My newest hobby...

This is my first scrapbook page ever.... I am proud of myself to say the least. I have been wanting to do this for a while now, but am just getting around to it. I can see that some of the photos are a tiny bit lopsided, but well it is my first page. :) All advice is welcome... My favorite part is the "Amy Butler" paper!!!!

Who knew...

On our last trip to Palmyra we saw this at a gas station and couldn't resist laughing out loud and taking a picture! Its a fishing "Live Bait" vending machine! It sold everything from night crawlers to crabs! Too funny! (I guess i should add that we don't fish, maybe this is a normal thing in the fishing world... it probably isn't funny to those that spend lots of time fishing!)

Ciella's very own computer!

Garrett gave Ciella his old lap top computer, he's had it since 2002. Its mostly been his backup. But since he got to buy a new Mac Book Pro for his Architecture Program(which he starts on the 27th and cant wait!!!), Ciella inherited the lap top! Garrett bought her an "ABC's and 123's" computer game. At first her favorite thing to do with it was pull off the keys, but she has slowly learned to like it. I think the 2nd picture tells you how much she loves it! Hopefully she'll learn something from it too.

More sightseeing...

Garrett's brother Gavin is visiting us for the next week and so we are re-visiting all the tourist spots again!!! And some new ones too! so here goes...

Garrett and Gavin at Lake Erie, being silly brothers as usual. (Gavin in blue, Garrett in brown)

We had lunch at the famous "Anchor Bar", where the original Buffalo Wings came from. They were delicious! (Now we are officially Buffalonians... Sharon)

We headed down to the Buffalo waterfront, this is Lake Erie. it was just like we were standing at the ocean, it was beautiful! It is huge...

The Lighthouse!(its no longer active)

And of course we had to hit up Niagara Falls again so Gavin could go...I'm sure we will go to Palmyra too, if we take any exceptionally nice photos I'll post those too...

To neglect or not to neglect...

I have noticed lately, while contemplating my own blogging experience and reading those of others, we neglect our children while we blog (or at least i do). -edit: this post is supposed to be humorous, just in case you didn't gather that while reading my thoughts.
Ya know, I enjoy blogging, I enjoy reading other people's blogs... as we all do, so this morning I am reading a friend of a friends blog and I start thinking about my own child, who I can no longer hear, and well what do ya know, she is right be behind me. And guess what she has found... the gum in mommy's purse...
This reminds me of another blogging "neglect" story... This was actually the very first time I blogged, i was trying out this whole scene and while doing so I payed very small attention to my small child. Who was just crawling around on the floor when she came to our lamp, floor to ceiling lamp that is with a beautiful glass shade... well she decided this lamp would be an excellent crutch to stand up with. And it was, she stood. Then fell and took the lamp with her... Yes this lamp was at like a perfect angel when she fell, and as if to let me know I was paying too little attention to her, the lamp fell at me. The glass of the shade came to a fast stop on the very corner of the desk I was sitting at, so it caught me off guard to say the least and shattered all over me and the desk. Thankfully not reaching Ciella!

This is the lamp before...

This is the lamp after...

You'd think i have learned my lesson, but no, still today I was blogging and once again paying little attention to my child and look what happened... she found the gum! Might I add a small note to redeem myself... I do usually try and blog when Ciella is sleeping or if Garrett can help me watch her, but sometimes I just cant help my self...

Palmyra!!!

Well, living only about 1 hr and 15 minutes away from all the Church Historic sites in Palmyra is better then I thought it would be, and I thought it would be great!!! It was so wonderful to see all these sites I taught so much about on my mission. The First Vision in the Sacred Grove, Hill Cumorah and the Gold Plates, and the actual original home Joseph Smith hide the Gold Plates... it was incredible!

Our first stop, The Hill Cumorah! So beautiful. We stopped here and had lunch at the top and looked out at all the beautiful scenery!

