Tsai Family of the Parklands

After a very long hiatus of more than a decade, this year we suddenly decided to embark on a quick pilgrimage to the Hill Cumorah to watch the famous pageant and to visit the surrounding historical sites.  Our original plans to go the week before with friends fell through due to a cacophony of overloaded schedules.  Nevertheless, this week we finally realized our dream of journeying to the place of the Restoration of the gospel.  And although the travel there was met with a long and arduous traffic jam in Harrisburg, we did arrive before dark in Egypt, NY, where we checked into our motel.  Luckily the rest was all worth the trip. The night was very frigid for a July evening, but the air was buzzing with excitement for the pageant.  We arrived an hour before the pageant and had time to blend in and pose with the amiable actors. Here we are at the base of Hill Cumorah right before the pageant with the lighted stages in back of us. At the beginning o...

Celebration on the 4th of July was the first for our family in our new residence.  Festivities included window shopping, lunch in the Forest, swimming at the pool, and viewing fireworks at NIST.  The weather conditions could not have been more perfect, the best in years.  It was cool with a slight breeze.  We were joined by the Zhao's, Huang's, and Lee's.  It was fun to be with them, talking, playing frisbee, and just sitting in the lawn chairs and on sleeping bags.  Finally, around 9:30pm, the fireworks began, a steady of bursts of pyrotechnic display, but separated by moments of pause.  After 15 to 20 minutes, the finale of continuous popcorn-like popping of fireworks went on for a couple of minutes.  We knew it was going to be the finish.  At the end, everyone applauded, packed up, and went home.  We all had an enjoyable evening under stars, gazing at the celebratory fireworks, and hopefully for a short moment stopped to thi...