Uncle Dean and Aunt Helen's House

For the next week we will be staying at Dean's Aunt and Uncle's house in Pennsylvania. Man they have a beautiful place. I will hate leaving here and heading back to the desert! This is their house. He has a porch that wraps almost around his whole house. And it is surrounded by trees. You can't even see any neighbors.
If you look close you can see the little porch he has built a few yards away from the house.

This is the backyard.

Another shot of the backyard.

Here is his porch in the back. We spend a lot of time sitting out here listening to the birds and watching the animals wander around the place. One problem - they have been telling us about this pesky bear that comes around and gets into things. HUH?!?!? Did you just say A BEAR!??! Holy cow. And you thought the racoons were bad Angie! So I am a little nervouse being out here with food.

Do you like my laundry hanging on the line? It's one of those clothes lines that runs on a pully so it is way off the ground so the bear can't get my clothes! I feel so cool hanging my clothes out there! ; ) By the way, Aunt Helen does have a washer and dryer. A VERY NICE front loader washer and dryer. I have already put my request in for Christmas!

Local 23

Local 23 is the insulators union that Dean's uncle belongs to. Every year they throw a big picnic for all the families of the union members. We got here just in time for this year's picnic. They really go all out. They gave each kid a gift bag full of little toys. They had all kinds of games and activities for the kids. And FOOD. Oh my goodness. I have never seen so much food in one place! They had shrimp, oysters, roast, chicken, pork, beans, corn, salad, and on and on. I swear I am going to come home and none of my clothes are going to fit anymore! YIKES! This is Dean's uncle Dean (we have four "Dean's" in this house right now). He is eating a HUGE plage of oysters. YUCK!! We wouldn't let him sit at our table.

They said "we have roast and pork in the back." So we went to the back. Imagine my surprise to see they literally had a pork on the grill. An entire pig! I asked for a piece and he proceeded to cut me a nice big chunk of butt! Oh I tried to eat it. And it really was good. But I just couldn't do it. All I could see what this huge pig on the grill! One of the activities for the kids was a money grab. They put a bunch of coins in a pile of sawdust and the kids had to dig and find them. I have never seen this before, but the kids all had a blast! Jarod made a killing. He found almost $7.00 in coins! Another activity was a face painter. And she was a serious face painter! No little rainbows or hearts. She did full fledged face art. It was amazing. So after 1.5 hours(!!!) waiting in line this is the result. Doesn't Lindsie look pretty? I think she is thinking of not washing her face for a few days. Umm. . . maybe not a good idea Linds! : )

DJ's is called "road kill." Can you tell why?

Can you tell who Jarod is supposed to be? Captain Jack Sparrow. Do you like his "pirate" face? Kind of silly, huh. That's my boy.

Here are all four kids with their face paint. The litle girl is Dean's cousin Dean's little girl, Tori. She and Jarod have become besties. They run all over together. Too bad she goes back to her mom's tomorrow.

Last activity was a big bingo game. Everyone plays, even the kids. And they have TONS of prizes. We all got several prizes. The last game is a cash prize - $150.00. Jarod was sure he would win that. He LOVES money. But alas, no. It was won by someone else. Bummer!
It was such a fun day. So glad we could go. I came home SOOO full I thought I would pop. So then Uncle Dean and Aunt Helen go out and get us pizza. And we are talking a HUGE pizza. One slice was seriously bigger than my head. Oh my goodness I am so full. Like I said, my clothes will likely no longer fit!!

Hanging Around Ohio

Ok. Computer is up and running again. So, as promised, here is the mile long post! Once I get this done I am going to sleep. It is 1:30 a.m. and there is some serious snoring going on in this room!!!

On Tuesday, our last day in Ohio, we spent the day exploring the area with Mom and Dad. It was very relaxing and we all had a good time.

Took the kids to Lake Erie to swim.

Me and my mommy and daddy! We got our feet wet. That was good enough for us.

Daddy had to throw the kids in to get them to actually swim.

Like Lindsie's war paint? There were flies around the lake that bite. Ouch! Lindsie decided lake mud would make a nice bug repellent. Didn't work!

Three cuties out on the water! This rock was completely submerged when we got there. About half hour later it was half way out of the water. Kind of weird. No tide on a lake, right?

A little rainy. Dad was prepared! Notice the children huddled in the background!

After a picnic lunch we went to a very cool park. Of course, all the parks in Ohio look like this! This one had a trail that we walked down to get to a little waterfall.