This is the beautiful view from the top of the Hill Cumorah.



Our next stop was the Palmyra Temple! Also really beautiful. I loved the window's on the temple, they had a stained glass depiction of the Sacred Grove.

Here are the windows!!





We played on the temple grounds for a while, and captured some adorable pictures of Ciella with us!

It was here at the Temple that Ciella found her shadow for the very first time!
Then she had a blast playing with her shadow and mine!!Our next stop was The Smith Family Farm, the replica! It was amazing to walk through and take the tour to hear all the small details that I didn't know about. The spirit hit me hard here!! The Smith family of 8 lived in this small 1 and 1/2 story home!!! Although this is a replica, this home is built on the exact spot the original was on! I'm telling you I learned a lot from these tours!!

This is some of the property that the Smith's owned!

This is the "Frame House" that Hyrum and Family built for Lucy Smith. This is not a replica, it is the original house that stood then. Some parts have been restored of course! In this house is the original fireplace that Joesph Smith hide the actual Gold Plates from the mobs.

And here is the fireplace! The Original !!! Bricks and all...i think!?Obviously the decor in the house wasn't from the original home(although it is from that time period!). Actually what happened is the Smiths moved here and then lost it shortly after, so they moved back into the "Farm house". This "Frame House" was sold to someone else who added walls, wallpaper and an edition to the porch. When the Church bought this property years ago, they removed all the added on stuff and took the home back to its original form. Some of the house has been restored. But mostly its original. Like the walls in this picture above are the original, but i think the flour isn't, I cant remember about the floor. But you get my point!!


Then we were off to the most exciting place of them all... The Sacred Grove!!!!!
I felt like I had been waiting my whole life to see this place!! I could hardly contain myself! Its too bad Ciella isn't old enough to remember it!

The pictures do not do this place justice. It was unbelievable! I can't tell you how many times that day I felt the spirit!

While we were taking a break from walking, we got Ciella out of the stroller to run and right in front of us walked this huge deer. It had HUGE antlers and everything!!!! It was too quick to catch a picture, but unbelievable none the less!

Our next stop was the Publication site of the Book of Mormon!! The Grandin Building.
I forgot to get a picture of the outside, but heres the inside. The floors are all the original floors from way back then! The made cool sounds as you walked through! They sounded old!


The last place we stopped was the Martin Harris Farm. They don't offer tours, it is a privatly owned home, so we took a picture and left!


The only place we didnt make it to was in Waterloo, NY about 40 minutes past Palmyra. The Peter Whitmer Farm! It was too bad we didn't make it, but Ciella was on her last leg...
Next time we will go there first. There, the Chuch was organized, parts of the Book of Mormon were translated there and much much more!!

We had a blast and were so glad we came!!!

Da' Falls!!!

Talk about beautiful and spectacular! Niagara Falls was amazing! It is so unbelievable to live by so many cool places. We feel so lucky to live so close to so many tourist attractions! This first picture is of Rainbow bridge, its the connection between USA and Canada. On our way to the Falls we decided it would be fun to go over to the Canadian side. So we headed onto Rainbow Bridge, which by the way is bumper to bumper traffic since everybody is required to stop through customs. Just before hitting customs we realize that Garrett only has his new paper license for NY, they took his CA one when he applied for a NY drivers license, which has NO picture. I had my drivers license so I was good, but we had NOTHING for Ciella! At that point there is absolutely NO WAY to turn around. So we head over and explain our situation to the Customs Police and well as you can imagine it doesn't go over so well. We had to pull off into a parking lot and get out of the car and go into the main Customs building, where a police officer asked all kinds of questions but eventually let us through... man those Canadians, what do they think, terrorist would try to come through or something!! Just kidding... im sure they do...!!?? So off to the Falls we were!

This is the Canadian side of the falls, Horse Shoe Falls, it is so gorgeous. It was shocking to see such a large amount of water going over the falls silently, then to have such a huge noise arise from the falls. Its so cool to stand and watch! But scary to think about falling into!

