Day 9 - Niagara Falls and Palmyra

We stayed the night in Niagara Falls, NY and in the morning went over to the falls.  It was really beautiful.

The highlight was going on the Maid of the Mist boat ride to see the falls from below.  They suited us up in blue rain ponchos before hand (but they certainly didn't keep us dry).

And this is a little tribute to that crazy night at Disneyland:

The falls were stunning from the boat.  So powerful!  And worth getting soaked for.

After visiting Niagara we had to dry off so we went and ate lunch and checked into our hotel near Palmyra. After a little break, we set out again and visited the office where the Book of Mormon was first printed.  It was really amazing.  Here is a copy of the manuscript.

Here is a picture of the printing press.

And here is one of the finished copies.

Afterwards we visited the Hill Cumorah Visitor's Center.  The room with the Christus is really beautiful.  They play the same recording at each visitor's center, but I was really touched here.  It made me think about how personal the Savior is - He redeemed ME from my sins, and He visited Joseph Smith in an answer to his personal prayer.  Oh it is wonderful to me!

Then we hiked up the Hill Cumorah and visited the monument on the top. The view was beautiful!

Day 8 - Kirtland, OH

We spent day 6 and 7 in Chicago, enjoying a much needed break from the car.  It was great to be able to spend Mother's Day with Jeff's family.  Jeff gave me a great Mother's Day gift - a WHOLE DAY without having to take care of our kids.  It was the best!  I love my kiddos, but every mom needs a break every now and then, especially when you've been in the car with them non-stop.

On the 8th day of our trip we got up really early and drove to Kirtland, OH.  I loved Kirtland.  I had never been there before and I was very impressed.  It was really neat to visit the Kirtland Temple and think of the monumental events that took place there.  We got to sing "The Spirit of God" inside the temple before we left which made me think of all the miraculous things that happened at the Kirtland Temple dedication.

The temple was really beautiful and being inside reminded me of being inside of a temple.  Upstairs there are windows connecting the rooms to let in more light.  All of those windows are symmetrical and looking through them reminded me of looking into the reflecting mirrors in the sealing room or celestial room.

The church has a couple of blocks restored to how they would have been in the 1800's and that was really neat.  I especially loved being inside the Newel K Whitney Store.  The upstairs of the store was where the prophet and his family lived for a while and where the school of the prophets was held.  That was also where Joseph received the Word of Wisdom revelation.  The Spirit was very strong there.

We also visited the Whitney home.  I thought it was so cute!

They had a working sawmill where the people in Kirtland would have gotten their lumber and where the pulpits of the temple were made.

And being a chemical engineer, I really enjoyed seeing the Ashery and learning about the early "chemical plants".

Kirtland is definitely worth the trip!

Day 5 - Nauvoo to Chicago

Nauvoo is such a great place to visit.  We really wished we had more time there.  Also, it was cold and windy when we visited so we had to change some of our plans (no carriage ride).  We visited the Family Living Center where we learned about making pottery, rope, candles, and bread.

My favorite stop in Nauvoo (besides the beautiful temple) is the Scovil Bakery.  You get little gingerbread cookies when you come in!  Plus the sister missionaries there told us a very moving story about the Scovil family and their firm foundation of faith in Christ.  They related it back to the strong foundation of the bakery itself which is still original.

We visited a couple other spots then we had to go.  On our way we stopped at Carthage, which is always such a special place.  Lily was having a hard time being reverent - she's just not that into church history yet - and she kept getting into trouble.  Here she is touching the display that says "do not touch".

Here's a picture of us by the window where Joseph Smith was shot.

The missionary that gave us the tour of the jail took a really neat picture of our family.  This is a picture of us by that same window taken through the bullet hole in the door (the bullet that killed Hyrum Smith).

One of the BEST parts of the trip was meeting up with my college roommate, Becca, and her family.  They live in Illinois and it was right on our way to Chicago.  She was so nice to invite us all over for dinner.  It was so yummy, especially since we had eaten way too much fast food by this point of the trip.  It was so great to catch up and see how similar our interests still are.  Lily really loved being able to play with her kids.  It warms my heart to know that we are still good friend despite all these years and my failure to keep in touch.  Blogs are wonderful for that.

Day 4 - Independence to Nauvoo

On day 4, we traveled from Independence, MO to Nauvoo, IL.  I had never seen the church history sites in Missouri so we planned on visiting as many as we could.  We read the Our Heritage book in the car to help us prepare for seeing the sites.

Our first stop was the visitors' center in Independence.  They had a neat exhibit in the basement that explained some of the history and persecution the saints experienced in their time in Independence.  Here's us outside of the visitor's center.