Fun day with Mom and Dad. First thing the next morning we had to say goodbye! Dad took us all on a cruise around old Kirtland on his cool little golf cart then gave us all donuts for the road. Man I miss them! Hurry home! And this time stay a little longer would ya? : )

Niagara Falls

Well, it wasn't quite my anniversary because we moved some dates around, but we arrived at Niagara Falls on Wednesday. We didn't get to do all the things we had planned. That's what happens when you try to see everything in one trip. But it was GREAT anyway. Took way too many pictures. I'll try to just pic some favorites to post here.

Me and my honey. Married 19 years!
These are the American Falls.

An upper view of the American Falls. Across the river you see Canada. This is as close as I got to leaving the country. No passport!

Looks like a fire, eh? (See, I picked up some Canadian while I was there). This is the mist off the falls!

The Niagara River just before the falls.

Highlight of our trip - The Maid of the Mists. This is the boat that takes you right up to the Canadian Falls.

All ready to go! I told Jarod to put on his poncho so he wouldn't get wet. The guy at the gate just laughed at me.

This is a boat across the river.

Once you get up near the falls, you actually can't see much! Just water in your face. So this is the best shot I could get of the Canadian Falls.

Can you guess what his first words were? "Can we go again?!?!?"

Now I know why that guy laughed at me. Despite the ponchos, we got soaked! Which is, of course, why the boys wanted to go again.

Can you see where Lindsie's poncho ended?

Man this place is beautiful.

Smith Farm

Today was an amazing spiritual day. So glad we made this detour on our way to Pennsylvania. We took a quick trip to Palmyra to see where the whole thing started.

First stop was the first place the Book of Mormon was ever printed. Learned a lot of interesting stuff here.
This is the printing press that printed the first ever published copy of the Book of Mormon.

Jarod got to fold a copy of the first sixteen pages of the Book of Mormon and we got to keep it. It's just a copy, but it is what it would have looked like back then.

Then on to the Smith Family Farm. This was the log cabin the Smith family first built to live in when they moved to Palmyra. Man it was as small as my hotel room and they had 11 people living in it! Yikes!

Out this back door is where Joseph would have headed when he went into the Grove to pray.

These are the bricks in front of the fireplace that were pulled up in order to make a hole to hide the Gold Plates under. These are the original bricks.

In this room the Angel Moroni appeared to Joseph three times in one night to tell him about the plates and give him instruction. He would have been in this room with his 5 brothers! I didn't know that. I wonder why they didn't wake up? They must sleep like DJ does! Our tour guide was awesome. She has us all share our feelings about the Book of Mormon in this room, where Joseph very first learned of the existence of the plates. It was really neat.

Sacred Grove

We have spent a lot of time wandering through forested areas since we came east. There are trees EVERYWHERE. It's hard to wander without being in trees. But no forest has come close to the peace and beauty that is in the Sacred Grove. I wish so badly that we had had several hours to wander through the trails in the Grove, but time and a rainstorm cut our visit a little shorter than we wanted. I took a lot of pictures (as per mom's request!) but I'll just post a few.

A beautiful girl with a beautiful spirit in a beautiful place

One of the paths

" . . and at the very moment when I was ready to sink into despair . . I saw a pillar of light directly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me."

Joseph Smith History 1:16

Ugh!!

Having trouble getting my laptop connected to the Internet. I really have some awesome pics to post, so when I get this figured out, I will likely have another very long post! Right now I am using deans iPad, but I can't load pics from here.

Monkeys in the Zoo

Ok, so it has been a BUSY and EXHAUSTING six days. My blog has fallen behind because I am just just collapsing into bed every night and running and the crack of dawn. So this will be a very long post, but then I will be caught up!

Friday we drove from Kearney, NE to Des Moines, IA. We kind of followed the Platte River through Nebraska. This is a big river! Not as big as the Mississippi, but still bigger than I am used to seeing.
In Omaha we stopped at the Henry Dorly Zoo. It is a huge zoo and very cool. This picture is in the jungle building. We are crossing a wet and slippery swinging bridge.

Climbing through the roots of the trees.

They have a fun sky ride that goes over the zoo. Great views of the animals.

It was a hot and humid day. We are finding as we go east it gets very humid and we are not used to it! So here we are cooling off in the mist.

We got to ride an elephant!! Well, sort of. This elephant didn't go anywhere. In fact, we didn't even see any real elephants in the zoo so I'm not sure why they had this statue.

This tram gives you a ride all over the zoo. It was a nice break from hiking around in the heat.

It's hard to see because of the reflection, but the kids discovered a little baby gorilla. This little guy was very social with the kids. He was so cute, but it made me want to take him out of the cage and play with him!!

Can you tell which ones are the real monkeys? They kind of all look the same! : )