First we had a fun adventure on a super full plane as we flew to Detriot with Grandma and Grandpa. It wasn't too bad of a flight in the end. Shyler was great and Adam was good most of the time, but did decide after a while sitting still was not on his agenda.
Thursday we got ready for our road trip! We picked Tim up at work, had a picnic lunch at a park next to Lake Erie and then we were off!
Our first stop was in Kirtland, Ohio. For those not familiar with Kirtland, it is the place where Joseph Smith and the church moved after they left New York. This is where the first temple was built and many revelations occurred. There of course are many other wonderful events that took place here. The Kirtland temple is actually owned by the Community of Christ Church, which branched away for the LDS church a long time ago. We arrived at 4 and much to our dismay we had missed the 3:30 tour of the temple and the 4:30 tour was booked with a tour bus. So we were only able to walk around the outside. They had beautiful flowers on the grounds and it was still neat to see it.
After the temple, we were able to walk down the street to where the people lived at the time in the 1830's. There is a store which is also important to church history called the NK Whitney Store. Also in here there were many revelations and Joseph Smith came here first when he arrived in town. Newell K Whitney was very helpful in the building up of the church in Kirtland. The store is 85% of its original structure so that was cool to really feel the spirit and imagine life back then going to the "store". We got to explore all of the rooms including the upstairs where Jospeh held the school of the prophets, which was pretty much a class he taught on gospel principles. By then the kids were done and hungry so that was most of what we saw. We found the nearest place to eat which ended up being Wendy's. A quick dinner then we got ready for a bigger chunk of driving to Rochester, NY.
We got in close to 11 and we all crashed!! The next day was a new day and a new adventure. We drove about 30 min east to Palmyra, NY. This is where Joseph Smith grew up. We went to the site of the recreated log home he was living in when he read James 1:5. He felt inspired pray to the Lord about which church he should join since there was a lot of commotion about different churches at the time. He went into the grove of trees by his house and got on his knees and prayed. This is where he saw Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. This special place is know known as the Sacred Grove. We got to walk through the grove and the log home and the other home they lived in while he was growing up see some of the places where different events happened. There are many stories about people trying to steal the golden plates and we saw some of the places he was able to hide them. After the grove the kids were ready for lunch so we headed to town. Thanks to our trusty GPS we discovered a yummy pizza place that made cheesy bread just right for our picky kids who don't eat pizza. Then we were able to go to the Grandin Print Shop where the first 5,000 copies of the Book of Mormon was published. We got to see the process and how much work it used to take to make books. Shyler even got to practice creasing the pages and get them ready to be bound.
On our way back out of town we stopped at the Palmyra Temple. It is beautiful, and as you are at the Smith family farm you can see the temple through the trees and as you are at the temple you can see across into the sacred grove. Our guide told us that this temple is the only one with clear glass, and it is on the window looking into the grove, they call it the Hinckley window after our previous prophet. All other temples just have stained glass all around. Our last stop was the Hill Cumorah. This is the place where the last prophet from the days of the Book of Mormon finished writing on the plates and buried them. It is here where Joseph Smith retrieved the plates to translate them.
After our fun morning adventure we headed back to Rochester and were lucky enough to meet up with Tim's Great-Uncle Don and his wife Mary Lou. They are super nice and we had fun getting to know them a little better. They took us to Cheesecake Factory where we of course ate a lot of yummy food and then indulged on some yummy cheesecake! After dinner they took us along the Erie canal and the kids got to feed ducks. It was a little bit of a history review as I remember hearing about the Erie canal and singing a song about it when I was younger, but never thought I would see it. It really is just like a river running through town, but there is just an amazing amount of history behind it. We saw no barges, but we did see a crew team parcticing, which still a first for us and the ducks loved the yummy treats!
On the road again... We made our way a little north of Rochester to an apple farm! It was a fun family farm that was at prime time for apple picking! We got to pick a variety of apples; cortland, empire, and macoun then we also picked fall raspberries. The kids enjoyed the picking and the play area. We also bought honeycrisp and sweetango from the market. We loved having freshly picked apples for the rest of our trip! They weren't super happy with us bringing them into Canada, but the border patrol lady just said make sure we brought them all back!
So after the farm we headed for Niagara Falls! We got there and the kids were ready to get out and we were excited to see the beauty of one of God's creations. It was beautiful! We convinced Grandpa that the boat ride would be fun and we experienced the falls up close on the Maid of the Mist boat ride. It was wet and we all looked like smurfs, but it was worth it. We only wish we would have spent more time walking around on the Canadian side, just driving by it was beautiful. We enjoyed getting grilled by the canadian border patrol, and like I said earlier we had to promise to bring back our apples... 
