Road Trip

Be Warned! This post is very, very long. It will take you some time to read through. It will be worth it though.:)

Our trip started out in Kirtland, OH. We visited the Kirtland visitor's center for the LDS church, and surrounding outbuildings. We even had the chance to visit the Kirtland Temple. It is belongs to the Community of Christ church, but they give tours through it. Having been studying the Doctrine and Covenants this year, it was really neat to go in the temple and see where some of the revelations were given to the prophet Joseph Smith.
Newel K. Whitney's home. It is the original.

The saw mill restored in Kirtland.

Next stop NY! Thanks to Lee's brother Jarett and family, who allowed us to crash with them!

This is at Hill Cumorah. This is where the Gold Plates were hidden up until given to Joseph Smith by the Angel Moroni to translate. The Angel Moroni.

The is the replica of Joseph Smith's home when he was 14, and saw Heavenly Father, and Jesus.

Inside of the home.

My parents came with us on our trip, and they made the trip even more fun! Aren't they cute?!

One the highlights of our trip was visiting the Sacred Grove. This is where Joseph Smith saw God the Father, and Jesus Christ. The feeling and spirit there was inspiring. You can't really explain it, unless you have experienced it.

This is the E.B. Grandin printing press. This is part of the original building where the Book of Mormon was published. They would use the ropes to lower down manuscripts and other heavy items to the ground.

This is how they "sewed" the Book of Mormon together.

This is a faxed copy of some of the translated pages of the Book of Mormon.

This is the Martin Harris Farm. This is not the original house that was there, but it is the place. Martin Harris was very helpful in getting the money to help print the Book of Mormon. I think this is Lee pondering. He likes to ponder quite a bit. :)

While in NY we went to the pageant at the Hill Cumorah. It was great! This is the Angel Moroni in the background.

This is the stage setting they put up for the pageant. Over 800 cast and crew participate in the pageant every year! They do an amazing job, and you can tell how much they love being there. All of them are volunteers.

The cast mingles with the audience before the show to help explain the pageant and be "mini" missionaries. This is with "Father Lehi". One of the first prophets in the Book of Mormon.

This is the Peter Whitmer farm in Fayette, NY. This is a replica of their home. At this location is where the LDS church was organized, April 6th, 1830. This is the view from behind the home, and part of the farm located there. It was a beautiful setting.

We had the opportunity to visit one of the finger lakes while in NY. We stopped by Seneca Lake. I was surprised on how big it was. Our kids enjoyed throwing rocks, skipping rocks, etc...

Kale loves the water!

Carson playing by the water.

This is Niagara Falls! It was magnificent, beautiful, incredible, and more. We were able to ride the boat, "Maid of the Mist", down through and around the falls. Totally worth the money, trust me. They provide the ponchos because of the amount of mist and water coming on the boat. The kids LOVED this boat ride. They loved getting wet, and seeing the falls. I was amazed on how big they were. You could see the mist rising up from the water a couple of miles away.

Any one up for cliff jumping off this?

This is when we had disembarked from the boat, and decided to walk up some stairs right next to the falls, without our ponchos. BIG mistake. We got soaked!! It still was fun, and the kids still loved it.

The picture after. We were all wet, and had to go and change our clothes before walking around some more. We had so much fun here, and we were glad we took the detour and time to stop and see the beautiful Niagara Falls.

We had a great trip! We had some much fun, and loved everything we saw. I highly recommend going to these sites if you have the time and money.:)

Carson's Special Day

I am really behind on this blog! I want to start with our very special day last week, July 11th. Carson was baptised! He was very excited and ready for his day. Everything was great! He was very lucky because both sets of Grandparents came for his baptism. This picture was actually taken the next day since it was pouring rain during his baptism. :) His baptism was his own. He didn't have to share his special day with anyone. How cool is that!

Here is Carson and his Dad right before the program started. Don't they look fantastic! Lee did a fabulous job with the baptism and confirmation. (Carson did have to be baptised twice, because Lee forgot to say amen before plunging him into the water.) :) I am sure Carson will remember his baptism forever. He is a great kid, and we are so lucky to have him in our family. Congratulations Carson! We love you so much!

I will try to post more later about our great vacation we had this week. It was so awesome. We visited Kirtland, OH, and then went up to NY to see all the Palmyra church sites, and visit with Lee's brother. To top it off we visited Niagara Falls. More to come.....

