Brayden went fishing with the Wolf Den. He had so much fun!
He caught 2 fish, so that night we cleaned them and ate them for dinner. He was so happy and kept telling everyone about it and made sure that he had the biggest piece on his plate.
Friday, July 10
We drove back to Palmyra, NY and visited the Hill Cumorah Visitor's Center.
This is a display at the Visitor's Center of Joseph Smith's Vison 
Sariah, Tyler, Brayden and Ryan in front of the Christus Statue
A replica of the Golden Plates
This is a statue of Moroni on the top of the Hill Cumorah
This is the bottom of the statue of Moroni
Grandma and Papa with the grandkids (Mike and Paul are there too)
We then went to the Palmyra Temple
President Monson has said that "when we touch the temple, the temple touches us", so we touched the temple wall as a family.
The Grandin Print Shop in Palmyra was where the Book of Mormon was first published. I learned so many cool facts at the print shop. The hand of the Lord was evident in many ways in making it possible for the Book of Mormon to be published.
Then we drove to Fayette, NY and visited a replica (on the original foundation) of Peter Whitmer's home where the church was first organized on April 6, 1830. The three witnesses saw the gold plates near this home. In Fayette Joseph received 20 revelations that are recorded in the Doctrine and Covenants.
This was the upper room where Joseph translated and completed the Book of Mormon in 1829.
Saturday, July 11
We spent the day at an amusement/water park called Seabreeze, right off of Lake Ontario in Rochester.
Sunday, July 12
We flew home to Colorado Springs. It was the end to an amazing vacation with family. I'm grateful to my parents for giving us these wonderful experiences.
This is my family. My mom and dad, my brother Mike and his wife Jenny and their six kids, my brother Matt and his wife Michelle and their daughter, and me and Paul with our 4 kids. There was 19 of us all together for this wonderful trip that my parents gave to all of us.
This is a picture of all of the 11 grandkids, Andrew, Zachary, Alyssa, Tyler, Sariah, Brayden, Ammon, Ryan, Eden, Naomi, and Emma.
This is a picture of the barn behind the frame house.
This is a picture of the Cooper Shop, where they made barrels. Joseph Smith had hidden the plates in the floor and one day got a strong prompting to move the plates. He didn't know where to put them so for the moment he just took them out of the box they were in and set them up on a shelf. That night a mob came and took the place apart looking for the plates. The mob found the box under the floor boards but never saw the plates sitting on the shelf just above their heads.
My favorite place was The Sacred Grove. It truly is sacred. It feels like you are in the temple. It is peaceful and calm and beautiful.
This tree is called a "Witness Tree". It is old enough that it would have been alive during the First Vision. The beautiful thing about this tree is that its branches all point upward, as in worship.
This is another "Witness Tree", so many people have carved their names on it that it has died, but again notice that the branches all point upward.
I thought it would be good to take pictures of the kids praying in the Sacred Grove, so they let me have my wish.
That night we went to the Hill Cumorah Pageant. We got there early enough to watch some of the rehearsal. And we got to meet some of the actors. The stage was amazing and there were some great special effects, mists of water and lots of fire.
Thursday, July 9
This day we wore our Family Reunion T-shirts that my friend, Cumorah, made for us. She did a great job!
We started the day at The Strong Museum of Play in Rochester. This is an amazing place with tons of fun places and activities for kids. There is a music area, mini Sesame Street, Berenstein Bear village, Videotopia (tons of video games from the
1980s to the present), mini grocery store, train, lego village, Barbie displays from past to present, mini radio station (the kids could actually pick the songs and talk on the air), Adventure Land (with a pirate ship), Fairytale Land, and other places (like a Butterfly Pavilion) that we didn't get to visit.
This display was made completely out of legos.
Ryan and his cousin Emma with Brother Bear
We were playing with the pretend food.
The kids with their cousins Andrew and Zachary on Sesame Street
Alyssa and Tyler playing in a "mind trick" house.
