Kirtland, Ohio Post

So here is my spritual Kirtland, Ohio post. We totally weren't even planning to go here, but it was kind of on our way to Rochester, so we stopped. We got there in the nick of time and got to do part of the tour. It's always good to leave more to see, so you have a reason to go back.

We also had Stake Conference today which means the various congregations from around the city all meet together for 2 hours at the Stake Center. The Stake President told us how he recently visited Kirtland, Ohio. It was cool because we, like, totally knew what he was talking about when he referred to the temple and stuff.

This is the Kirtland Temple. It was the first temple built by the Saints. It took them two years and a lot of sacrifice to build. (It is now owned by the Community of Christ which is the RLDS church). Shortly after the temple opened (about 2 years), the Saints moved westward in 1838 to get away from the persecution. Total bummer, but the temple served its purpose and the Saints moved on and built more temples.

This is the front of it. The tour guide told us to be reverent inside, but didn't say anything about reverence outside. We let the kids run around before we went back to the LDS Visitor's Center. It was pretty cool inside. There are 3 floors. The bottom floor is the holy of holies. The second floor looked similar to the first floor, but it was used more for schooling. The third floor was 5 rooms used for schooling and meetings. And I was totally going to find a link for you to see the inside since we couldn't take pictures, but there isn't ANY! Which is weird because they totally had pictures of the inside on the brochure. So I guess you will just have to visit it yourself.

This is back at the LDS Visitor's center. It is the Newel K. Whitney store. The Whitneys were a well-to-do family that became faithful members of the Church.

This is a room above the store that many revelations were received.

This is where they held the School of the Prophets. This is the room that the men would meet and use and smoke their tobacco and Emma Smith basically said, "Enough of the disgustingness!" Then Joseph received the Word of Wisdom revelation and which tells us not to smoke; not to drink alcohol, coffee, or tea; and to be sure to eat stuff that is good for us like whole wheat, fruits, and vegetables. Can you see all the orbs in the picture? My husband says it's just dust, but I think it's little revelations waiting be be received.


This is an old picture of the Whitney's home. We know they were wealthy because it was painted yellow and yellow paint had to be imported. They also had two kitchens, a summer kitchen and winter kitchen. It had something to do with keeping the temperature of the house just right during the different seasons. As you can see in the picture they also had a state-of-the-art side-by-side Jeep stroller which was something most people didn't have until the late 20th century.

These are the toilets at the Visitors Center. They are so clean you could eat off of them, but we didn't. I just let my girls sit on them without a seat cover.


The church really does stuff right, like crown molding on top of the door inside the bathrooms. It's all about attention to detail...

... like blankets in the room where we watched the movie.

It was a great little sightseeing trip. I think the thing that hit me the most was that these people had nice houses for the time period and they were asked to leave everything and travel onward. That must have been a huge deal and they did it anyway. All I have to do is go to church and teach a lesson every now and then. I can deal.

Nani's Birthday Party

So the whole purpose of our trip to New York was for my grandmother's 90th birthday party. Yay for being old! I hope to live to my nineties. It was a great day. One of my cousins and his family hosted it at their house, my parents ordered some good food and cake, other family members contributed, and I simply showed up with my husband and kids and enjoyed the party (and took pictures, of course). There were also fun activities for the 14 great grandchildren that were in attendance. (Two great grandchildren couldn't be there, my brother's kids.) Here are some pictures of the party:

The cake. It was beautiful, but we probably should've requested more flowers because there were lots of great grandchildren begging for a piece with a flower. I guess we'll remember that for next time for the 100th birthday cake.

This is Nani and her stylish sunglasses.

This is the other birthday girl, my mom. She was born on her mother's birthday. How cool is that? Wendy was almost born on my birthday, but I'm kind of glad I don't have to share. Notice Rachel is allowing someone besides me to hold her. That was somewhat miraculous. I think it was her birthday present to my mom.

The oldest person at the party.

The second youngest person at the party.

(My cousin has a child 7 months younger.)

My aunt gave the kids ice cream cones. A big hit.

Party favors. Really cool balls that light up when you bounce them.

Jason kept saying, "It's working!"

