Niagara Falls

This was our last stop before we went home. We were all way excited for this stop. We got there too late to do anything besides get dinner and go swimming. Can we talk about hotel swimming pools for a minute? Why oh why are they freezing cold? I'm pretty sure the water that was filling the hotel pool was coming straight from the falls themselves. It truly was freezing. It's awful to feel like seeing a floating ice chunk with a penguin on top of it wouldn't be too big of a shock due to the water of the pool. All I'm saying is that the pool should not have been as cold as it was and our kids shouldn't have wanted to stay as long as they did in the frigid waters.

Enough about that! The next morning we were off to see the amazing water falls!

I love that little B is waving! I am sure that he had just finished saying hi. Him saying hi and waving at the same time is like saying water and fall when you're at Niagara falls, they go hand in hand!

This was our second attempt at having a family picture. The first lady that did it stood at an angle that made it so our family covered the falls. Thankfully lady number two was able to get us and the falls behind us. To see this in person is amazing! As you are driving towards the city, you can see the mist from the falls on the

freeway.

  The first thing we did was called Cave of the Winds. We had to wear sandals that they provided, then got in the elevator and down we went. The elevator man told us that in the 1920's guys dug out the same shafts the elevators use today to get to the bottom. They didn't want to risk doing damage to the falls so they didn't use dynamite. Using pickaxes and shovels they went down 175 to get to the bottom. Crazy! Anyway, we got to the bottom , were given poncho's and set free! We could go get right next to the falls to feel the wind and the water.

I just love this picture! It wasn't staged. B was holding little B's hand. M went and held his other hand. K wanted to join in and went and held M's hand. Truly, I love it! I've said it before and I'll say it again, I just love this group of people! They are my favorite people in the whole wide world!

This is on one of the lower decks. We didn't know how the camera would do getting too close. It's a pretty sweet shot if you ask me!

 I think we had gone a little higher to take this picture. Once in awhile the wind would blow a mist our direction. Little B didn't know what to think about the whole thing, but the other two loved it!

We wanted to get a picture of the sign but the wind and the mist make it too hard to read. It says hurricane deck on the sign. The wind and the water on this deck was crazy! B said that little B did ok, he didn't complain too much, but he didn't love it. So when I got up there from taking the picture, I took the little one and moved to a side that was more calm.

B is in the light blue, M is in the pink and K in the little one in front looking down. You can't tell from the picture, but the wind on hurricane deck could blow you around if you let it. The water would spray you from all sides. The poncho's helped a little. but we all got wet from the water.

When it was my turn to go over there, I was going to put my arms up when what felt like a tidal wave hit the back of my legs. The water was FA-REEZING! The capris I was wearing got wet to above my knees. It was so awesome to be down there and feel the power coming off of these waterfalls! M, K and I walked back to B. He wanted to go again, so I took the little one and watched while he went back with the other two.

While they were on the hurricane deck I felt little B start to slump. He was asleep before they got back. I was holding him so his head was on my shoulder. I was worried about his face being in the plastic of my poncho. I laid him down in my arms but then he would get sprayed with the mist on his face and his face would scrunch up. I tried covering him as best I could without risk of suffocation by a poncho. It must have been a combination of total exhaustion and the sound of the water that put him to sleep because he never sleeps on me. He won't even rest his head on my shoulder. People would laugh and point to the baby that had fallen asleep at the base of Niagara Falls.

We had to get a picture of the sandals they made us wear. They didn't have little B's size, so he just wore his own. We got to keep them once we were done. The kiddos have loved being able to wear their Niagara Falls sandals.

I couldn't be in this picture because I was crying. This was taken right after we had looked for our camera for an hour.Thankfully B had his phone and we were still able to get this awesome picture with both the falls behind them.

We went on a boat called the Maid of the Mist. The boat takes you close to the falls so you can feel the mist from them. Both B and I were really glad that we had done cave of the winds because that one was way cooler than this one. Don't get me wrong, this one was still really cool, but we didn't get as close to the falls as we did with cave of the winds and the mist was cool, but we didn't even get wet.

This one is called American Falls. Isn't it amazing?!

This is Horseshoe falls. Both of the falls are beautiful and we loved seeing and feeling them!

I'm tellin' ya, the falls have the magic touch! Cool rainbow behind us right?!

I am so glad that we went to Niagara Falls and that we got to see them. They are truly amazing! One more question that I have. When we were there we saw a lot of Amish folk. I don't know a whole lot about them. I honestly don't know if being Amish is a religion or a culture or both. But, they don't have modern conveniences right? My question is, how do they get to these amazing places? How do they get to Niagara Falls? Did they walk? Did they drive their horse and buggy? I'm not making fun, I am just really curious as to how they get places. 

Anyhow, our family vacation was so fun and I loved every minute minus the minutes that K was lost and the minutes/hours that the camera was missing. I also didn't totally love being held hostage to the car seat and seat belt, but it was much better than I thought it would be. That is for sure a tender mercy from Heavenly Father.

This fire hydrant was on the side of the road. When we saw it we knew we needed to have K take a picture with it. He LOVED that it was painted like a minion. This may have been one of the trips highlights for him. We left Niagara falls and drove half way home. We thought half way would be Pittsburgh, PA. We were wrong. Half way was none other than middle of no where West Virginia! Oh my word I can't explain how much I have wanted to go to West Virginia and see a real live hillbilly. We had to get gasoline and I went into the station to ask where I could find one. It was late at night and the guy said,"follow the sound of the banjo's and you'll find them." I started laughing and he said,"I'm being serious." It was too late to hear banjos. He told me he could give us driving directions, but it was too late. The next morning as we started the rest of the drive home, I kept my eyes locked on the hills to see if I could see one. We saw a lot of smoke coming from the trees. I am convinced that it was coming from the hillbillies making their moonshine or cooking their vermin! I think the reason they are called the smokey mountains is because of all the smoke coming up from the hillbillies! I longed to see a real one, but this is the closest I got,

  When I saw this magnet I had to buy it. Every time I see it, it fills me with such happiness! Our trip was wonderful and amazing and we wish we could have seen a hillbilly! Maybe next time!

Palmyra

We were all really excited about going to Palmyra. Neither B or I had ever been there before. We didn't know how to get to all the church history sites. We knew there was a visitor's center, so we started there. It was the Hill Cumorah Visitor's Center. It sits at the base of the Hill Cumorah. We weren't allowed to go on the hill because it was all set up for the pageant. We found out that we were missing the start date of the pageant by two days. Bummer I know but on the other had I can't imagine that K and little B would like the pageant at all. We did climb the trail to the top of the hill and look down on it. We were surprised how far away the hill was from Joseph Smith's house. It put me in even more awe of him, that he ran through the woods so far back to his house holding the gold plates. It was probably at least three miles from the hill back to his house, at night, through the woods knowing that there were mobbers around him trying to attack him would have been truly terrifying! It's just another testament to the truthfulness of the whole thing. To me, it wouldn't be worth the risk of my life or the lives of my family if it wasn't true. I have a feeling that might be said more than once in this post! We were able to get a pretty cool family picture in the visitor's center,

 How cool is that?! They painted the background with trees so that it would resemble the Sacred Grove. I think that is really awesome! We left the visitor's center and went to the Palmyra temple. Of course, it's beautiful!

I wish there had been someone there to take a picture of all of us outside the temple, but clearly, there wasn't. The windows of this temple are not really stain glass, but they have scenes from the first vision on them. We loved walking around the temple and looking at the windows. The spirit was all over Palmyra! It was so awesome! The difference between NYC and Palmyra was almost tangible. I'm not trying to be judgmental, but when we were in the city something that kept going through my mind was the scene from the Book of Mormon in Lehi's dream of the great and spacious building. In Palmyra I felt like we were at the tree eating the fruit. That's where I want to be! That's where I want my family to be! It made me appreciate the teachings of the gospel and that I know that choosing the right is what really brings me happiness. It's not having everything the world has to offer. Truly, being in Palmyra was awesome! Sorry if I sounded preachy, that wasn't my intent, I just love the gospel and the happiness it brings to my life! Anyway, we left the temple grounds and went to the Smith family farm!

I thought that this was the original and one and only Smith family house. I learned otherwise. This is what Lucy Mack Smith called the log house. It wasn't her home, so she couldn't call it that. They built it right after they bought their 100 acres, before they could build the frame home. This is not the original home either. When the church got the land back, there was no cabin. It had be totally destroyed. They went to great lengths to find the actual spot where the house had sat. They thought they had found the original foundation because they found rusted silverware, pottery from plates and one gold bead. In Lucy Mack's journal she tells a story about how she had a necklace that had gold beads on it. One day she was in the kitchen going about her work and somehow her necklace broke. She wrote that she found all the gold beads except for one. The one gold bead that the church found was the one that she had lost. So we know that this house is sitting on the same spot that the original house was sitting on. It's built to as close at the original as they could get. Our tour guide said that there were between ten and eleven kids living in this house at one time. There would have been eleven if both Alvin and baby Lucy were alive and living here at the same time, but there's no record on that specific detail. I have no clue how a family of that size fit in this house. Just from the outside you can tell that it's not spacious by any stretch of the imagination. They must have just sat on top of each other, literally, sat on top of each other!

  The lady that took this picture was standing at the front door. There is a table in front of us, that's the only thing between us and the camera. The parents room was right across from us. If you walked to their room and through it, there was another bedroom. that was it for the downstairs. Then we went up. This is the house that the angel Moroni came to Joseph Smith to tell him about the Golden Plates. Seeing upstairs made it even more amazing that none of his siblings woke up when Moroni was there. 

This time the picture was taken at the top of the stairs. We're in front of one bed, there was a bed across the room. The boys slept out here and the bedroom behind us was for the girls. Clearly there was some heavenly sleep dust sprinkled on all his siblings so that they stayed asleep when Moroni came to see him three times in one night!

Little B loved walking on the gravel and listening to the sound it made. The barn behind him is the threshing barn. It's not the Smith's barn, that was also destroyed. The frame of the barn came from the John Young farm. John Young was Brigham Young's dad. When the church found out that the frame from the Young farm was still standing, they got it, however they do that, marked all the beams, took it apart, moved it to the Smith family farm and rebuilt it. They put up new walls and a roof and then made it look old. This barn sits right across from the frame home.

This was Lucy Mack Smith's dream home. 85% of it is original. We couldn't go upstairs, but we got to go in. This is the house they lived in when Joseph Smith was able to bring the gold plates home from the Hill Cumorah.

Little B was freaking out because he wanted to get down and walk some more, M was trying to be in charge of K and so I was reminding her that she's not in charge of him no matter how badly she wants to be. B was trying to take a picture of little B to make him happy. I don't know where K is. My guess is that he is kneeling down right in front  of M playing in the puddle that she has told him over and over again not to play in! I was telling her that I was standing right there and if K was doing something he shouldn't be, I would tell him to stop. She's trying to say,"But..." I tell her but's are for chairs and into the house we go!

We only took this one picture of the inside. Let me tell you, this house was SO much bigger than the other one! Holy smokes! I wish we had taken a picture of the rug. It wasn't a rug at all. We learned that one of Lucy Mack Smith's many talents was painting oil clothes with beautiful designs! The one on the floor was one that she had done. She used to paint them, they would take them to town and try to sell them to make some extra money. You may be thinking that it's odd that we only took  a picture of these bricks. Trust me, it's so awesome that we took this picture! These are the very bricks that Joseph Smith himself moved to hide the golden plates under one time when the mobs were coming to get them. When they weren't being hidden under the bricks, they were kept in a huge box. The box was too obvious of a spot, so they were only kept there during times of calm. I imagine that means the golden plates weren't in that box very often. Just seeing this spot gives me full body chills!

Both Joseph Smith Sr and Hyrum were Cooper's. That means they were barrel makers. This is the shed that they would make their barrels in. This isn't original, but this is the same spot and this is what the original looked like. One night Joseph Smith learned that the mobs were coming. They were coming down the street right behind where the frame home is sitting. Anyway, he heard they were coming and carried the golden plates out to this shed. He had the plates in the huge wooden box. He pulled up some floorboards, put the wooden box under the floor, replaced the floorboards and went back into the house. As he walked in he brushed off his hands and said,"I'm glad that's over with!" He had a really uncomfortable feeling. He went back out to the shed, pulled the floorboards up, took the plates out of the box, but left the box. He covered the box up with the floorboards. There was a tiny loft that he could reach flat footed. He put the plates up there and covered them with flax. He went back into the house and the mob came. The next morning he went out to the shed to check on the plates. The floor had been totally pulled up, the box the plates had been in had been smashed to pieces. His heart skipped a beat as he looked up at the loft. There untouched were the plates, still covered in flax. How awesome is that?! 

They are looking at the loft. I know that it looks really high, but the step to get in is high and if a grown man was in there, it's wouldn't be too far above his head. It amazes me that the plates always stayed safe. I know that Heavenly Father kept them safe, but there were so many times that they should have been found when they weren't. Joseph Smith sacrificed so much to keep them safe. If the Book of Mormon isn't true or important why would Heavenly Father go to such great lengths to keep them safe and why would Joseph Smith, who was only human, be so willing to sacrifice so much to protect them, translate them and make sure it got published?

After we saw the houses, barn and shed, we got to go in the Sacred Grove. To say that it was beautiful and amazing just doesn't sound right. The spirit is amazing here and it's beautiful!

Look how cute he is! He loved walking a few steps, bending down to pick up rocks and throwing them. 

 This is what it looked like through the entire thing. There are a lot of trails that branch off and go to different places. It's beautiful no matter what path you take. I love my family so much and I am so glad that we were able to go to this amazing place together!

After awhile he got tired of seeing another tree. Ok, let's be honest. It didn't even take a little while. As soon as he took one step off the asphalt in the parking lot onto the trail that was gravel, the rocks were way more interesting to him. :)

I love this picture, especially since little B is crossing his legs!

We left the Sacred Grove/the Smith family farm and drove into Palmyra to see where the Book of Mormon was published for the first time.

Of course we had to get a picture with the sign...

...And the building! The building is original, so that was really awesome to see!

This is the bookstore inside the printers. Most of the books they printed then were paperback. It was cheaper and there weren't very many books important enough to put in a leather cover. The Bible was in leather. Joseph Smith wanted people to know that the Book of Mormon was important like the Bible. He wanted it in leather. At first the printer, E.B. Grandin told Joseph Smith that he wouldn't print it because he didn't want to be persecuted. Joseph Smith took it to Rochester and found a printer willing to print it. Joseph Smith wanted to be able to oversee the printing to make sure it wasn't changed during printing. Rochester was too far away for him to oversee it. He asked E.B. Grandin again, who finally agreed to do it. He was persecuted for printing it too. On more than one occasion he had to shut down his entire shop until things calmed down again. E.B. Grandin did read the Book of Mormon just because he was printing it. He never joined the church because he never prayed about it with a sincere heart. The first copies of the Book of Mormon were being sold for $1.75. That was too much money, people couldn't afford that. They dropped the price to $1.20. Even that was really expensive. In today's money that's $200.00. For the first people that bought a copy of the Book of Mormon it was a huge sacrifice and act of faith. If I remember right, E.B Grandin was the same age as Joseph Smith and he died one year after the prophet from pneumonia. People think that the reason he was on earth was to print the Book of Mormon.  

The book on the right of the case is an actual Book of Mormon printed in 1830. They also had a copy of the sheet that Martin Harris took to Charles Anthon to have him look at the characters that Joseph Smith had translated. The R.L.D.S church owns the original and won't let the church have it, but they let them make a copy. At the top of the sheet where Joseph Smith had written it just says "caracters" The missionary giving us the tour pointed out that Joseph Smith hadn't known how to spell characters right. That right there is a little proof that there's no way he could have made the Book of Mormon up. To see the characters on the sheet was really cool! There were also original paintings that someone painted of scenes from the Book of Mormon. The guy painted them in the 1850's. He was in art school when he found and read the Book of Mormon. He loved it so much that after he was baptized he dropped out of art school, went on a mission and then painted scenes from the Book of Mormon. We didn't take any pictures of them. I wish we had, but obviously we couldn't have a flash because the paintings were so old. They were beautiful and we didn't think a picture would work with the lighting in the building and our not so fancy camera. The paintings were incredible! Even that doesn't seem like the right word. We loved being in Palmyra and seeing such amazing things and being in places where the prophet had stood and been! We left Palmyra and made the two hour drive to Niagara Falls.

 This little boy was so tired and so tired of being in the car for long stretches at a time. He kept reaching for me. I wanted to take him out so bad and love him. I was a good girl and left him alone. After about ten minutes he was able to fall asleep and he slept almost the entire drive. Needless to say, he was so happy to get out of the car once we got to Niagara Falls!

New York part II

I just want to start out by saying that I didn't hate NYC, It's just a disgusting chaotic city that has crazy human life forms that are interesting to watch. I had a great time with my little family, I was just trying to help people visualize what it's like if they've never been there. Anyway, we decided to go to Ground Zero at the last minute. I am so glad we did, for B and I it was really awesome. M and K had a really hard time imagining someone flying a plane into buildings on purpose. They both asked if people died and why the people would do that. Seeing the fountains that are now there where the twin towers used to stand left us speechless.

 They are standing in front of one of the fountains. The reflective building behind them in the One World Trade Center that is being built.

I am glad that I had my sunnies on. I would be lying if I said that I didn't cry a little. To be there and to see how big the area was and to be able to remember that day made me really sad. More sad than I thought it would. It also made me feel so patriotic! I felt so proud to be an American and see that as a nation, life has kept going. The bad guys didn't win, they didn't knock us all the way down and keep us there. It truly was so awesome to be there!

What's not to like about this one?!