Happy 4th of July!

We were invited to go to our friends house on Saturday for a fun 4th of July party. We played volleyball, corn hole, shot the BB guns, rode four wheelers, and ate alot of food!! Thank you to the Donald's for opening their home to all those people! We had a great time! We hope everyone else had a great weekend as well.
The kids as always enjoyed the fireworks! The sparklers are always a big hit with everyone!

Kale was so fun this year. He was so excited with every firework, and loud boom! He kept saying, "I love fireworks Mom!" We all got to be waaaay to late, and were a little tired and cranky for church, but it was worth it for the fun we had.

We had a fun holiday weekend. On Friday, we decided to hop on a ferry to cross a small section of Lake Erie, and head on over to Kelley Island. Lee had heard about these really cool glacial grooves on the island, left from a glacier thousand of years ago. It was amazing to see the way the rock was sheared off. We walked across the island to get there. It was only about 2 miles. Lee being a geologist, was very excited to see the grooves.

The kids favorite part was going on the ferry to get to the island! They had so much fun riding on the ferry, and crossing on the water. We could hardly get them to disembark.:)

We were surprised on how big Lake Erie looked once you were on it! It is one of the great lakes! It was very blue, and the weather was fantastic!

They liked how the boat was rocking back and forth, and moving the water all around. The ferry ride was a little pricey, but worth it the one time we probably will go out there.

Nature is Fun?

Our family bonded with nature this weekend. It started on Sat., when we spent 4 1/2 hours at the ward garden. It needed a lot of weeding, and fertilizing ,so we decided to begin our day there.

Our next adventure with nature came in the way of a *nature* walk. We decided to try a different park for a hike. Hmmm...it started out OK, we came across a beautiful bridge.

After that things got worse. We ended up on a trail that didn't look like anyone else had been on all year. The trail wasn't groomed, and there was stinging nettle, branches, and trees on the path. Why did we not turn around you ask? Well we also happened upon the worst, and I am not exaggerating, field of mosquitoes I have ever seen. We literally were jogging through trying to get away from them all. We had sprayed ourselves with repellent before we started, but they obviously did not mind the spray.:) Kale ended up on Lee's shoulders so we could move faster.

So, we didn't turn around because we didn't want to face the angry mosquitoes again. Lee went first to warn us of potential poison ivy, which we did spot, but avoided, thank heavens. :) We finally made it back to the car 2miles later! We all received quite a few bites, but nothing serious. We did take the kids for ice cream after, for being so good on our hike, and helping in the garden.

So for those visiting NW Ohio, avoid the Turkeyfoot area of the Mary Jane Thurston State Park!

Side note: Lee wants everyone to know that he had a fantastic time despite the trail. *maybe next time, he can hike that trail himself. :)*

Happy Day!

On Sunday it was a Celebration all around! It was Father's Day, and my birthday! That doesn't happen to often, but it was fun! The only hard part was each of us was trying make sure the other person didn't have to do anything that day.=)

Lee is a great Dad. He has always enjoyed his children, and spending time with them. He has always stepped up to help, and never complains about what he needs to do for the kids. I am so lucky to have him in my life. It has been a great 10 years!

I was spoiled, and got an Mp3 player, gift cards, and money! Good day for everyone!

Columbus

On Friday we went on a road trip to Columbus. We had never ventured that way before, so we were excited to check it out. Our main reason to go, was Family Temple Day for our ward. Our primary was so great to plan an activity at the meetinghouse across the parking lot so our children would be entertained while we, as adults, visited the Temple. It was about a 2 hour drive to get there, so not to bad. We had a lovely time there, and enjoyed ourselves. Here is the ward members that went with us. We thought since we were already in Columbus, we would visit the Zoo. The Columbus Zoo has a great reputation, and we decided to check them out! It wasn't very busy and we were able to see almost everything. The kids enjoyed the close encounter sections, and riding on the boat!

Carson enjoyed looking at the pheasants, and the flamingos were very pretty! They were feeding the rhinos when we happened by. They pick everything up with their lips! This silver-backed gorilla was cruising around protecting his herd. He was very large!

This Komodo Dragon was trying to smell us with his tounge. We had fun, and hopefully we can return sometime with our kids.