It was a great day. A relative later told me on our trip that my grandmother said, "It was the best party that she has ever been to."

Here's a 10 second video clip of the end of the Happy Birthday song.

I love how Nani says at the end, "Let's have cake now."

I am your travel guide to Western New York

So if you ever decide to take a trip to Western New York, perhaps for a little church history tour, I am your travel guide. The Genesee Country Village and Museum is a great place to visit. It helps to teach about 19th century living. Here are a few pics of our visit.

Just imagine the Little House on the Prairie Theme Song.

This is a Tollhouse. Back in the day somebody privately owned the tollhouse and charged for traveling the plank road that was beyond it. This was not a place where you could purchase chocolate chip cookies.

A rich person's house in the late 1800's.


I guess the rich people had some funky looking chidren.




Pioneer toys.

Jason got stung by a bee and the pioneers happened to have a bee sting kit.

The first Pottery Barn.

A weaving loom. That thing was intricate and amazing. It took them 3 months to weave about 5 yards of fabric.

Every room we went in that had a broom, the girls just couldn't resist sweeping. I don't know why they don't have that urge at home. I almost bought an old fashioned broom to take home with me to see if it would help inspire them.

There's more, but I won't bore you and will let you see for yourself when you visit.

Thanks goes out to my cousin-in-law, Carla, for recommending this educational activity! (She's a first grade teacher.)

Our First Day in NY

Friday Morning we headed over to my grandmother's apartment. I gave Rachel to my grandmother, Nani. Rachel does not like to be separated from me even if I am within view. But she was so polite. I think she knew Nani was very old and that it was her duty to sit still and not cry. She sat on Nani's lap for quite some time, but you can see in her eyes a plea for help.

Nani received some beautiful flowers from my brother's family. She loved them!

We went to Schaller's for dinner. They possibly have the best hots and hamburgers ever. But no free refills on drinks! That is so old school! In Rochester you have a choice of red or white hot dogs. White hot dogs are basically not smoked or cured which allows them to retain their natural color (at least that is what wikipedia says).

The ketchup boys. Schaller's also has 2 large buckets of sliced pickles, sweet or dill. That was always my favorite part of the restaurant because I love pickles. I used to love dill, but my taste has shifted to sweet. I wish I took a picture of them! Darn!

Then we went to the park. I have given up on ever getting a good picture of all six kids.

A Little Vacation Journaling

I am lazy as can be today. But I did clean out the van and emptied it of the many animal crackers and Teddy Grahams that were under car seats and on the floor. I have lots of pictures to go through from our trip. Here are a few:

First stop: Charleston, West Virginia. We took a family picture at a rest stop. We had to buy a Mountain Dew while in WV because that is the state beverage. Unfortunately I accidentally bought a diet which totally doesn't count, but I didn't have enough change to get another regular one.

Next stop: Kirtland, Ohio. And yes, I ride with a camera in my hand at all times.

We stopped at the Kirtland LDS Vistors Center. According to the placement of Jason's head, it looks like "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latte Aints." Which is also true. I'll talk more about our visit in Kirkland, perhaps in a spiritual Sunday post.

After my husband put the stroller in the van, he forgot to replace my toiletry bag. Thank goodness I noticed. I don't know what I would do without my Neutragena age reversal cream!

I think I might have my blogging momentum back again. Yay!

Still here.

I'm alive and well at home sweet home. I'm just not an excellent vacation blogger. I will be back....

Vacation Day 8

Today we went to a place called Genesee Country Village and Museum. It was really awesome. It's basically a fake 19th century town set up with real old houses that they moved or rebuilt from the various surrounding areas. We were there for the entire time they were open from 10 AM to 4 PM. They should really be open longer because there is soooo much to see. When we first arrived we bought the girls bonnets at the gift shop and the boys civil war soldier caps. Being that we are in NY, the Union caps were in low supply. The boys got Confederate hats. My husband said he got some weird looks while he walked around. (Yes, David got a cap and I got a bonnet too.) I will have to post some pictures when I get home.

