Niagara Falls and Palmyra
Niagara Falls was the next stop on our route. Cue the continued music to "O, Canada..."
We stopped by the falls at night to see the light shows. Although they weren't exactly overwhelming, they were still worth keeping the kids up late to see since we won't be back in Canada anytime soon! They cycled from red to blue to yellow to purple and white. The lights beamed onto the American side of the falls were a bit better than those that shone on the Canadian (horseshoe) side...but neither were too spectacular.
The falls themselves were much easier to appreciate during the day. The picture below is the Horseshoe falls...
And here's Heather and the girls in front of the American falls (with rainbow bridge in the back).
Kimball loved them all, too. In fact, on the way from church this morning until we got to the falls, Kimball absolutely went off with a ginormus melt-down. Seriously, bigger than anything he has ever unleashed before. Fortunately for every other person visiting the falls at the same time we did, he settled down before we went out walking around. You can see below that while I look a little lost, Kimball has a smile on his face like he knows exactly where he is. :)
After leaving Niagara Falls and coming back into the U.S., we made our way to Palmyra, NY to visit many of the sites from LDS church history. We stopped by the Visitors Center at the Hill Cumorah first where one of the sister missionaries hosting visitors was nice enough to take this picture for us all. Side note: Kimball absolutely loves pictures of the Savior. He literally goes ape over them - waving his arms frantically, boucing up and down and jumping out of your arms to kiss them. So when he saw this statue of the Christus, he almost went bonkers. The sctiptures say Jesus loved little children...in our family it is fair to say that our little guy reciprocates that love!
We hiked up to the top of the Hill Cumorah so that the girls could see that it really is one of the tallest reas in the region, just as Joseph Smith's history states. I didn't get through suggesting the girls go looking for the buried golden plates before Madelin looked at me, half rolled her eyes, and said "whatever dad, angel Moroni has them. Duh." That's my girl!
After going to the top, we came back down...straight down the front. It's hard to appreciate from the picture bleow how steep the hill really is. But in places it's a good 45 degree incline, thus making it all the more impressive that Heather with her bump didn't roll down the hill despite being rather front heavy! :)
We also had the chance to see the log home where the Smith family lived when Jospeh and Hyrum were young. Places like this are always humbling to help put into perspective what a family of 10 lived in compared to what at times seems "necessary" today for a family half that size.
This is a pic of the upstairs bedroom where the angel Moroni appeared to Joseph on Sept 22, 1823. The beds on either side of the rom would have been for three boys each. No room for bedbugs.
From the Smith loghome and frame home (that was built mostly by Alvin before his death and which the Smith family lived in for a period of time) we went out into the Sacred Grove. To be honest, this was the part of the trip that I looked forward to above all other. Although it has been 14 years since I was last here, I remember vividly my last visit here. It is such a special place to be in and to feel of what happened here almost 200 years ago. To think that some of the trees there were witnesses of the visit of our Father and His Son to Joseph is incredible.
At one point we took a moment as a family and prayed together, and after we concluded and everyone opened their eyes it wasn't hard to see the girls understood and felt the importance of what had occured in this special place.
It was such a peaceful place that not long after stopping to pray, even Kimball was overcome. :)
It was an awesome, memorable place to be. We hope the girls will always remember the time they spent here and that their testimonies of the truthfulness of the First Vision and the restoration will grow and be shared with others.
We made a quick stop at the Palmyra Temple, which is adjacent to the sacred grove and which overlooks it to the west. There's even one window in the temple which is clear, thus allowing patrons in the temple to look out and see the sacred grove. One senior missionary explained the reasoning like this: it allows one to see the place where the restoration began from the place where the blessing of the restored gospel culminate. Well said.
After this we went into Palmyra to the E.B. Grandin printing press where the first copies of the Book of Mormon were printed. What a neat place to see. And of course there should be no surprise to hear that a number of occurances "coincidently" fell into place to allow the printing to transpire.
After this point we made one of the more memorable stops on the trip...at least for the kids. It was suggested to us that we stop at a place called Chill and Grill for lunch because their ice cream cones were rumored to be huge. No question they were - and pretty inexpensive as well (although there was a place in New Hampshire that the Jones's took us to he next night that was even better...but that is for the next blog entry).
After lunch we made tracks for Fayette, NY to the Peter Whitmer home and the site of the organization of the church. Ssee, the photo below proves it. :)
Again, a seemingly mandatory photo of the family in front of a log cabin with significance in church history! But a worthwhile stop nonetheless to see where it was all 'officially' started.
So that concludes days 4 and 5 of the trip. Well actually, it doesn't. But we didnt' take any photos of the somehwhat ghetto park in Utica, NY that we stopped at wth the intent of burning off a few calories after a dinner feast at Taco Bell that night. Our park stay was cut short to just a few minutes, however, when the language eminating from the fenced-in basketball court (that can incidentally be overheard in the background on our family videos) proved to be less then celestial and Heather and I figured a few extra Taco Bell calories added to bellies to be better than a few new four-letter word combinations added to our kids minds.