He had so many questions. He wanted to know why. We tried telling him as best we could, but hearing that there are people that don't like America and that they flew an airplane into a building on purpose just didn't make sense to him. He asked if there were mom's and dad's that died. We said that there were a lot of mom's and dad's that died. We learned that the oldest victim was 85 and the youngest was 2. He wanted to know their names and what they were doing in the building and why they didn't get out in time. He wanted to know if the planes exploded and started the buildings on fire. He truly wanted to know everything. He still talks about how big the holes are and that there were guys that flew airplanes into buildings and that he doesn't get why.

We tried to get a picture with people and the One World Trade Center, but it's so big that we couldn't do it. I wish I could put into words how awesome it was to be there, but I'm no good with words. All I know is that we loved it there and are really happy that we went.

Our hotel had a rooftop terrace. It was really cool to go up there at night and to look around. Little B wanted to climb over the side to get to the lights. 

It's truly a miracle that we got little B to turn around for the picture. I asked M why she had a jacket tied around her neck. She just started laughing and shrugged her shoulders. I love this little group of people so much! I loved being with them non stop for ten days!

Day three in NYC was dedicated to the Statue of Liberty! That was M's pick of something she really wanted to do. It did not disappoint! There is a family in our ward that said we didn't need to go to liberty island to get close to the statue. We could just look at it from across the bay. They were right, we could have, but I am so glad that we didn't listen to them and that we went to liberty island! We thought that it would take longer than it did to get there. We were there about an hour before our boat was going to leave. We took that opportunity to try a slice of real life New York pizza. It didn't look very good, but, it tasted 

a-mazing!

The cheese one wasn't as good as the bbq chicken one was, but it was still good. The slices are huge! B and I shared one and I was full. I can't imagine eating one all by myself. 

This is leaving the harbor on our way to liberty island

Look how awesome that is! Neither of them could look away. I wanted a picture with all three littles looking at her, but I was too nervous that little B would dive out the window, so he's not in the picture.

  This is taken at the pedestal. Her feet were right above our head. They have a height requirement to go to the crown. K was too short and they don't allow babies. It wasn't too crowded here, so that was nice. It was so cool to listen to the audio they had playing in the museum. They had people reading actual accounts of what immigrants thought when they saw her standing in the harbor as they came to America. They said that they were excited and nervous at the same time. They could see New York across the harbor but they had to go through Ellis Island. It was in that building that they were told if they could come to America or not. There were so many that made it across the ocean only to have to turn around and go home again. There were families that were torn apart as some of them could come in and some of them couldn't. There weren't very many that if one couldn't come, they all left again. They all wanted to be in America so bad that they would split up and hope that their other family members would be able to come in someday. Being there made me so thankful that I was born here and that living here is the only thing I've known. What a huge blessing that I take for granted almost every day.

M was so excited to be the Statue of Liberty. I think this picture is so awesome! We loved being there and spent more time than I thought we would. K got lost again here. I know, you're thinking that I'm a horrible mom that I lost the same kid twice on the same trip. We had gone into the gift shop. He had seen a monkey that had the crown on it. He asked if he had enough money for it. He didn't, so I told him to go put it back. We went to look at the Christmas tree ornaments that they have. We like to get one of places we've been. The ornaments were two tables over from the basket of monkey's. I told him to come over there, he didn't hear me or forgot, and walked away. M asked where he was, I panicked because the store was so crowded and it opened to outside. I was worried that he had thought we had left and went outside. I started yelling his name over and over. I went to the doorway and yelled outside. I had just gone back inside when I heard,"Here he is mama, here he is." A lady had him by the hand and was walking towards me. He was in tears. The lady had found him and asked him what color shirt I was wearing. He couldn't remember but said that B had on a brown one. That's when he heard me yelling for him and told the lady it was me. The whole thing lasted about three maybe four minutes. But those few minutes felt so long. I had about a million thoughts go through my mind while I couldn't find him. I was reminding myself of what he was wearing. Thinking of places he could go. Making sure that I had told him more than once that day that I loved him. And praying over and over that we would find him and that he would be ok. After we loved him and made him hold onto the stroller at all times, not that he wanted to let go, B reminded me that at least we were on an island, so if someone had taken him, they wouldn't have anywhere to go. That's true, but I'm glad that he had just gotten to the front of the store. We told him that maybe we should put the leash on him instead of on little B. That made him laugh as he protested that idea!

After the Statue of Liberty we made the five hour drive to Palmyra. All three kiddos slept a good chunk of the way. We wished there was a way to get all of them in one shot, but there wasn't. Just imagine little B in a rear facing car seat with his head to the side sleeping as we left NYC behind and went to Palmyra!