This summer our family had the opportunity to go back East to visit the sites of the Eastern Seaboard.   We had planned this together as a family as our older boys, now Junior and Senior in High School, wanted to experience the ‘big city’ life and visit places like Boston, Washington DC and of ofcourse the ‘Big Apple’, New York City!

It took a few months of planning, getting together weekly to discuss where we would go, where we would stay, how we would travel to and fro to complete our trip on the East Coast.   The monthly and weekly planning turned into daily planning up until the week of our trip and off we went, a ‘short’ red eye flight later, we arrived to our first stop, Boston, MA!

Our red eye flight definitely left us red eyed zombies with no sleep but we somehow managed to still walk miles and miles and see lots of awesome things before we checked in to our place to CRASH. Boston is definitely a beautiful and cool place.

The next day we went to sacrament meeting at a local LDS church. It’s always a cool experience to attend in new places.  We learned the hard way why we should not bother driving ourselves anywhere as it took us 2 hours to try and drive what would have been 20 minutes on the train! So after 2 hours of the maps apps leading us astray we literally gave up, parked back at our place and walked to take the train. A lot of walking of course each day but it was fun to be right in the middle of everything on the historic streets seeing the beautiful sites of Boston.

We honestly would have loved to have one more day in Boston, but it was time for the next leg of our adventure. We spent the afternoon road trippin’ through the beautiful, wooded country of Massachusetts. We stayed 3 nights in the Berkshires and after being in the busy city it was quite a shocker to check in. Our youngest boy had some kind of shock at the feeing of it.   We were expecting a small town like Park City but instead it’s more like dairy farm country. It was VERY remote We so had to get creative to keep our boys entertained but on the up-side it was restful before we hit the Big Apple and DC. Our highlights of the day was the amazing LDS Boston temple, our pit stop in Turner Falls at the Black Cow Burger, and our surprise to find way nice theater in the middle of nowhere to watch Now You See Me 2. Seriously the seats recline! Another fun day of adventures on the East Coast.

The next two days in NYC flew by in a blur of lots of things to see and experience and LOTS of walking. Our average day was around 10 miles. We definitely were wearing down and yet we still had one big city to go before home. Favorites from NYC would be walking the harbor, Joe’s Pizza, 911 memorial, an old video game place, and shopping. Another favorite was Central Park which is a beautiful place, and BIG! During our stay in NYC, we met quite a few ‘colorful’ people both physically and spiritually speaking; we took a 2 hour journey to get the boys pizza; and even learned how the ‘New Yorker’s’talk’… ‘Hey, I’m walking here!’

Following our stay in NYC, we packed up early and boarded a train at crazy Penn Station. Three and a half hours later we found ourselves in beautiful (much cleaner and calmer than NY) DC.  The train was surprisingly comfortable and we arrived safe at another great east coast spot.  Unfortunately, our oldest son woke up with food poisoning and had a super rough day. We didn’t go out and do much as we were caring for him and going shopping to get what he needed but it was ok because we are all tired, and it was a hot time of year in DC.

After a couple of calm, relaxing and healing days in DC, we left on our plane and made it home safe and sound. We were all tired and glad to be home to spend some time to recover yet looking back we had a great time and made some fun memories.

All in all, I would summarize our Eastern Seaboard as GREAT >>> GOOD >>> NOT SO GOOD >>> BAD >>> NOT SO GOOD >>> GOOD >>> TO GREAT!!!

As I reflect on this most recent family vacation, my thoughts go to a bigger picture, that is of the current life we are living.   We all are sons and daughters of a loving Heavenly Father, and just as we Plan out a family vacation here on earth, we too planned with our Heavenly parents our charted course of leaving them in the pre-earth life to come to earth to obtain a body, being born to earthly parents; grow; learn from our experiences; in many cases be given the opportunity to accept the gospel of Jesus Christ; experiencing happiness and sorrow; all so we can return to live with them again.

I can imagine how we sat in a Heavenly Family Council, talking about how we would arrive to earth, the things that we would do, who we would interact with, what families we would be a part of, etc.  In essence, planning out our earthly ‘vacation’.   We then arrive to our destination.   We are given the opportunity to experience, day by day, week by week, year by year, the things that we were pre-destined to experience.  Some of life’s opportunities are GREAT, some BAD, some NOT SO GOOD, and others GOOD.   In the end, I know that we we will reflect on the whole experience and tell ourselves how great the time was on earth, remembering the fun and great memories created and will be happy to have made it home, safe and sound to live again with our Heavenly Parents.

Each of us have our own Charted Course, similar in design, yet different in experience… Life will naturally take it’s course… We will have our good to great, not so good to bad, and in the end it will be GREAT!   We will all return and live again with our Heavenly Parents, so keep on track, no matter how hard it gets, and enjoy the journey, as it’s the most amazing vacation we will experience!

…special thanks to my lovely wife for letting me cut and paste her posts to FB 🙂