Joseph Smith prophesied that Zion would be built where Independence is today and that there would be a temple there someday.  The temple site is there (but its just a big field now) and the Community of Christ church owns the land.  Here Jeff and I are at the temple site.

For lunch we wanted to go to a Jack Stack BBQ place that my dad had recommended.  I used our new GPS to help me find the closest location, and off we went.  The GPS failed us, however, and took us to a business park in some underground caverns -- I'm not kidding.

Turns out, that's where the corporate headquarters is.  Who wants to work inside a cave?!?

We ate lunch at Panera bread instead.  It was really good.  I had never been to one before, but I'd always wanted to go.

We visited the Liberty Jail.  It was so awesome to see the jail and really understand how awful it would have been to be imprisoned there.  Being in prison and away from your family must be awful, but add to that the terrible conditions (cold, unsanitary, cramped, and crowded) and the fact that you're innocent and I think it would have been almost unbearable.  I think it was Joseph's refiner's fire and it really felt like a temple.

After Liberty, we went to Far West.  The only things really left there are the cornerstones of the temple that the saints wanted to build there.  They have it nicely landscaped and you can really feel the Spirit there.  Even though Far West is in the middle of nowhere, its really worth a visit.

Finally, we visited Adam-Ondi-Ahman.  It is such a beautiful valley.  I really enjoyed visiting and walking around.  It is so peaceful.

After that, we drove on to Nauvoo to our hotel.  We got there really late and went straight to bed.

The Journey Begins

After all of our fun at Disneyland, we began our cross-country move to New Jersey.  Overall, it took us 10 days, but 3 of those days were spent with our families in Chicago and Denver.  I didn't know if I could spend that long in the car with a 3 year old and 9 month old, but it all worked out.  We stopped every 1-2 hours for Lily to go potty or to breastfeed Claire, but we got there - it just took us an extra hour or two each day.  I planned ahead and purchased some dollar store toys for Lily.  She would get one or two new toys each day, depending on how long our drive was that day.  On the way, we also planned on doing some fun activities and touring church history sites to help break up the trip.  That made it a lot of fun.  I'm going to document our trip as best I can so I'll remember in the future!

The first day we drove to Denver from Utah.  We stopped in Glenwood Springs, CO for a longer break.  Originally we planned on going swimming at the hot springs, but its pretty expensive if you're just going to be there an hour or two.  We visited a park instead and played for a while.  We got to my family's house that evening.

The 2nd day we stayed in Denver and rested.  In the afternoon, our family + Sage went to the Denver Zoo.  I really like the Denver Zoo and we had a great time and really nice weather.  Plus it was great to spend some time with Sage because we won't be there when he leaves on his mission to Sao Paolo, Brazil next month.

The 3rd day we had our longest drive (11 hours) across Kansas.  We stayed in Independence, MO at a Holiday Inn with a indoor waterpark.  When we arrived that evening we went straight for the waterpark and had a great time playing in the kiddie pool.  We went around together in the lazy river about 100 times...prolly.  We ate dinner and then went to bed to get ready for our next day when we would begin our church history tour.

Disneyland - 3rd Half

It felt like a 3rd half anyways...We went back to Disneyland on our 3rd day to revisit favorite rides and go on some of the rides we'd missed earlier because we spent too much time waiting in line to go on Finding Nemo Submarines.  Here's the photos:

I got to ride on Dumbo with Lily and I really enjoyed it!  Jeff rode with Claire.

Then Lily and I rode on the teacups.  Jeff and Claire rode together.

And we had to go on the carousel again, of course.  Notice Jeff is riding with Claire (maybe this is because I complained that I wasn't spending enough time with Lily).

We all went to meet Minnie Mouse at her house.  Lily had to go potty right before it was our turn, so we had to let a few people go in front of us in line.  Minnie was very sweet, even though we had our camera on the video setting at first (instead of the picture setting).

We also saw Princess Tiana, from The Princess and the Frog, performing.  Lily was wearing her Tiana outfit that day (from Grandma Butler).

Disneyland at Night

After our girls went to bed, The grownups went back out to play.  My parents and Sage stayed back at the hotel to babysitt and rest and the rest of the gang went back to Disneyland for a few hours.  We had a great time and got a little bit silly.  We got to see the beautiful fireworks show and then we went on Space Mountain.  While waiting in line we turned into some strange space creatures.

Apparently it was contagious.  Here's the whole group.

The funniest part was that we got on the ride this way!

We enjoyed several other rides that night.  One highlight was singing along with the pirates on Pirates of the Caribbean.  Man were we LOUD.  I felt sorry for everyone else on the ride with us (but most of them were laughing).  Our goal was to get back to the hotel about an hour before closing, but we failed.