I feel like the month of July was spent on the road living out of suitcases. Our ultimate destination was a family reunion in Vermont, but along the way there and coming back we stopped in Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania and Indiana.
First stop: Kirtland Ohio
We had been to Kirtland once before when Will was around Sarah's age, but Will didn't remember much
and Kayla and Sarah had never been, so we spent a few hours exploring. We also got to see the Kirtland temple, which is something we didn't do the last time we were there.
According to the sister missionary giving us the tour, this was the river where many of the early Saints were baptized. Kayla was really interested in this story and kept wanting to see the river.
The Newel K. Whitney store. It was so fun being here with older kids because they could actually ask questions and it was cool to see them so interested in things.
I believe this was Joseph and Emma Smith's home. Or maybe the Whitneys, I forget now.
The Kirtland temple. It was interesting seeing the inside and realizing how different this temple is from the temples we have today.
Next stop: Palmyra New York
Bill really wanted to go to the Hill Cumorah pageant, and thankfully we got there right as it was starting. We've now been to the Manti pageant, Nauvoo pageant and Hill Cumorah pageant. The next day we went to the Palmyra temple and visitor's center then to the Sacred Grove
.
Kids in front of Palmyra temple
Path leading to the Sacred Grove
It was neat to explain to the kids that this (or a similar area - it was a big place) was where Joseph Smith prayed and was visited by Heavenly Father and Jesus. I don't know about the rest of the family, but I definitely felt the Spirit as as we were walking through.
Next stop: Sharon Vermont
Our last stop before getting to the reunion was Joseph Smith's birthplace. We went to church that morning, which happened to be right next to the visitor's center and monument.
Finally we got to the family reunion at a beautiful house right across the street from Lake Champlain in northern Vermont. What followed was a week full of fun, laughter, games, music, chatting, swimming, and LOTS of food. There were day trips to the Ben & Jerry's ice cream factory, a petting zoo, Montreal, and various shopping trips to the nearest big city. There were wagon rides and games in the backyard, deep discussions on the back porch and lake deck, family pictures taken hurriedly before the rain came, and overall a fabulous time.
The Lake: There were various boats, kayaks, and boards for us to use whenever we wanted, so we spent a lot of time on the lake. Bill took each of the kids out numerous times for rides, and Will ended up being really good at whatever boat or board he decided to try. Bill even convinced me to get into the canoe on one of our last days.
The yard: This house had a huge backyard, which all of us took
advantage of at least a few times a day. There was a cute little wagon
that various small children gravitated towards on a regular basis, there
was a little pond with frogs in it, places for people to eat meals if
they wanted, and plenty of space to play various games.
Petting farm and ice cream: About an hour away from where we were staying there was a cute little petting farm with a small store that some of us visited for a little while. The kids - most of them anyway - (Sarah seems to have developed a small fear of animals, she preferred being on the playground) enjoyed feeding and petting the animals, then we all got to enjoy some maple-flavored ice cream cones before heading home.
The Talent Show: My sister-in-law decided that I should be in charge of the family talent show, and I tried to take the job seriously. I emailed people ahead of time to let them know that they were welcome to plan a little something if they wanted to, but there was no pressure. I was pleasantly surprised that there were a number of people willing to participate. We had serious entries, such as a voice/ukelele duet, a dance number, and a couple of piano numbers. We also had various not-so-serious entries, such as a children's book reading, a group song to the tune of "The 12 Days of Christmas", and "the annoying kids" which consisted of two of the oldest cousins putting on what can only be described as a variety show-type performance. Let's just say it lived up to its name :)
Family pictures: We picked a day to take family pictures during the middle of the week. We had been asked to try our best to color-coordinate (blue and green were the main colors with one or two other colors mixed in). I received the email, then promptly forgot to remind my kids to pack accordingly. Miraculously, Kayla and Sarah managed to put something in their suitcases that worked. Will...not so much. Thankfully he didn't stand out too badly. We had the beautiful lake as our backdrop and I think they turned out pretty good.
I really like this one of Bill, his siblings and his parents
Downtime and family bonding: Amid all the activities that we planned we managed to have some time to either just hang around the house or explore the various places around us at our leisure. For example, a couple of families drove up to Canada for the day while the others stayed home and took a walk down to a local rock quarry; Bill and I got to go for a walk by ourselves and caught a beautiful sunset; Bill and Will went hiking with Uncle Michael and Chandler; the older kids spent some time laughing together while doing MadLibs; all the kids seemed to enjoy building Lego towers; Grandma Evans came up with an awesome Family Bingo game; kids enjoyed finding rocks at the lake or watching the frogs in the pond; the adults stayed up playing various board games after the kids went to bed; and the list goes on.
These three boys are the cutest. Alex (in the red) was constantly on the move, entertaining everyone with his squeal and huge grin.
These two were dubbed the "cousin twins". I loved all the little babies around the house all week.
At the end of the week it was hard to say goodbye to everyone, but the fun wasn't over for our family. Bill needed to get to a physics conference in Maryland a couple of days after the reunion ended, so we drove down to Pittsburgh, went to church, then Bill caught a flight while I drove the rest of the way home with the kids. Thankfully my wonderful in-laws decided to come back with me. So my mother-in-law drove with me and the kids while my father-in-law drove their car. It was an amazingly uneventful and easy trip, minus the HUGE downpour we experienced in Indiana for at least 30-45 minutes. But we got home safely and survived the 3-4 days Bill was gone. The day he returned the kids and I got back into the car and drove 2 hours to Indianapolis to pick him up. The reason was so that we could attend the Indianapolis Indiana Temple open house. I hadn't been to an open house since I was in high school, and this was the first one for our kids so it was really special. I'm very excited that this is going to be our temple so we'll get to see it a lot. I'm also excited because we will get to see some good friends of ours that used to be in our ward here in Illinois. We got to visit with Lisa and her cute kids after the open house, and I'm excited to renew those friendships during various temple trips in the future.
It was an awesome trip with wonderful memories, but like Dorothy says in the Wizard of Oz: "There's no place like home". We're glad to be back and are anxiously looking forward to the start of school in a couple of weeks.