More Horse Shoe Falls
As you can see in the pictures, or if youve ever been, the closer you get to the Falls the more mist there is, obviously!! So thats fun to get a little damp. But we went on an overcast day, so it seemed to me that there was more mist then usual with out the sun evaporating it or because it started to get a little chilly with out the sun! Well slowly the wind started to blow and then before you know it, its pouring down rain!!! So combine mist, A LOT OF MIST, no sun, wind and rain!!! What do you get... VERY WET!!!! This picture is of us upon arriving. Notice how nice and dry we look. Dry hair, dry clothes!

Can you see a difference!! Now notice how wet we look!!! My hair was soaked, as well as my clothes. Yes, we could have spent money on those plastic poncho's they sell there but we about went broke after we had to pay 18 dollars to park!!! What a rip off!!! And with the wind it seemed not worth it, People had to hold them down or they were blowing all over the place! Although we were wet, we had a blast. There were so many other beautiful things. Like these flowers. You can only imagine how well everything grows there with all that moisture!

Last but not least the American Falls! Just as beautiful, not as large!

So then we started to make our way back to our 18 dollar parking spot and decided we better head home. Thinking of course that the USA would let us back in with out any problems! Yeah Right! It was harder to get back in then it was to get out! What, like terrorists try and sneak in or something?! Anyways so we head to the Customs and of course they are sure we have kidnapped Ciella, which wasn't funny! The Officer asked for anything we had with her name on it, like our health insurance card, you know the one I had thrown away in CA since we we wouldn't have insurance in NY at first(we are applying for government health care as we speak). So we had nothing with her name on it! Let me remind you this is all being done in the car, yes we are holding up hundreds of cars behind us in the line! It was embarrassing to say the least! Eventually the guard makes us turn off the car, makes Garrett get out, open the trunk, then step to the side while he searches though it. He search through everything, keep in mind we had just crossed the country in that car, who knows what was in the trunk! All this time he asking Garrett random questions trying to get him to trip himself up in a lie. We had told him the truth, we just moved here, don't know exactly where all our papers are, we forgot what we did have. So he asks Garrett, "well where's your luggage?" Garrett replies."why would we have luggage, we live here..." "Wheres the diaper bag" I just bought a new one that is also doubling as my purse to say the least, he asked to search that too, searching for anything that linked us with a child, all that was in it was a diaper, and her shoes. He asked all sorts of other questions that were too funny. Eventually they came to the conclusion that we had kidnapped Ciella and arrested us! Can you believe it!! No, not really!!! They just told us not to EVER try this again! Like we were "trying" to make it hard for them!! And we went home!!

Across the Country....

Day #1.

Saturday, July 28th 2007, 6:00 AM!!!! And we are off... heres how we started: All of our stuff in an '8 by 16' foot trailer pulled by Garrett's dad, Brian, and riding shotgun was Grant, Garrett's brother. Us in our Honda!
This is us just leaving, we are on our way out of San Bernardino, take notice if you will at what the trailer looks like as we started our trip. Nicely covered with thick heavy duty plastic! And a few small ropes!!





This is how Ciella started the drive.. asleep! Thank goodness! A sleeping angel!






This is us just about 1 hour into our trip, we are in Barstow. Once again take notice of the trailer, we already had a huge whole in the plastic, on the very top where Garrett's tapping up the hole. Man, we thought we were smart, duck tape will fix it... so we thought!

Finally we hit Arizona...

This was Ciella in Flagstaff AZ, when we stopped due to rain that was slowly filling our stuff inside the "nicely covered, with heavy duty, thick plastic" that had huge gigantic holes, trailer!!!

Still she was super cute and still an angel! This was our solution to 'not so thick heavy duty plastic that had huge gigantic holes!' A thick heavy duty tarp! And much much more rope!!! Which took us about 2 plus hours to complete the transformation!