When we got back to the hotel, Sarah pointed to her head. I was confused. She pointed to her head again. I asked, "What do you want?"
She said, "Mommy, you knooooow. My bra-ah"
"You're bra?"
"Yes, my bra. I wore it all day."
"A bra?"
"Yes. My blue bra."
"You mean your bonnet?"
"Yeah, my bonnet!"

I'm so glad that I clarified that it was her bonnet that she wanted to wear. I don't need her coming home from vacation to tell her friends and teachers that she went to a really cool place that her parents bought her a bra to wear on her head.

Vacation Day 7

I've been unsuccessful at maintaining a daily blog while on vacation, but every other day isn't so bad, is it?

Today we went to dip our toes in Lake Ontario. I thought it would be cool for my kids to say they've touched a Great Lake. I was wrong. They were totally unimpressed by the lake that appears as big as an ocean. It was too cold and too mossy. But we collected some sand, rocks, and shells in a plastic Walmart bag. I thought it would be cool to collect sand from different beaches we visit around the country. But I sadly left it sitting on a bench at the carousel ride at the park. Emily cried because she had picked out some really cool rocks.

Anyway, the lake, carousel, and frozen custard was the most exciting thing we did all day. On our way back to the hotel from from my grandmother's house, we passed the mall I used to go to as a kid. It was actually two malls, but shortly after my family moved to California in 1984 they connected the two malls to make it one big mall. It was an exciting event for the community and they held a contest to help name the new mall. I remember my grandmother telling us about the contest and asking for suggestions to submit. I don't remember our ideas or even what the prize was. As we drove past the mall tonight I noticed the sign and ..... brace yourself.......because you're never going to guess what they named it......... ready?.........

The Mall

Yes, someone likely won a $200 gift certificate to Sears for that ingenious idea. Why didn't I think of that?

Sorry for the lack of photos. I forgot my USB cord for my camera and my husband is a little possessive of his computer. I promise to post some when I get home. I have LOTS of them to choose from. We took my cousins's 6 year old daughter to the children's museum with us yesterday and she said, "Man! You are the picture family!"

That's right!

Vacation Day 5

Today we had a restful day and went to church. It's always fun to visit a new church and see the different people, a different building with its different smell, different accents, and different teachers. As we got out of the car a friendly lady came over to us and asked if we were visiting or new to the ward. You could see the disappointment on her face when we said we were just visiting. But she continued to be friendly. During the three hours of church I made some observations:

1. The ward we attended LOVES announcements. They announced EVERY activity for the entire month of September and there were a lot of them.

2. The opening hymn was #242 Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow which is only one short verse. I think they have to have a short opening hymn to compensate for the 10 minutes of announcements.

3. Grey is the preferred choice of suit color. Of course there were some blues and blacks, but there was a lot of grey. I think the men like to try to match their suits to to the color of the clouds in the sky. (Rochester is commonly cloudy.)

4. This church building needs some new plumbing for their baptismal font. One guy mentioned that it takes 6-7 hours to fill the font. So either the font is enormous, the faucet is ridiculously slow, or they fill it by hand with a turkey baster. Needless to say they probably never have any morning baptisms.

5. Most of the people in this ward were converts. Which makes sense because the Latter-day Saints packed their bags and wheat and left Western New York heading westward about 180 years ago.

6. One man after church asked if he could take Jason home with him. Jason looked at the man like he was crazy. Then the man proceeded to ask the rest of the children if he could take them home. Wendy forcefully said no with a smile, but when he asked Wendy if he could take Emily home, Wendy nodded yes. (She didn't care, as long as it wasn't her.) Then the man said he had 12 children, but it made me kind of wonder how he got those children. Did he get them by taking them home from church?

7. The diaper changing station was installed too high. It must have been installed by a tall man.

Now we must take a moment of silence.............................


because.........................................................

this:

IS GONE!!! It brings a tear to my eye that a Honda dealership would dare tear this beautiful structure down in order to park a few Civics and Accords. It is positively shameful!

Vacation Day 3

Took the kids to a park today. They had to wear jackets!! It's August 28th and they are wearing jackets!! It just isn't right. Anyway, I complain when it's hot. I complain when it's cold. If only it could be 80 degrees every day.