We made it Toronto after that for a late dinner, then another night in a hotel. We did however wake up to a beautiful fall day and spent the morning going to church and walking around the Toronto Temple. It is beautiful and so peaceful. We had a picnic lunch with some of our apples and snacks then headed back for an actual nap time at the hotel! We headed down town for dinner to The Spaghetti Factory, I know real original, but it was still delicious. After we had paid $20 bucks for parking we decided that we would do the CN tower that night. It was a tall tower and stepping off the elevator, it was crazy to think we were standing on a little tower 1,100 feet off the ground.
Monday we drove back to Toledo. When we got up in the morning Tim was so thoughtful and decided to go get doughnuts from Tim Hortons. Apparently they are like Starbucks out in the northeast and they are everywhere!!! They call their little doughnut holes Tim Bits... so fun! We packed up and decided that we didn't really know what we were doing, except driving to Toledo with no GPS, just our map I bought at Niagara Falls to guide us. Luckily I was an expert navigator with an even better driver and we never got lost :-) we did decide to take a detour when we saw a sign for a maple farm. We saw them bottling maple syrup and got some fresh yummy treats. We also stopped in London, Ontario for lunch for another round of Wendy's. Driving out of town we saw what looked like a riot! Grandpa and I were curious, while Tim and Grandma were more like let's get out of here! Turns out it was just some high school kids protesting the police over a pepper spray incident.
Almost there... we decided to take the northern route back into America through a town called Sarnia, instead of through Windsor. I don't know what the difference would have been, but we waited in line on the bridge for an hour to cross the border!!! But it was nice to be that much closer to "home". We got back close to dinner time and for the famous Tony Packo's. They have their specialty hot dog that you just have to try... well that is what everyone told Tim. So I tried it. Tim and I both agree we are not fans. It is a delicious hot dog, more like a sausage on a bun which is also good, but then it is topped with mustard, onions, a special sauce (it seemed like beanless chili), and then cheese... I would have been better with the chicken chili that I also got as part of my meal, now that was good! They have buns signed by so many famous people on display all around the restaurant, including the current and previous 3 presidents!
I'm pretty sure no one is still reading about our trip, but we really did a lot of fun stuff in 5 short days, I don't want to forget anything! So after dinner we checked G and G into their hotel room. Well, Tim had enough points so they just upgraded them for free. They got a king size bed with a ginormous hot tub in room!!! With a little nudging, Shyler decided that the hot tub would be way cooler to swim in than the hotel pool and so she finally got to go swimming and we got to stay in the comfort of the room and not worry about it being too deep!
G and G's last day... They decided to visit the Sauder Village just west of Toledo. It is founded by the maker of Sauder furniture and it is a whole village set up in pioneer times with actors in each little shop or cabin dressed to the part. It was fun and cool to see them still making toys or baskets like they used to and Shyler got to see a real spinning wheel at work!!! They also had a children's area which the kids loved! They got to milk a cow and play in the kitchen and even iron, that was much more interesting to the kids than the rest of the place, but it was still really cool. Then we headed up to Detriot to drop them off. On the way back home we got... Wendy's for dinner, yes, the 3rd time in 6 days! We are so original I know... but our kids like their chicken nuggets, and they have a fruit you can get, or a yogurt if you are in Canada, and the toy was a little sports themed toy which was also cool! I think we ended up with a football , volleyball and 3 soccer balls!
Family time! So we had a few more days with just the 4 of us. Tim worked during the day, but Wed. Shyler got to go on a date with him to the movies! She saw Lion King in 3-D! I got a date with Tim on Friday and a delicious dinner at the Japanese steakhouse. We were so grateful to his co-worker that offered to babysit! Lindsey was a lifesaver! On our last day we met another coworker at another apple farm and went to the apple butter festival. Besides having the wind chill making it feel like 40 degrees, it was fun to pick apples again and enjoy the festivities. The kids loved the pony ride they got, Adam went back for another one after we took him off!
So then we were done :-( Tim dropped us off at the airport and I went through security with my 2 kids, a stroller, 2 backpacks, and a giant bag of apples! We survived and I was glad I had my sister to help on the other end. The kids were great on the flight and we had a whole row to ourselves. Adam even took a nap this time! We miss Tim, but glad how quickly the time is going and how soon it will be when we see him again! That also means that this experience is getting closer to being over! We can't wait!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment