation.  Surrounded by loved one and pits of warm, slimy mud, we laughed our way across Logan's beautiful terrain.  Needless to say, it was messy!!!!

Splashing, tackling, sliding, trekking, climbing, wrestling, you name it...it happened.

Carson was out of control the entire time. Seriously.  

He had us all laughing, wrestling, and tricking the entire time.  

I love that he fits so perfectly into my family.

No Party without a Dance Party. 

We are literally in our own worlds dancing. Hilarious moments were captured. 

My Momma and Her Girlies

A Beautiful History

I did the neatest thing today; I read and organized (by date) the love letters my Great-Grandparents wrote to each other during their courtship and marriage.  A lot of their letters dated back to 1944, when my Grandfather served in World War II--my Grandpa was in the Navy and my Grandma was a nurse.

My Great-Grandparents were madly and hopelessly in love their entire lives. The love they described in letters and illustrated throughout life is a love most people only dream of having.  

My Great-Grandfather died when I was a baby but my Great-Grandma (G.G. is what we called her) lived until my senior year in high school.  She suffered from Alzheimer's the last few years of her life.  For six years, we went regularly to her unit to watch movies, paint nails, play games, tell stories, and.... even take dates to keep her company--we knew a boy was a keeper if he survived or even enjoyed these visits ;).  Visiting G.G. was one of my favorite activities in High School.  

I grew to deeply love my G.G. 

Alzheimer's is an unforgiving disease that slowly took her mind before taking her life.  At the end of her life, she was unable to remember previous conversations, our names, and  simple memories.  However, one thing she never forgot was her sweet husband.  Above her T.V. was a large picture of her husband.  We would ask her who the man was in the photograph and she would, sometimes with tears in her eyes, say: "Hello Wallace Austin Tuckett, you handsome man, you." 

Her sweetheart was the one person she never forgot her entire life.

Their letters and pictures are simply magical.

               

 

They danced all their years together and, I imagine, are dancing in the heavens together now.

They even regularly shared their glasses when they got older and sang their love song together for anniversaries 

(G.G. had a beautiful soprano voice). 

G.G.'s beauty radiated all the days of her life . 

This is the G.G. that I knew and love.  How grateful I am that she cherished and held onto those letters exchanged throughout her life between her and her sweetheart.  I learned more about a wonderful woman, wife, and mother that I did not have the privilege of knowing until her later years. I learned of a loving and charismatic father, husband, and grandfather that I never knew.  

AND I learned of a beautiful love story that proved to withstand the test of time.  

How am I so lucky to be related to such beautiful people with a beautiful history?