Quick trip and baby blessing in Philly (Sep. 28, 2008)

The last weekend of September was the baby blessing of Jon's cousin's newest baby, Alexa, up in Philly, and since they're our closest family geographically out here, we wanted to jump on the opportunity to go join them for the event. All Jon's cousin's kids are really cute too, we always have fun playing around with them when we go there.

Jon's especially cute with the kids (see convincing photo below). We went to church 30 minutes early since Heather & Tom had a bishop interview before sacrament meeting, so Jon was put in charge of kid entertainment. He had all 4 of the older kids (ages 2-7 I think?) on his own and all I know is I didn't see them the whole time, and they came back happy. Jon said they took advantage of the church library and hoarded all the paper and crayons to sprawl out on the gym floor and go crazy with the coloring. He said when he was coming back into the chapel, the lady handing out programs said something like "oh, I almost forgot you, Brother babysitter!" as she made sure he got a program. So funny...Brother babysitter. Love it. I knew he'd be a good dad. :)

Here are some photos from the day. Thanks again Tom and Heather for letting us stay the night on your posh double-layer air mattress--we're sold on them! We had fun with you and the kids and hope to see you again soon!

Our first date in 6 months! (Sep. 26, 2008)

The sabbatical away from dating each other didn't happen because we got lazy, or busy, or sick of dating, because Jon promised me before we got married that he would always date his wife (that's me). But due to a 6 month rotation at Jon's job, he's been totally out of commission every Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday for the last 6 months. It was an insane schedule where he packed in all 40 hours for the week in 3 consecutive days, and I can't go demanding date nights on top of that. So we've been deprived and date-starved since March, and since Sep. 19 was his last day on that schedule, we've been planning our Friday, Sep. 26 date-night celebration for months.

We had it all planned out to splurge and go to dinner at the top of Hotel Washington, overlooking the White House. Sadly, when we tried to make reservations that morning, we realized the Hotel Washington was closed to become some Hotel W or something---and it's actually been closed since last December. Oops. Not-so-efficient planning on our part. But Jon got the inside scoop from coworkers and whipped up some last minute dinner reservations at a darling little Italian resaurant near Ballston called Tutto Benne. I love Italian, so he knew I'd be easy to please there. :) The restaurant looks like a hole in the wall from the outside (just quoting Jon's coworker), but it's perfect and quaint on the inside. Better than any food or decoration though was just being alone with Jon again, with nowhere else to be. We made it!!!

Jon's type of job doesn't allow for much public praise and recognition, but I definitely saw every bit of effort he had to put into that schedule, and how little he complained. He's such a good worker and takes such good care of me, and I'm so grateful for that. It's weird now that he really will be the sole breadwinner and income-bringer in our home, but I love that he not only supports me in my decision to stay home with our children, he prefers it. Seeing him go through some hard work assignments this year just reiterates my confidence in him as the person that will be providing for our family--I know he'll work hard through anything and do what's best for us and our family, and that's pretty amazing. Thanks Jon for all your work! I love having you back with me every day! :)

34 Weeks (Sep. 24, 2008)

The updated belly shot...growing straight out!

The kind of party we throw for the people that are already making all the money anyway (Sep. 2008)

In the second week of September I had a huge evening work event that we'd been planning for months. This was a rooftop broker event, meant like all other broker events to lure the brokers in with a gift (a really pricey gift), offer grand prizes (insanely good grand prizes), give away food and drinks, make the tour a sample space before they get anything, and hope that in the end it amounts to some of them being impressed by our brokers/marketing/building and wanting to find a client to rent out any portion of the building. This is all pulled off by the miracle work of my coworker/marketing manager and the rest of our marketing team, and when it's all over, we can all let out a big sigh of relief for yet another successful event.

This was the last event I helped with at my job...time went by so fast! I LOVE my coworkers, these girls are what makes everything happen. And on top of that, they're so fun!!! I miss you guys!

Thanks, Dad! (Sep. 2008)

On my dad's last night in DC, he slipped me into dinner with all the other people at the conference with him, so I was treated for free to a dinner in Union Station. The food was really good, but mostly it was nice to see how much everyone there appreciated and respected my dad. It was great to spend time with him too (Jon was working until 12 that night), and he was even nice enough to metro with me all the way back to my stop in VA, even though he had to backtrack all the way back to his stop in DC, which would have been much closer for him from Union Station. That's my dad, always thinking about himself last, and everyone else first. Of course the one picture I got with him was taken by some random person in Union Station who apparently thought we'd like a shoulder/headshot with 50% ceiling in the picture...nothing like a flattering straight-up-the-chin view.

Thanks again, Dad! I feel bad we just worked you to death every night you were here, and I wish we could have had time to just go out and do a bunch of touristy-nothing, but you helped us so much and we're so grateful for all your hard work! Come back soon...

Visitors--Round III (Sep. 2008)

As I mentioned recently, it's been nearly a year since we've seen any of our family, but then just a few weeks after we got to see Jon's parents, my dad came out to DC for a business conference, and we were SO excited to have him here! Unfortunately for him, we put him to work the second he stepped off the plane, and we didn't give him many chances to rest between then and when he got back on a plane 5 days later. To my credit, he did tell me before he came to keep in mind that he'd be willing to help with whatever we needed in our new place, so I was really just fulfilling his wishes (right?). :)

We picked my dad up from the airport and went straight from there to Home Depot to get enough carpet to cover the nasty lemon-yellow/lime-green tile that was previously our living room floor (let me mention that the realtor didn't even call it a living room, she called it a "rec room." Suffice it to say it needed some help to feel a little more like home). The landlord refused to carpet it, so we were determined to 'lay' our own carpet, meaning, put down padding and make the carpet fit wall-to-wall without actually tacking it down. Kind of like a big floating rug that's stuck in place, but better. Lucky for us, my dad's pro at every handy-man thing there is, so we bought the carpet, had the Home Depot guys saran-wrap it to our roof, and then dad and Jon had it laid in the room in an hour. They improvised near the fireplace and laid some nice leftover tile that we found in our storage room (laid, meaning really, just laying it on the floor. No grout, glue, nothing. Gotta please the landlord! and you can't even tell it's just floating there, see pic below).

It was awesome, and I can't tell you the difference it made. I didn't even recognize the room when I went back there. Before the carpet, Jon said once that we'd never spend anytime in that room, and after the carpet, we kept going back there just because something finally felt like a normal house. Thanks SOOO much dad!! You're the best! To see the before and afters, see the post on our move, or click here.

Tonya + Will (Sep. 5, 2008)

We were able to go to a wedding of one of Jon's coworkers , and it was sooo pretty. They were married on the edge of the water at a beautiful orchard/farm in Havre de Grace, MD, and the weather was perfect--it didn't rain until right after the ceremony. :) Tonya looked so pretty and happy, I had to put some of their pictures up.

She was of course, escorted by none less than George W., as you can see in the photo above. (Okay, maybe not really, but her dad looks JUST like him and her whole family's from Texas, so they could at least be friends. Everyone was sneaking pictures of him all night...okay everyone meaning me). The dance afterwards was a blast! Jon of course was his crazy dancing self, and he loosened up everyone else to start dancing and get the party started. Nice work honey! I wish I could have videotaped some of his sick moves, but we had no video camera at the time. Let's just say there was some solid Vanilla Ice playing, some quality line dance time that let Jon and I show off our Utah skills, and there may or may not have been a back flip at sometime during the evening. Those of you who weren't there to see the show definitely missed out.

I had so much fun dressing up and being with Jon and his coworkers, they're all a blast and so nice to me. Thanks for inviting us Tonya!

Another under cover photo of George W.:

Visitors--Round II (Sep. 2008)

My cute roommate from college (go Aggies!) and her husband came out from Texas and stayed with us for about 5 days to celebrate Brad finishing law school and taking the bar. (I'm so glad it's you, not me Brad!) It was so fun to spend time with them and I was especially glad Jon had the chance to get to know them better.

I have to give Kaci and Brad a HUGE thanks--these two landed in DC the night before our move. They helped SO MUCH and never complained at all! It would have taken us twice as long to clean up and everything without them, and I was SO grateful for there great attitudes about getting stuck with us during a move while they were on vacation. They were so nice. Thanks you guys! You're so great!! I hope it didn't sway you from every wanting to stay with us again in the future! :)

Here are a couple pics from their visit:

The temple
























Arlington Cemetery






















The National Cathedral

In with the new, out with the old (Sep. 1, 2008)

I'm finally getting around to documenting our life for the past 2 months! The biggest reason we've been so slow (on top of getting ready for the baby and having tons to do at work) is our move from one part of Arlington to another. It was only a 5-mile change of scenery, but it's taken us a while to get everything up and running. We still don't have everything on our walls (we're not used to having so many walls to do something with!!), and not everything's even unpacked yet, but it's definitely feeling more like home, and we're loving the change. (Thanks again to everyone who helped us with the move...it was amazing that we could do it all in one trip and one hour since there were so many people helping, we owe you guys big! Let us know if you need anything!!)

Here are some highlights of the new place:

• probably about 3-4 times the square footage we had at our last place (the last one was probably only 350 sq ft or so...you can only imagine), which means we finally have space for visitors!
  
• 2 bedrooms instead of 1 (room for Baby Smith on the way!!)
• we can stand up completely in our new shower--no bending, limbo-ing, or other such creative skills needed to get our heads wet under the shower head, and no hitting our heads on the ceiling
• a dishwasher that runs all by itself and isn't called Jon or Melissa
• washer and dryer in-house, greatest thing ever
• a living room! With a couch and everything! It's nice to have somewhere to sit if that's all we want to do for a change. Jon said "I might even just watch some TV every now and then now." Not that he has, but if he wanted to now, he now has a nice place to do so.
• this place was almost fully furnished by the generosity of others after we arrived here. Thank you SO MUCH to all of you who gave away things you no longer needed at the perfect time for us to fill our empty rooms. We'd have nothing in here if it weren't for all of you!
  
• new carpet in the living room and the baby room (laid by Jon, my dad, and myself, but new nonetheless, see later post for details on our carpet laying skills)
• great neighborhood with tons of parks, super close bike trails, not to mention the hospital, dr., and future pediatrician just a couple blocks away for all our new baby needs :)
• our church is only 6 blocks away
• it cut Jon's commute almost in half
• our neighbors are totally friendly
• there's a high school nearby for all our football-game-going dreams to come true at

Saying goodbye to our first apartment:






















And here's the new one! (we're in the basement)

















And here's for the photo update of the new place I promised ages ago. Some are before and after shots (mostly to show the difference the carpeting made in the living room, we LOVE it) and the rest are just to show the general layout of everything (except the 2 bedrooms).

AUGUST RE-CAP

Starting from where we left off, below are several posts for August, which are just the beginning of our many catch-up posts that remain. Many more to come...

Great Falls with Jon's parents (Aug. 2008)

To finish off our couple of days with Jon's parents, we wanted to take them to Great Falls (since it's the closest national park we know of) and show them a little bit more of the outdoors close to our place. The highlight was seeing kayakers braving the falls, especially since we had just come from kayaking on our own, so we could easily look at them and say, "oh that's nothing! We could have owned them!" Okay, not really, I was more likely thinking that I was so glad we had been kayaking on part of the Potomac that was more like a lake than a river, but I'm sure the risk-taker in Jon was just dying to be out there on the falls with them. I loved watching from the sides! :)

PICS OF THE DAY: 1-going over the falls, 2-upside down in the water :)















After walking around the falls for a bit, we went on a "hike," which is actually more of a nature trail, seeing as there was absolutely no incline. But it was pretty hot and humid by midday, so we were grateful for some easy-going strolling. It leads to a man-made dam with a castle-looking house in the background, so we of course took advantage of that to take lots of pictures. My feet were totally prego-swollen that day, and Jon was kind enough to take pictures of those too, but thanks to my father-in-laws request to not blog them, I don't have to post those on the blog. :) Otherwise, Jon might make me just to be funny and for 'documentation purposes.' Suffice it to say they were large that day.





















After our walk we had an awesome picnic that Jon prepared ALL of (his parents were so proud) and headed off to take them back to the airport. We miss them already! Thanks so much for coming Jeanne and Jeryl!! It was so fun to have you here and we loved spending time with you! We look forward to seeing you again soon when the baby comes!

Kayaking with Jon's parents (Aug. 2008)

Jon and I have been kayaking a couple of times now, and we're big advocates of promoting it as a perfect, inexpensive DC activity if you want to get out of the business/monument district and get into the great outdoors. Our friends Nate & Ashlee introduced us to Jack's Boathouse, and we haven't been back to the Thompson Boat Dock Center since then. Jack's is a little more upstream (north of Key Bridge instead of south of it) and let's you get straight out of the city and right into some beautiful scenery.

We had so much fun kayaking with Jon's parents! They shared a kayak, and Jon and I each had our own, and you can guess we were embarrassed when they were killing us on the way back--we accredit that to them sharing and having twice as much manpower, not to mention me being 6 months pregnant at the time and Jon being nice enough to stay with me. :) Don't get me wrong, I still paddled hard and made some serious good time! But we weren't cut out to beat Jon's parents...Jon said that made him feel old. :) What a beautiful quick getaway though. It was the perfect Saturday morning activity!

Marine Corps Concert #2 (Aug. 2008)

Since we were so impressed with the Marine Corps band and Silent Platoon, I searched the internet like crazy looking for another concert at some other location while Jon's parents were in town, and I finally found one at the Navy Yard. Since we'd never been there, we didn't realize where it was exactly (or that once we got there, we'd have to actually shuttle over to the barracks), so we got there just after it started, and squeezed onto some super mini-sized bleachers with everyone else that didn't fit our knees at all, but it was definitely worth it! It was cool seeing them at night, and even though we only had a side view this time, we were glad Jon's parents got a chance to see them. They were impressive as always!

We had VISITORS!! (Aug. 2008)

For the first time in nearly a year, we finally saw some familiar faces of family here in DC! Jon's dad had a business conference up in NYC, and after their time up there Jon's mom and dad were able to come down to DC to see us for a couple of days. It was SO GOOD to see family, and we had so much fun doing things with them here.

They had been to the area before, so we mostly wanted to take them to lesser-seen things nearby and just have the chance to spend time with them. The next few posts will show some of what we managed to squeeze in during their short stay with us. The photos here are from the Einstein monument, the Washington monument, and a couple from Mt. Vernon (and one sweet night pic of one of the flags at the Washington Monument).

Marine Corps Concert #1 (Aug. 2008)

I went to this concert 2 years ago when I was out here as an intern, and I loved it. There's nothing better when you're in DC than doing something patriotic, just because it seems like that's what you should do. So I've been raving about it to Jon for 2 years, and we finally remembered to go!! (We always plan on doing things and then forget to do them before the event's over).

This concert is played on the grounds of the Iwo Jima monument, with the Washington and the Capitol in the background. They play taps, the Star Spangled Banner, and a bunch of other things I don't remember. But the best part is "Silent Drill Routine," which is when the Silent Platoon does their routine swinging their guns with bayonets and slamming them against everything (that makes it sound a lot less interesting than it really is, and probably a lot less safe too, but they're super impressive). Jon was just as impressed as I was, it was a fun after-work activity, and Jon packed dinner in a cooler that we went and ate on a picnic table afterwards. We made it just in time—it was their last Iwo Jima concert of the summer!