Then thankfully we hit New Mexico!!! Side note... bad picture taken in the car! sorry...
So into New Mexico we got and stayed... stayed in Gallup New Mexico! Which ended up being pretty cool. There was this huge storm, and as you can see I got a "kinda blurry, but you get the picture", picture. Lets just say the lightening was some of the largest I've ever seen! Side note: this picture was taken inside the car as to not damage the camera! Sorry about the glare.But check out the lightening!!!

Day #2.
Sunday July 29, 2007

After not very much of a good nights sleep, we only slept a few hours, we were back on the road. Next came Texas... One of my two favorite states in which we passed. If you already didnt notice we took the most southern route, the 40. We didnt think our vehicles would make it over the Rockies.
This is why Texas was one of my favorite places... the blue sky, huge puffy clouds, and believe it or not, it was pretty green! side note: also a bad photo taken in the car. But might I add that we did get pulled over by a very nice police officer (for speeding... Garrett!!!) who told us way to much about his personal life! Also he was missing his front top teeth! But he let us off with a warning and said "don"t speed, at least not in Texas," we were like 5 miles from Oklahoma!!! It was pretty funny!!!

Then came my other favorite state... Oklahoma! Also beautiful... look and see...Ciella didn't sleep the whole way, she played most of it, she was such an angel!

Then came Missouri!!!

This is where I decided I never wanted to move to Joplin Missouri...
Might I add that we stopped in Oklahoma only hours earlier and inside a bathroom stall I was... using... read "www.whynotgotojoplin.com Pray for the visitors there" Its not actually a website, I checked. I thought it odd at the time, but later i understood.


It was a long day for us by the time we ended up in Missouri, I think it was about 10:30 pm, Garrett's dad was leading us then and got off the freeway, I think because he saw what he thought was a hotel. But sadly it wasnt, so we keep driving, and driving and driving and driving and did I say we kept driving, we kept thinking at any moment we would run into a hotel. After at least 45 minutes, we realized or just accepted the fact that we were lost in Joplin Missouri.

great, just great!

We did find a gas station and they eventually led us to a hotel with at that point was only about 1 mile from where we were, just totally in the opposite direction we were headed. So I think it was about 2:30 AM when we finally got a hotel room! I couldnt wait until we got out of Joplin Missouri! "pray for the visitors there!!!!!"

Day #3.

As you can imagine I was thrilled the next day to leave Missouri! But we did have to add a few pieces of tape to the trailer as well as some more rope!

We crossed the Mississippi River! By the way, I was loving the trip. I have always wanted to drive across the country to see all the states! Then we came to Illinois!

The land of the... brave... NO... free... NO, The land of the CORN!!!!!

This picture was taken a a random gas station, there is corn everywhere in Illinois!

After that came Indiana... we stayed the night in Indiana!

Day #4. The last day...

Ohio was great, another beautiful state!

Then Pennsylvania...

Ciella! Happy as can be!

Then came New York...

After we saw this sign Garrett was super excited and I started freaking out, I think I had been in denial the last few months and when we entered New York I realized how real this all was. I was scared to death! I wanted to turn around!

Garrett took a picture of his dad and grant during all his excitement!!!

Here's what the trailer looked like by the time we reached NY. You cant see on this picture, but the other side of the tarp is covered in duck tape. Brian liked to call all the ropes on the trailer his spider web, cuz it did actually remind you of it. Lots of big ropes and lots of small ropes all over the trailer!

And then we were there! And all the unpacking started! Not so much fun!

So here we are in a suburb of Buffalo (north of buffalo) called Amherst! We love it! We have just learned that it is the Safest city in the USA! Check out the website! www.morganquitno.com/cit01safe.htm So here we are... About 1 hour and 15 minutes from Palmyra, 10 miles from Niagara Falls and about 6 hours from New York City... so more posts to come!!! see ya