Last Weekend of Summer!

It's official summer is now over, school is back in. This weekend we had to cram in as much fun as we could for our last weekend of freedom. On Friday night we had a ward campout. It was in our bishops backyard, which sounds kind of lame, but his yard is huge. He has a great big yard, a big field, and a pasture with cows. It was alot of fun to spend a little bit of quality time with our ward.

On Saturday we went with Heidi and Derek to the Logan Aquatic Center to go swimming. This was the first time this summer that me and Levi have been swimming at an actual swimming pool. Pathetic, I know. But, we figured we needed to get some good swimming in before summer was over.


Later that night we had a barbeque with Heidi and Derek and then drove to the Preston Demolition Derby. This has become an annual tradition for us to go the the derby up there. We really enjoyed it, especially Levi, he loves the smell of exhaust.


This is a picture of the car that flipped on its side.










Well,school is officially started again, so if you don't see too many blogs it's probably because either we're too busy to blog or we're too busy to do anything worth blogging about.

Lake Powell

This last weekend was the annual Anderson Lake Powell getaway. Me and Levi took off work a little early and drove down to Cedar City on Thursday to spend a little time with Robynn(Levi's sister) and James(our nephew). We spent a couple of days just hanging out and playing with James. Then on Saturday we drove to Lake Powell and met the rest of Levi's family there. We rented a boat and found our own private beach. It was a lot of fun, but after we had been there for a few hours we were hit with a big thunderstorm. Luckily we had a canopy on the beach that we all hid under for a couple of hours, which was actually pretty fun. It was a little disappointing that we couldn't use the boat for longer, but we still had a really good time with the family.

Here's Levi showing off with one hand.

New York CIty

Last week we had the wonderful opportunity to go to new york city with all of my family. We flew into Cleveland, Ohio the first day and drove to kirtland. We spent all day in kirtland. While there we visited the Newel K. Whitney Store, which is also where the prophet Joseph and his family lived for quite a while. We were also able to go into the school of the prophets which is above the whitney store. We then went to the Kirtland Temple which is now owned by the community of christ. It was such a different feeling in this temple compared to the other places we visited, there was a definite lack of spirit.

The next day we got up and drove to Niagra Falls, Canada. It was so fun for us to be able to go into Canada. Levi went crazy and bought all of his favorite Canadian candy bars, all dressed chips, and we even made a stop at Tim Hortons Doughnut shop. Levi made me write this so that all of his family would be jealous. Niagra Falls were absolutely beautiful. All the pictures I have seen and all the pictures we took don't do it justice at all. We also took the maid of the mist boat which went right into the falls. We had ponchos on, but we still got drenched. It was really cool.

Then we drove to Palmyra, NY and spent a day there. There was so much to see there, this was probably one of our favorite stops. At Palmyra we were able to visit the Hill Cumorah, the Smith Farm, The Sacred Grove, and the Palmyra Temple, and the Granden Printing Press where the first book of mormons were printed. It was amazing the spirit we could feel in each of these places. It was particularly strong in the Smith home where Joseph was visited by Angel Moroni and especially in the sacred grove. It was a testimony builder to me to be able to walk through the sacred grove and feel the spirit so strongly.

Our next stop was in Fayette, NY where the Peter Whitmer Home was. This was the home where the church was first organized. In this small home they fit approximately 70 people for the organization of the church.

We then spent 3 1/2 days in New York City. It was so weird the contrast from where we had been this whole time to actual New York City. There were so many people and so much noise it was crazy. The first night we were there we went to Carnegie Deli which just happened to be a world famous deli. The food there was amazing, Matthews sandwhich had about 2 pounds of meat in it. We also got to visit Central Park and Times Square and fifth Avenue. On Sunday we were able to ride in the Subway to get to church. It was so weird going to church in what looked like a regular office building. After church we went to the Statue of Liberty. We got to go up inside to where her feet are which is actually pretty high up there. As soon as we got up there is just started pouring, that's why we look so funny in some of the pictures on the statue of liberty, it was freezing. We then went to ground zero. There was much there to look at, just a big fenced off area with a building showing what the monument will look like when it's done.

The next day we went to the museum of natural history which would have been kind of cool, but we were all so tired from walking that we just wanted to get back to our hotel. we also went to F.A.O. Schwartz the big giant toy store on Fifth Avenue, which was way cool.

The last day we were there we went to the Manhattan Temple and did baptisms as a family. The temple hardly looks like a temple, it looks more like a church office building. It was nice to get away from the noise of the streets and be able to sit in a nice quiet temple and feel the spirit. Then that night we went to the broadway show, Wicked. This was an amazing experience, my favorite thing we did in New York. The Actors and Actresses were so good. I would go back to New YOrk just to see another Broadway show.

It was alot of fun to spend so much time as a family and to be able to experience some of these great church history sites and New York. We also give a special thanks to mom and dad for inviting us and paying for most of it for us. Thanks!

I will add pictures later tonight!