Beach Experience #2 (Aug. 2008)

Beach Day, Round II. For our make-up-for-our-bad-beach-day trip, we convinced our friends Brandon and Meredith to come with us to a place I've been hearing about since I was 8 years old living in MD with my family and never gone. My coworker made the recommendation to go to Assateague Island in MD after she heard about my disappointment with Rehoboth. There was a State Park fee (I think $10?), but it was SO worth it!!! If you haven't been to this beach, you HAVE to go. It's exactly what a beach should be--no shops, hardly any people, beautiful white sand, and a beach that stretches in all directions. The best part was the wild horses walking around the beach! We didn't get any pictures of the horses, but believe me, they were awesome. (the only downside to having horses was having to swat at horseflies...those things hurt so bad!!) It was hands down the best beach we've ever been to.

This time we left at 6:30 am to make it there for prime beach hours. We were there by 10 or so (we took our time and stopped to get groceries for lunch, etc., but there was no traffic, it was so nice), played in the water, busted out the frisbee, roasted hot dogs right on the beach with a sweet $5 disposable/portable grill we got at the grocery store, and we were totally entertained by Brandon and Meredith's dogs. Brandon and Jon swam out so far Meredith and I could hardly see them, and after about an hour they came back happy and completely exhausted from body surfing. Everyone on the beach was soooo nice, we were in heaven. The weather was flawless, and we left sunburned, tired, and completely satisfied. We had a full beach day, and we even got back before dark. Thanks Brandon and Meredith (she's due just 3 days after me with a girl) for joining us and making the trip so fun!! I was so happy to get my beach fill before summer was over. It's such a beautiful place, we'd recommend it to anyone.

Beach Experience #1 (Aug. 2008)

Jon and I had been dying to go to the beach ALL summer, and when we finally cleared a Saturday for all our beach dreams, we decided to branch out and head to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Consensus: not recommended.

The weather was fantastic, but we got out much later than we had hoped, which led to a nightmare trip backed up with traffic almost from the second we left. We had hoped to get there by 11 at the latest, but we didn't get there until almost 3, and when we did, the beach was FLOODED with other beach goers. I may or may not have been in a really bad mood by then. People had recommended Rehoboth because it's smaller than Ocean City and supposedly attracts a smaller crowd...we disagree. It is smaller than Ocean City, but just as many people go, and that makes it twice as crowded because there's no beach to fit everyone. Jon and I are not into the crowds and commercialized boardwalk, so we weren't super impressed.

The best part was playing frisbee on the beach with Jon, and the fact that Rehoboth supplies umbrellas for everyone. I'll give them props for that! But our overall experience that week made me beg Jon to go to the beach (a different one) the very next week before the weather started to cool down (see Beach Experience #2 post).

Temporarily Out of Service

Due to a week full of moving and having friends in town and a previous week full of preparations for said moving and friends, we've been fully unavailable to contribute to the blogosphere as of late. As an added bonus, we have yet to gain access to any free-floating or legal wireless connection at our new place. I'm feeling more than a little disconnected and archaic without the web, slightly behind in both blogging and unpacking, and beyond excited for a new apartment we can actually spread out in...not to mention for a new baby who will soon get to spread out with us. Only two months to go!!

More updates to come when I don't have to stay late at work just to add a post to our blog. Until then, we'll have to go back in time a little and just make phone calls, or something so-two-years-ago like that.

Happy Kissiversary

Last week marked 2 years since our first kiss...what's not to celebrate? AND Jon recently had his 3 year jobversary at his current job--congrats to Jon! "ersaries" are fun because they remind me of tons of things that happened before and everything that's happened since the last "ersary". I hope everyone celebrates kissiversaries, graduatverseries, jobversaries, and other such "ersaries" of good things in life, because in addition to all other good reasons for celebrating, they're another excuse to bring out the ice cream, and who doesn't want that?

6 months (a.k.a. 28 weeks, 2 trimesters down)

These photos were actually taken at 27 weeks, but they were 3 months before the due date of little baby Smith. We're getting so excited for him to come! Every week I get bigger, and every week he reminds me more that he's hanging out inside of me...he is a mover!! This kid is moving, kicking, shifting, pushing, and doing double back flips from the second I wake up in the morning until after I go to sleep at night. I absolutely LOVE feeling him, and it's so fascinating for me when I get to look down and SEE him moving! How fun is that?!? I can't believe this little person in me has enough room in there! I love every time he moves, and the only concern I have is that the doctor said I should start to notice his regular schedule of resting and being active. Umm...I don't think he ever sleeps. Is this a sign of long nights to come? Or just evidence that we really will have a mini Jon on our hands? Good thing we're both night people; looks like it might be coming in handy for something besides studying for finals or doing other ridiculous things that should never be done while half asleep. :)

Jon loves him moving just as much as I do, and he makes me laugh. A couple nights ago when I got excited and put my hands on my stomach because the baby was moving, Jon pushed my hands away and said "Get out of here! You get him all day long! It's my turn!" I love how excited he is, he'll be such a fun dad.

As for the belly shot showing the view of my feet...I had to lean forward to see those toes. A week or so ago I tried to put on shoes for the first time in months (it's summer, flip flops are such a blessing), and I just couldn't physically bend my body in half. It was the funniest thing. I'm hoping Jon will start volunteering to paint my toenails when that becomes impossible, but I'm waiting for the affirmative response on that. Three months left!!

Miracle update--the Nats won a game!

I have a huge project (this is Melissa) at my work that I'm solely in charge of laying out, editing, and final printing for every quarter that called for a huge redesign this quarter, and it was pretty much a nightmare. Well, everything went mostly well despite the regular back and forth changes that always happen with content people vs. layout/design people, until I took them all to print (450 copies, 30-page full-color books, this is loads of paper and production) without realizing that one of the settings was off that made the back pages not line up with the front pages...hard to explain in type, but suffice it to say every single page had been misprinted without my knowing until it was too late. Thousands of pages gone wrong was enough to make me sick and give me the first reason ever for an emotional breakdown at this job. Luckily everyone in my office was super supportive and understanding of needing to reprint EVERYTHING, I stayed 5 hours late printing, and the books still met their deadline without corporate ever knowing something had gone wrong. So when my corporate marketing director offered me 4 tickets to a Nats vs. Reds game the next weekend--without ever knowing of the hard week I had with my big mistake doubling with the frustration of apartment searching at the same time--it made my day.

Our good friends the Allens came with us and it was so fun having them. We totally weren't expecting the seats to be as great as they were, but we were seriously 10 rows from the field, right in line with third base, it was so rad. Clearly somewhere we'd never sit if it weren't free. It was also Jon's and my first time the new stadium, and it was almost futuristic, we were so impressed. It was awesome! I couldn't believe the difference a good stadium made. The night was perfect--we got pics with bobble head racer Teddy Roosevelt, we had Five Guys burgers and dippin' dots ice cream, even though it sprinkled off and on it never downpoured on us, and the Nats WON! I certainly wasn't expecting the worst team in the league to pull a win, so it was fun for us to have something to cheer for. Thanks for coming Rach and Shiloh, we had a blast!!

We see famous people...

Thanks to our friend Nicole who scored us some sweet tickets, last week we got into a local DC one-time event that was loaded with famous celebs, people that normally we wouldn't just head out for a night on the town with. Or maybe we just went to the Madame Tussaud's wax museum in DC. But we gotta hand it to Madame Tussaud, she's got some kickin're-creation skills that she handed down to modern sculptors. These guys looked so real! The lighting in the photos make them look less real, but the exhibit is awesome. Did you know Madame Tussaud was a wax sculptor during the French Revolution and people made her dig through guillotine victims to recreate wax replicas of them? Very interesting. You wouldn't believe the hours that go into making just one of these wax statues. We were totally impressed and had a lot of fun. Thanks again Nicole!

It's official...we're moving!

After 6 weeks or more of painful apartment searching (as noted in previous American Dream post), we have indeed been blessed and found something that fits our needs, our budget, and our liking. I knew (or I at least hoped somethin' fierce) that this day would come, and we're so grateful it did. The deal we're getting is unheard of here and nothing short of a real-life miracle for us.

This week we signed a 6-month lease starting Sep. 1st for a 2-bedroom basement apartment in a neighborhood that's perfect for us. Unfortunately it means a change of ward (and stake), but we are excited for the move and feel really good about it. It's actually just over 5 miles from where we live now, so we'll still get to keep in close contact with our friends, which we're happy about. The apartment will need some definite touches to give it that home-y feeling, but Jon and I are up to it and excited to make a new place our own.

'Making it our own' will imply, among other things, locating a bunch of furniture since we currently own nothing. So if you happen to be dying to get rid of an extra bed, couch, kitchen table, chairs, or anything of the sort, we'd be more that willing to take them off your hands! :) Otherwise, I'm off to craigslist again to do what I do best--bargain shop. As soon as we have the place up and running, we'll be sure to invite everyone over to visit, and now we'll even have room for you!!

The Pageant on Mormon Hill (trip)—Post #3

Monday: Day 3

This road trip ended up taking a lot more posting space than I had originally intended, thus the 3 posts. To go in order, you'll have to scroll down to #1, then up to #2, then here.

Monday of our trip was such a good day. We started it off by showering (FINALLY) at our campground (nice work KOA, way to keep your bathrooms clean), and then rushing off to a 9:00 session in the Palmyra temple. The temple was beautiful on the inside. It was my first time inside a mini temple, and I loved it. The youth were doing baptisms right across from the endowment rooms, it was fun to be able to see all aspects of the temple working so close together. We LOVED the stained glass in this temple, all of which was fashioned to look like the Sacred Grove. It was so simple, but so pretty. There is also one clear window through which you can look straight through and across a field to the Sacred Grove, about which President Hinckley said the Palmyra temple is the one place you can stand in one temple and look out and see another (or something like that) in reference to the Grove. It was so beautiful and peaceful.

One of President Hinckley's sons was actually in our session, and my favorite thing about that is that if Jon hadn't heard someone say that in the men's dressing room, we probably never would have known. He was dressed just like the rest of us, sat where the rest of us sat, and did everything the rest of us did. I love how the temple makes us all equals and it seems to erase our differences that are more obvious out in the world. We didn't speak to him, but it's fun to see his family continuing onward full of faith. I'm sure he's a wonderful man like his father.

From the temple we drove down to Fayette, NY to go to the Peter Whitmer home, another site we had missed on our trip last year. It was perfect timing since all the pageant people had left, and we had a tour with just one other couple in addition to ourselves. The senior sister missionary giving us the tour was great, and she knew so many extra stories about everything that had happened here—she'd really studied up on her church history, and she made it a lot of fun. We loved it. We took our time, and the truthfulness of the events that happened there seemed so peacefully obvious as we were reminded of their great significance. The reorganization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was on April 6, 1830 in Lafayette, NY, in the Peter Whitmer home. So many sacrifices were made for that event to happen, and so many blessings have flowed worldwide since. It was a perfect way to follow our temple session.

The replica room of where the church was organized and the first sacrament of our day was blessed and passed. They fit 50-60 people in here!

The Peter Whitmer home was also where much of the Book of Mormon was translated by Joseph with Oliver Cowdery, after the persecution in Harmony, PA had become too extreme to finish it there. History and journal research says the room they finished the translation in probably looked somewhat like the room below. Fayette is also where the prophet was when the priesthood was restored on Earth through Peter, James and John, depicted in the sculpture below. We would totally recommend going there to anyone who hasn't been. We stayed until the skies opened and dumped an entire ocean on us again, and then we were off for the rest of our drive home.




Addendum: the drive home
On the way back to VA, we stopped in Williamsport, PA, because who wouldn't want to stop in the big city with a small town feeling where the Little League International Championship field is? Okay, maybe not everyone would stop, but my dad did once with us on a family vacation, and luckily Jon wanted to do the same. I LOVE baseball fields, and this one is especially cool. It's down off the side of a huge hill that makes for a pretty cool stadium feeling where people can watch the game from the sides of the hill. We loved it, and we probably spent 45 minutes there or so, just walking around, reading signs and plaques they'd put up, and living up the little league life. The truck says it all...