Thursday, July 23, 2009

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

(Mostly because I'm too tired to write anything!)


(ya gotta look at this one close up. double click on it... Bricky's face is awesome! even though I already posted Sunday... it's worth another picture!)


MONDAY





TUESDAY






WEDNESDAY












wednesday afternoon



THURSDAY





Question... is it really that good? Answer... most of the time! the rest of the time we might be a bit tired and cranky, but it has been pretty great! I wish I had more of today, no group picture, no good pictures of Cape Cod because we never really got there, but oh well, some days you just can't get the good ones.

Truth is that I have taken over a thousand pictures and I wish I could share them all!!

I've used way too many words now! Must go to bed!!!

Monday, July 20, 2009

Church History

So I think I am up to Sunday! It was a beautiful day to go see things! Palmyra is so beautiful, well the entire area is, but the special places we visited seemed even more beautiful!
We spent most of our time at the Smith farm in Palmyra. There is the old log home and the larger more modern home. Also this is where the Sacred Grove is. The Sacred Grove is where Joseph Smith went to pray when he was confused about religion due to the many opposing views at that time. When he prayed he was visited by God the Father and Jesus Christ in this grove of Trees. It is a special place to us and we felt so grateful to be able to visit this place. It is so beautiful and filled with the Spirit.

I want anyone who reads this to know that this experience in the Sacred Grove was really special to me. Our children could feel the Spirit there and knew of the Love their Heavenly Father has for them. It was a wonderful feeling for me. I am so Grateful for a God who loves us and has not abandoned us but is alive in our lives today. Who called a young boy to do a great work. The gospel is so important in my life.

This is the view of the Plamyra Temple from the Smith farm.

The homes
I think our kids are awesome... Yep, this is the Sunday shirt! We were going to paint the ties but haven't gotten around to it yet.


Ok another really cool thing is that Melanie ran into an old friend of ours who owns a historical home in the area. It is called the Tomlinson Inn and was a stage coach stop around the time of Joseph Smith. Our old friend doesn't rent it out any more, he just invites people when he wants to. He let us stay there for 3 nights. This is where the second branch of the church held their meetings. It was really a neat house! We were really lucky!







So now we are in Boston and if I don't get some sleep I will be sick tomorrow! I'm glad to have gotten this stuff on here. It helps me to reflect on the great experiences we are having and I am so grateful!!!

Sunday, July 19, 2009

The US Tour! The Beginning...

We begin our trip in Buffalo, NY where we flew on Thrusday. It was a long day and yet that night we all decided we sould go see Niagara Falls in the dark because they are lit up. That was a good idea! There was a little hike/walk to get there, but it was way worth it! It was cool!!
Lit up rapids.

Lit up American Falls

Shadow of Brodric with the lights coming from the Canadian side. I thought this was the coolest picture!

The next morning we hit a tour at the falls. First real stop was the energy plant where we learned all about how the falls make energy. It was pretty fun. We all had matching FRIDAY shirts. That was fun for everyone too! This is the Smithsons with Troy's parents and the Noh's with Scott's parents.


The United States side of the falls. (obviously we couldn't go into Canada due to the fact we don't have passports to return to the US!)


The Maid of the mist was great. I had to comfort a little boy so that was a bummer, but I tried to take pictures. It was pooring rain outside and the mist of the falls made it all worse! It was WET!!! But a great adventure!

At one point I tried to take pictures through the blue rain parka thing, it wasn't too bad!

It was wet and Windy!!!

Ok... the cave of the winds wasn't anything I was going to do! When we were looking over the falls the night before you could see this little wooden stair pathway down below and I thought it was suicide. But sure enough we did! The top of all the stairs is called the Hurricane Deck and that is because it is literally like a hurricane! The kids and some of the dads actually stood UNDER the water fall! You can get that close! They said it pounded on their backs! Oh my gosh! There was moss every where and you could hardly see due to the water blowing all around. It was quite exillerating!

Before we headed up. We had both parkas on hopeing that it would save us some of the soaking, not really!

I got Brodric to smile at least once.

I think Papa got surprised by how powerful it was. The water was coming at him!

Here is the Hurricane Deck! WOW!

And that was just the first day!!

Second day... Much calmer. We went into Palmyra, NY. For those who may not be LDS this is where the Book of Mormon originates from. There we were able to see an awesome pagent that depicts some of the stories of the Book of Mormon and enjoy the BEAUTIFUL little village and town. We saw the printing presses that first printed the Book of Mormon and learned about the sacrifices and miracles that made this great book be able to be shared with so many. It was a really great day!

This is the Hill Cummorah (I don't know if I spelled it right.) It is where the ancient records were found burried in the ground.

Monument at top of hill.

From the top of the hill this is the view of the chairs set up for the pagent. It was Huge as you can tell and it was really awesome the things they were able to do from that stage!

At the top of the hill Carter sat at the monument playing the penny whistle. It sounded like a recording that was being brodcast up there but nope, it was Carter playing songs like, Oh how lovely was the morning and other songs like that I can't think of right now. It was beautiful.

This is the kids walking down the back side of the hill. There is just beauty everywhere you go here.

And finally, this is the only good picture of the pagent that I shot! It is so hard to get pictures that far away and they move, but this one was awesome because of the water works in the background. It was depciting a dream that Lehi had.


NOW, stay tuned for a few weeks because I'll try to update often. I haven't gotten to TODAY (Sunday) and to the beautiful home we were privleged to stay in these past three nights! It was very neat!

(Sorry for mis-spelled words, the spell check won't work!)