Palmyra, Rochester, and Niagara Falls

After our lovely two weeks at Van Buren, we finished off our trip with a few days around Rochester, New York. Nephi's sister Martha and her family (more cousins!) and her sister- and brother-in-law were vacationing there, and we tagged along. Here's our whole, very large (!) group:

These photos are from a day we spent at Watkins Glen State Park, at the bottom of one of the Finger Lakes, Lake Geneva. It is unfortunate but true that westerners tend to be snobs about impressive scenery; Nephi and I had unspoken but very low expectations. However, Watkins Glen turned out to be very beautiful indeed and we enjoyed it a lot and felt humbled and that we shouldn't be such snobs.





The main reason we visited the area was to see the many historical sites related to Mormonism. Palmyra and its environs were where Joseph Smith, the first prophet of our church, lived in the early 1800s when the church was organized, and the church today maintains many of the sites. We were able to visit the modern temple in Palmyra.

Our Joseph got to read from an old Bible the same verses from James that Joseph Smith read a long time ago, in a reconstructed cabin on the same spot where Joseph's cabin was.

We visited the homestead where Joseph's family lived for a few years, and where he translated some of the Book of Mormon. (This is just one of the outbuildings on the homestead.)

Nearby are the woods we call the Sacred Grove, where Joseph Smith had a revelation in which he felt called to establish a new church.

We even saw our own pillar of light descending in the Sacred Grove.

One evening we walked up Hill Cumorah, where Joseph Smith received the plates that would become the Book of Mormon. There was a lovely sunset over lovely country.

And another evening we attended the Hill Cumorah Pageant, an all-volunteer extravaganza that the church puts on for two weeks each summer at Hill Cumorah that tells some of the stories from the Book of Mormon. It was really well done and impressive.

We also spent a day at Niagara Falls. They are very big!

Ben loves boats and waterfalls, so we thought he'd really love riding Maid of the Mist. I think the blue ponchos just scared him too much, though. He didn't really enjoy it.

We walked across the bridge to the Canadian side and back. Everyone says it, but it is true. The US side is dirty and run down and even has mangy squirrels. The Canadian side is beautiful with lovely manicured gardens and wildlife with lush, shiny coats. Joseph wondered if maybe the US was trying to discourage immigration or something. (Also, the view from the Canadian side is much better, but no one can fix that.)


It was a great day!

And that concluded our summer 2014 road trip. Then we just drove and drove and drove back to Colorado, over 1700 miles in just two days. Some lovely friends from college days, the Browns, generously hosted us overnight in Iowa, and we enjoyed our brief time with them. We saw so many good people and felt very lucky to have the opportunity to take such an extended trip. But it was good to be home, too. 

Van Buren Bay 2014

One of the highlights of our trip was the two weeks we spent at Van Buren Bay, a place we have visited many times in the past. On the way there we were able to stop in Pennsylvania for lunch with my Uncle Tom, Aunt Nikki, and cousin Meredith and her family visiting from Arizona. It was serendipity at it's finest, with us connecting just the day before on facebook and realizing we were headed right by them on a day when they would all be gathered together. My kids loved seeing their cousins.

And I loved seeing these lovely people, who all have such a warmth to them.

We were so happy to arrive at Van Buren. The evening of our first day there looked like this, with family gathered on the patio after a good dinner watching the amazing sunset.

The boys paddled out after dinner. It was like a dream, it was so beautiful.

The lake is so moody. Sometimes it looks like this, also stunning.


We spent many hours gathered on the beach, playing games and relaxing.

And on the patio.


The cousins spent days on end playing out on these two rafts, and the sailboat was taken out quite a few times.

The annual tea party on the beach.


Evenings playing and fiddling and digging on the beach.

We had a night of Gin Rummy in memory of my Grandma and the many nights it had been played in this living room before.

July Fourth brought many festivities, starting with the kids' bike parade.

It was a blessing to be able to spend some time with my Grandma. She is quite a few years in to her Alzheimer diagnosis. It has been hard. I also got to meet my cousin's  adorable new baby.

We spent a fun day at the nearby little vintage amusement park. It was like heaven for Ben, with airplanes and helicopters and cars and trains he could ride all by himself.

Turns out Ben is a bit of a daredevil and even had a great time on the Tilt-A-Whirl.

This year the cousins just had a really wonderful time playing together. Maya and Ben in particular had a special bond.

There were lots of good times together. Cousins are the best.

But the nicest thing is spending time with my family. My sister was with us for part of the time and I loved seeing her.

The amazing women whose hard work make our special summer memories possible, my Mom and her sister Lynn. They own the home where we stay and generously invite us there and make us feel so welcome. They spent their childhood summers on these same beaches as their grandchildren do now. It's a beautiful thing. Thank you!!!

Philadelphia

One of the highlights of the trip this year was the time we spent in Philadelphia. We rented an apartment right in the city for five days, and I'm so glad we did. It was really great be able to walk everywhere, and I like for my boys to be exposed to city life - the traffic and hustle and bustle and smells and sounds and diversity of people and interesting food. We went shopping at Trader Joes and trecked back home with the shopping bags of food. We walked around one evening and people watched in a pretty public square. Our town doesn't even have a stoplight, so it is good practice and exposure for them.

They pointed out that the buildings even have fire escapes like in the Curious George book where George gets a job in the big city.

We passed through JFK Square a few times where the famous Love sculpture is. They boys thought it was "stupid."

Of course we hit the big historical sites, like the Liberty Bell:

And Independence Hall. We had memorized the Preamble to the Constitution and the opening of the Declaration of Independence in preparation to appreciate it a little more.

One afternoon we took a tour at the Mint.

We spent an afternoon at the Franklin Institute, a science museum. There was a climbing structure that was supposed to evoke neurons, part of a visiting exhibit about the brain.

We also went to the Academy of Natural Sciences at Drexel University, which had some dinosaurs, lots of cool dioramas, and a visiting exhibit on birds of paradise (funny dancing alert!).

One afternoon we ate at Reading Terminal Market, essentially an enormous and impressive food court in an old public market building. After an exhaustive search and weighing of the possibilities, they all settled on getting food from the German stall - some schnitzel, some bratwurst, and some liverwurst. I got a tasty grilled cheese sandwich, and Nephi got some crepes.

One morning we played at Smith Memorial Playground in Fairmount Park. It was a fun playground and had a huge free wooden slide that kids could slide down on burlap sacks. It was a very hot day, though, and we didn't last all that long. On the way home we stopped for some groceries since we were in our car, and we stopped at Foodland in the hood. It was another interesting view of the city. Urban living is definitely not all fancy gentrification.

That afternoon we just hung out at the apartment and watched the World Cup and read. We were kind of touristed out. One of the nice things about renting apartments is that it makes afternoons like this possible and easy.

From our apartment we could see the helicopter landing pad on a hospital across the block, which was pretty much the most exciting thing that could happen to Ben.

The last night Caleb and I went to a Phillies game. It was a good time. On the way there Caleb said he wished the game would go for 13 innings, so he could really get a full night of baseball. As it turned out, we got 14 innings! Here we are celebrating at almost midnight when the Phillies won with a walk off homer in the bottom of the 14th inning.

On the way out of town the next day we stopped at Valley Forge for a little while. We went on a short tour with a guide who was really good. He knew his stuff and neither romanticized nor downplayed what happened at Valley Forge. It was a really lousy, cold, hungry winter, but it was pretty much just as lousy and cold and hungry as each of the seven winters of the war. The men actually built fairly good cabins that they were proud of and kept them passably warm.

Philadelphia was a great experience for us. We really liked the city and the fun things we got to do there!