Palmyra Family Trip

Over Memorial Day weekend we decided to take a little Church History vacation to Palmyra. We went with our friends from New Jersey, the Andersons. The trip began with a very long car ride (4 hours one day, 6 hours the next). Elisabeth really didn't ride on Maddy's lap like this, although I'm sure she would've preferred to. Actually, she did considerably well, so did the girls as long as you could keep the treats and dvds coming. (Mom and Dad how did you do it?)

We first visited The Hill Cumorrah. (Where Moroni showed Joseph Smith where the gold plates were hidden.) This was one of Aaron's favorite sites. It's too bad we won't be there for the pageant. Oh yeah, it was really windy on the top of the hill. Check out my hair!

We visited the homestead of Joseph Smith and The Sacred Grove Saturday morning. The Sacred Grove was my favorite site, Aaron's too. We visited Joseph's home first, then the house that Alvin started to build for the family later on. It was really amazing thinking about so many people living in such a small house. I was really impressed by the simplicity of life. (Really hard and diffcult, but simple.) The Sacred Grove had a really neat feeling about it. It was so peaceful and special.

Later that day we visited the Grandin Printing Shop where the Book of Mormon was first printed. A really cute sister missionary gave us a tour of the shop. I thought it was very interesting. The sister missionary said that there is no record of any print shop workers reading the Book of Mormon. Kind of interesting, but also kind of sad, too.

That day we also visited the Whitmer farm where the church was first oraganized. (Unfortuately, I forgot the camera so I have no pictures for that.)

On Sunday we drove to Niagara Falls. I guess I've always thought that Niagara Falls was one big waterfall called "Niagara", but it's really two sets of falls, American Falls and Horseshoe Falls, the Niagara River flows over them. Niagara Falls was really cool! Avery slept through the first half of the site seeing, Madelyn was pretty worried that she was going to miss it and really wanted to wake her up. It was really cute! When Avery woke up and first saw them she said, "Mommy, what's that white cloudy?" It was kind of fun for the kids because the mist from the falls got us wet a little.

Here's a little video for anyone who would like to see the falls!

Cacoon

Sparkle has started making his/her cacoon! Cool.

Maddy and Sparkle!

Maddy has a love for bugs! I guess it all began in Arkansas when Maddy was a tiny girl. On more than one occasion she could be found playing in ant piles. (We quickly discovered that Arkansas ants aren't quite as friendly as the ants we were used to. They were called "fire" ants for a reason. ) Though she didn't seem to mind too much! Last year around this time Maddy and ALL her neighborhood friends would spend hours outside our town home in Davenport, Iowa catching fireflies and squeezing their little bottoms until they lit up. This year the new bug of choice is the caterpillar. We have nests full of them all around our house. This really drives Aaron crazy because he has recently planted a garden and they eat all his veggies. Maddy is in heaven letting them crawl up and down her arms. She is constantly putting them in jars, naming them, and desperately trying to save them from her DADDY!

Krista this is for you!

Today the Lees became official bloggers. I've been thinking about this for some time now, today I took the plunge. I guess it just makes sense to communicate this way with friends and family because of the distance issue. I'm not sure why I feel a little silly doing this. (It's probably because of all those sarcastic comments people make about blogging.) You know who you are! Oh well. I'm excited to share my life in a new way with all of you!