Then we had lunch at The Cheesecake Factory and headed to Palmyra, New York. When we got to Palmyra we visited an old replica of Joseph Smith's log home where he grew up. It is amazing to be on the actual land where his family lived and farmed. They had an apple orchard and beehives that they made out of Beech tree stumps. We then visited the frame house which is 85% original. This is a house that Alvin Smith built for his family. He wanted his mother to have a beautiful home, unfortunately he died soon after completing the house.
You can see the Palmyra Temple from the log house.
Ryan in front of the fireplace of the log home.
This is my dad, my neice, and my nephew inside the log home.
This is the outside of the home. On the main floor it had a big room with the fireplace and then off to the side was the parents' room and a small room for the baby. Upstairs there were two small bedrooms.
This is the outside of the framed house. This house has an amazing feeling to it, especially when you think that Moroni visited Joseph Smith in the upstairs bedroom of this house. The bedroom consisted of two beds with 3 boys sleeping in each bed and right next door was the bedroom for the girls.
These are the beehives made out of beech trees.
Tuesday, July 7
We left for Rochester, New York early in the morning. We were supposed to fly into Newark, New Jersey but due to thunderstorms we were delayed. Our plane had to refuel at some airport in New York. I'm not sure what the airport was called, but as we were taking off and headed to Newark I could see Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty from my window. Due to the delays in Newark we had missed our flight to Rochester. The Newark airport was crazy and there were wall to wall people, I was so nervous about my kids getting lost in the crowd. They told us that we could not fly out until Wednesday morning. We had a tour planned for Wednesday morning of Niagara Falls, and then there was no guarantee that all of us could get on the same flight so we ended up renting a van and driving 5 1/2 hours to Rochester. One good thing about this drive was that we crossed over the Susquehana River, where Joseph Smith was baptized and where on the banks of the river he received the priesthood. It was cool the see it. We got in at 4:00 am.
The suite was beautiful. My parents had got all of the families their own suite with 2 bedrooms, a living room, and a full kitchen. Each bedroom had a bathroom. All three of the boys stayed in one room, all sleeping in the king size bed. Alyssa slept in the living room, the couch pulled out to a bed. And Paul and I stayed in the master bedroom that had a desk. Each room had a TV and the kids thought that was fun that we could all watch different TVs.
We were very tired, it had been a long day.
Wednesday, July 8
We had a wonderful breakfast at the Hotel and then headed to Buffalo, NY. My parents had rented two 15 passenger vans for us all to travel in. My brothers were the drivers and the rest of us just held on for dear life, no they weren't that bad. Anyway when we got to Buffalo we got on a tour bus with our tour guide, Ricky. We drove out to Goat Island. It's called that because way back in the 1800s a farmer took all of his livestock to the island to keep them away from the wolves. A really bad winter came and killed all the animals except one goat, thus the name Goat Island. We then saw the amazing Niagara Falls, truly miraculous.
The rapids under the bridge driving out to Goat Island
This is a picture of an old wall to the powerplant and a statue of Tesla.
This is some of my family in the "fancy" rain ponchos they gave us to wear. They also gave everyone "fancy" waterproof sandals.
Niagara Falls - There is a path that you follow and it takes you right up by the falls. It is a spectacular view.
We then went on a boat ride called "Maid of the Mist". It takes you to another part of the falls and drives right in the middle of the walls of water. It was amazing to have water on three sides of us. We got "fancy" blue rain ponchos on the boat ride.
You can see how big the Falls are by comparing them to the people in the corner of the picture.
We then went on this observation deck that hangs over the Falls.
Next we went to the Daredevil Museum. We learned lots of stories of people that have gone over the falls and survived.
Here are some pictures of some of the ways that people chose to go over the falls.
Then our tour bus got a flat tire and we sat around for awhile. Finally a different bus came, but by that time we had to get back to return our van rental from the day before so our tour got cut short. We missed visiting the powerplant. Oh well, I think we saw the best parts anyway.
To be continued...