We took the kids to the hotel pool tonight (indoor). Our family was briefly hanging out in the hot tub while some rambunctious boys were playing in the pool. Another woman came in and saw us and asked, "Is this a birthday party?" It made me laugh because that would be a funny kid's birthday party swimming in a hotel pool at 9:30 PM. This same lady saw Rachel and thought she was really cute. Rachel was crying because she didn't have a good nap today and the lady picked her up to try and console her and admire her cuteness. I thought it was a little weird, but I allowed her. Then she said, "You are so cute I could steal you." Then she proceeded to the door. I thought that kind of crossed the line and I jumped out of the pool and grabbed Rachel out of her arms. But it ended up that she was just opening the door to let her 11 year old son inside the pool area. Then she said, "I wasn't really going to steal her." I was relieved and we ended up having a nice conversation about how we were both visiting Rochester to celebrate our grandmother's birthdays.

Picture uploading is super slow today. Sorry you only get one.

Vacation Day 2

It's WAY too late to upload photos, so text it is.

We reached our destination of Rochester, NY today. I totally did not know that Kirtland, Ohio was on our route so we stopped and toured the Whitney store and home and saw some cool stuff that I will post later. It was also a nice bathroom stop at the LDS visitor center where I didn't even bother to worry about toilet seat covers. We also got to tour the Kirtland Temple which happens to be owned by the RLDS church. But they call themselves the Community of Christ so it's kind of tricky. I didn't realize that it was he Reorganized church until about halfway through the movie that they were showing us. We got to go inside the temple. I wasn't allowed to take pictures though. At the visitors center they had some paintings of church leaders. They are of real church leaders such as Joseph Smith, Sydney Rigdon, etc. But they reminded me of the paintings that you would see in Disney's Haunted mansion. I wasn't allowed to take pictures of those either which is too bad.

Gosh I wish I could post some pictures, but I really need to go to sleep.

Vacation Day 1

The seating arrangement.

Rachel fell asleep shortly after departure.

My least favorite part of vacations - public restrooms. We survived 4 of them today.

Burger King for lunch. I've never seen kids so excited over paper crowns before. They were a hit!

Jason shoving his eighth granola bar into his mouth. I told my husband that the kids seated closest to the front are going to be our fat kids because they have constant access to the snacks. It kept Jason quiet and happy.

A really cool tunnel in Virginia. There were 2 of them.

Pizza Hut for dinner. We stopped a travel food court thingy in West Virginia.

Not happy about tonight's sleeping arrangement.

We are such rebels. We snuck 8 people into our 4 person max capacity room. Shhh! Don't tell!

Off to sleep!

Holy Cow!

Tonight I was putting stuff in the van. Emily was helping. She let out a huge fart. I said, "Holy cow! Emily!" She shamefully said, "Yeah, I have issues." I'm glad she realizes that.

Digging for Content

I was busy getting ready for our trip today. I sat the kids on the couch and told them to watch as much TV as they wanted as long as they didn't make any messes. Surely I can count 2 episodes of Spongebob, 2 episodes of Tom and Jerry, 1 episode of Doctor Who, 2 episodes of Go Diego Go, and 2 episodes of iCarly as homeschooling. Right? My plan didn't work though. There were crackers and pretzels all over the family room floor by the end of the day. But I did get some packing done. So since today was quite boring on the blog front, I dug into my stash for some content for today's post.

I took this video when we were at the really cool park with the boat. I know Jason has his fans. This one is for you, folks.


Brief Synopsis: Jason eats a cupcake. He prematurely finishes the cupcake because he doesn't like messy hands and he looks for a wipe. He refuses the dirty used paper towel I offer. He wants to "wash the hands" but quickly finds that licking does a satisfactory job. At the end he burps, but mistakes it for a fart and my husband complains in the background that I'm taking too long of a video of Jason. (Because he wanted me to take a picture of him with his girls sitting on the grass.)

Here's the picture I took when I finished the video:

Don't you agree the video was much cuter?

Back to packing.....

Sunday

First order of business: Proof that I went to Sunday School.

