Family Reunion - Church History Tour 2008

I have so many photos and experiences, I feel so overwhelmed at the thought of blogging it all, but I want to more for myself then anything else. I'll do it little by little until I've covered the entire trip. We started off by flying in to Rochester Airport. I took my first prop plane from Newark, which I was so terrified of, but turned out to not be so bad, just more noisy than anything. It was so cool to fly over the lush green land and think that this was where the story of the restored Gospel all begin. Samantha was so excited to see her Grandparents, when we arrived in to our suite the first thing she said was "where are they, are they hiding"? So we dropped our bags off and went round to see Barbara and Van, how fun to see them, the girls were in heaven as Grandma had 3 box loads of toys. The grand kids got to pick one gift a day until they were all gone. The next day we knew Samantha had met her mostly boy cousins when she came screaming out of the hotel room and 3 seconds later out jumped Tanner (3 as well) with a gun pointing at her yelling, it was too funny!! Sophie was greeted by a punch in the face by one of her boy cousins as well. I hope this trip toughened them up just a wee bit. The first place we visited on our tour was Palmyra (and of course I forgot my camera the first day). We visited the printing press where the first 5000 copies of the BOM where made and then visited the Hill Cumorah to see the pageant. The whole trip I was on the edge of my emotions, just so overwhelmed at the thought that this was where Joseph Smith lived as a boy. The pageant was amazing, very powerful and was more hi-tech than I expected it to be. Felt so grateful for the BOM as we left that night. The next day we visited the Smith's family farm which includes on it's land the Sacred Grove (where Joseph Smith had the First Vision) and the Palmyra Temple. I didn't realise until we got there that the Temple had been built on the Smith's original land, I thought that was pretty cool. It bucketed down with rain that day, we were the only family with waterproofs - go figure, only the Irish would be prepared for rain at all times. Everyone was drenched, including us by the end of the day. As a family we stopped in the grove and Barbara said a few words and then offered a prayer, it was a special moment and really made for a wonderful experience as we wondered though that sacred place. Later that day we drove to the home of Peter Whitmer where the church was formally organized. Here are some pictures of that day.

Deldon's eldest brother, Daron with one of his boys, Kaleb was not too impressed with the weather, a true CalifornianInside the restored Smith family farm house, they built whist living in a log cabin on their land2 of my sister-in-laws Kim and Staci with my mother-in-law BarbaraOur family in the sacred grove, not quite the "Oh how lovely was the morning" weather, but still a wonderful experience despite the rain

Sophie and Samantha outside the Palmyra Temple

Samantha taking a much needed pit stop, the change of diet was so not agreeing with either of the girls, thank goodness I thought to buy one of those portable potty things, it was a life saver at moments like this, I would dread to have imagined if we hadn't have had it with us on those first few initial days when they were adjusting and needed the toilet in a seconds notice. I know too much information.

We stopped for pizza and Samantha got a mini puzzle out to work on, her cousin decided to help, but she was so not impressed. She was trying to give him dirty looks, but we wasn't getting the message and happily continued to work on her puzzle to her disgust!

Our family waiting to go inside the Peter Whitmer Log cabin where the church was officially organized on April 6th 1830. We stood and sang a hymn inside, can't believe how many people were crammed in to that tiny space back on that day in 1830.