We stopped by the falls at night to see the light shows. Although they weren't exactly overwhelming, they were still worth keeping the kids up late to see since we won't be back in Canada anytime soon! They cycled from red to blue to yellow to purple and white. The lights beamed onto the American side of the falls were a bit better than those that shone on the Canadian (horseshoe) side...but neither were too spectacular.
The falls themselves were much easier to appreciate during the day. The picture below is the Horseshoe falls...
And here's Heather and the girls in front of the American falls (with rainbow bridge in the back).
Kimball loved them all, too. In fact, on the way from church this morning until we got to the falls, Kimball absolutely went off with a ginormus melt-down. Seriously, bigger than anything he has ever unleashed before. Fortunately for every other person visiting the falls at the same time we did, he settled down before we went out walking around. You can see below that while I look a little lost, Kimball has a smile on his face like he knows exactly where he is. :)
After leaving Niagara Falls and coming back into the U.S., we made our way to Palmyra, NY to visit many of the sites from LDS church history. We stopped by the Visitors Center at the Hill Cumorah first where one of the sister missionaries hosting visitors was nice enough to take this picture for us all. Side note: Kimball absolutely loves pictures of the Savior. He literally goes ape over them - waving his arms frantically, boucing up and down and jumping out of your arms to kiss them. So when he saw this statue of the Christus, he almost went bonkers. The sctiptures say Jesus loved little children...in our family it is fair to say that our little guy reciprocates that love!
We hiked up to the top of the Hill Cumorah so that the girls could see that it really is one of the tallest reas in the region, just as Joseph Smith's history states. I didn't get through suggesting the girls go looking for the buried golden plates before Madelin looked at me, half rolled her eyes, and said "whatever dad, angel Moroni has them. Duh." That's my girl!
After going to the top, we came back down...straight down the front. It's hard to appreciate from the picture bleow how steep the hill really is. But in places it's a good 45 degree incline, thus making it all the more impressive that Heather with her bump didn't roll down the hill despite being rather front heavy! :)
We also had the chance to see the log home where the Smith family lived when Jospeh and Hyrum were young. Places like this are always humbling to help put into perspective what a family of 10 lived in compared to what at times seems "necessary" today for a family half that size.This is a pic of the upstairs bedroom where the angel Moroni appeared to Joseph on Sept 22, 1823. The beds on either side of the rom would have been for three boys each. No room for bedbugs.
From the Smith loghome and frame home (that was built mostly by Alvin before his death and which the Smith family lived in for a period of time) we went out into the Sacred Grove. To be honest, this was the part of the trip that I looked forward to above all other. Although it has been 14 years since I was last here, I remember vividly my last visit here. It is such a special place to be in and to feel of what happened here almost 200 years ago. To think that some of the trees there were witnesses of the visit of our Father and His Son to Joseph is incredible.
At one point we took a moment as a family and prayed together, and after we concluded and everyone opened their eyes it wasn't hard to see the girls understood and felt the importance of what had occured in this special place.
It was such a peaceful place that not long after stopping to pray, even Kimball was overcome. :)
It was an awesome, memorable place to be. We hope the girls will always remember the time they spent here and that their testimonies of the truthfulness of the First Vision and the restoration will grow and be shared with others.
We made a quick stop at the Palmyra Temple, which is adjacent to the sacred grove and which overlooks it to the west. There's even one window in the temple which is clear, thus allowing patrons in the temple to look out and see the sacred grove. One senior missionary explained the reasoning like this: it allows one to see the place where the restoration began from the place where the blessing of the restored gospel culminate. Well said.
After this we went into Palmyra to the E.B. Grandin printing press where the first copies of the Book of Mormon were printed. What a neat place to see. And of course there should be no surprise to hear that a number of occurances "coincidently" fell into place to allow the printing to transpire.
After this point we made one of the more memorable stops on the trip...at least for the kids. It was suggested to us that we stop at a place called Chill and Grill for lunch because their ice cream cones were rumored to be huge. No question they were - and pretty inexpensive as well (although there was a place in New Hampshire that the Jones's took us to he next night that was even better...but that is for the next blog entry).After lunch we made tracks for Fayette, NY to the Peter Whitmer home and the site of the organization of the church. Ssee, the photo below proves it. :)
Again, a seemingly mandatory photo of the family in front of a log cabin with significance in church history! But a worthwhile stop nonetheless to see where it was all 'officially' started.
So that concludes days 4 and 5 of the trip. Well actually, it doesn't. But we didnt' take any photos of the somehwhat ghetto park in Utica, NY that we stopped at wth the intent of burning off a few calories after a dinner feast at Taco Bell that night. Our park stay was cut short to just a few minutes, however, when the language eminating from the fenced-in basketball court (that can incidentally be overheard in the background on our family videos) proved to be less then celestial and Heather and I figured a few extra Taco Bell calories added to bellies to be better than a few new four-letter word combinations added to our kids minds.
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