A friend of mine took a picture of my husband and I in today in Sunday School and I had this surprise picture in my email when I got home. It's seems almost miraculous to be sitting in a pew with my husband close enough to put his arm around me. We usually spend Sacrament meeting sitting on opposite ends of the pew wrestling children. Which leads me to tell a short story about today's wrestling match:

It was during the second speaker that I found Jason coloring with a pink colored pencil on the pages of the hymn book. Not inside the hymn book, but on the edges of the closed book. I VERY kindly said, "No. No. We don't color on hymn books." He puckered his bottom lip and silently wimpered. I guess I hurt his feelings. I held out my arms to him with a smile inviting him to sit on my lap. My children usually never pass up a lap invitation because there is usually competition for church lap sitting. I was trying to set a good example and keep my eyes on the speaker and I heard and felt a huge slap on my arm. Although my child just hit me, I didn't want to make a big deal of it, so I used the ignore method and watched Jason out of my periphereal vision crumple and throw papers. However, when he got to the point of throwing hymn books I knew I needed to put a stop to it. At this point Rachel was sitting on my lap and my husband had Wendy on his lap and he was listening intently to the speaker give a good talk. I tried to get his attention before the commotion escalated. Somehow the communication failed. He saw me, but didn't understand the severity of the discipline needed. I knew Rachel would freak out if I left her, so I picked Jason up in one arm and Rachel in the other and walked to the exit carrying the 55 pound load and pushed the door open with my foot. I'm sure it looked very graceful. I kindly disciplined him and we went back in for the third speaker. So yes, it's nice to sit directly next to my husband every now and then in church and I have plans to purchase a few new hymn books for our ward after our children are grown.

Then we came home and Jason taught Rachel how to make scrambled eggs:

"First you crack eggs and add a little milk. You know, that stuff that Mommy puts in your sippy cup. Mommy usually cracks most the eggs, but she let me crack one today in a separate bowl. I did good job."

"Then you turn the handle and those things go round. And don't forget to stick your tongue out when you concentrate on this step."

"Good job, Rachel. Now we cook them."

Hair Cuts

It's my husband's job to cut the boy's hair. It's my job to take pictures.

I didn't a get complete "after" picture. But he does look handsome! There wasn't as much wailing and gnashing of teeth as the pictures imply. We had to wake him up from a nap so he could only muster a few pathetic facial expressions and wimpers.

Today we cleaned out the van in preparation for our upcoming road trip. I tried ejecting the CD that was in the player and there was an "ERR" message on the display. I tried again and it made an awful clicking noise and displayed an, "ERR". We shimmied a brochure, coat hanger, screw driver in there and tried again and it said, "NO OJ". (What?! Duh, I know there is no orange juice in there. Although..... I couldn't be completely sure that there wasn't.) The children were in there the day prior cleaning out the junk. After several more attempts at trying to get out the stuck CD or whatever was in there (Quarters? Gift card? Gas receipts? Orange juice?) and shoving another CD inside, I went into the house to Google, "How to get stuck CD out of car CD player." I tried a very MacGyver maneuver suggestion and used a putty knife and some duck tape and WALLAH! All 3 CDs came out! I was so proud of myself for saving who knows how much money it would've cost to get it fixed. I also saved us a future road trip filled with boredom as we travel through the hills of West Virginia with awful radio stations.

At lunch I asked Jason if he put a CD in the car radio. With proud eyes he replied, "Yeah! TWO!" Needless to say we quickly figured out who the guilty suspect was.

I Heart ...

... Zac Efron.

A friend of mine had a friend who gave her a bunch of hand-me-down girls clothing that was passed on to my daughter Emily. You can imagine my delight when I saw this High School Musical shirt. It was a couple sizes too big for Emily, so I decided to take ownership. This was an instance that I was grateful for my small chest because I was able to squeeze into it. But I had to put a tank on underneath because I won't go as far to sport my midriff. Bellybuttons after being pregnant six times aren't a pretty sight. I even have a zit on my forehead to match my new attire. Seriously, tweens are so lucky to be able to wear silk screened t-shirts of their favorite celebrities. I've always been so envious.....but not anymore!

Serious

When Rachel got up from her nap she had some serious chenille pillow indentations.

That's all for today. I'm doing some SERIOUS cleaning of the downstairs tonight!