Palmyra

One of the perks of living in PA, is that we are a less than 4 hours away from Palmyra, NY.

Palmyra has special meaning to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  It was in Palmyra that the First Vision took place.  Other reasons why Palmyra is special: the first copies of the Book of Mormon were published here, it was at the Hill Cumorah that Joseph Smith received the plates, there is a Temple there, and Palmyra is close to the Peter Whitmer home where the church was officially organized.

Last weekend, Nathan and I headed up to Palmyra for a day and a half anniversary date.  It was great!  Our wonderful neighbors watched Hannah for us so we could enjoy a short weekend together.

Friday afternoon, after Hannah went down for a nap we drove up to NY.  The drive was gorgeous because it was green everywhere!  We checked into our hotel, and then went over to the Temple.  The Palmyra temple is really neat.  All of the windows are stained glassed to depict the sacred grove (where the first vision took place). **FYI, since our camera is out of commission, the temple photos below are from ldschurchtemples.com**

However, there is one window in the temple that you can see through.  In fact, it is the only window in the history of the church's temples that is a two way window.  It's called the "Hinckley window."

Apparently President Hinckley wanted a clear window in the reception area so that people could look out of the temple and see the sacred grove.  Pretty cool, huh?  President Hinckley thought of everything!

The next day, we ate breakfast and then headed out to see some of the other church history sites.  We stopped at the Hill Cumorah visitors center to get a map of the sites, and we ended up running into one of Nathan's former professors.  Small world.

After visiting with Nathan's former professor, we took a small trek up to the top of the Hill Cumorah to look at the monument the church has built.

Here is the view from the top of the hill looking out.  This is where the Hill Cumorah Pageant takes place each year.  Isn't it gorgeous?  Look how green it is!  This is one plus of living on the east coast.

Of course, there was no monument on the Hill Cumorah when Joseph Smith received the plates.  It looked more like this back in the 1820s:

We noticed that the monument has a small creature hanging out.  Check out this little frog on Angel Moroni's arm.

After the visiting the Hill Cumorah, we headed over to the Smith family farm so that we could go walk around in the Sacred Grove.  There was almost nobody there so we pretty much had the entire grove all to ourselves.  It was pretty awesome.  We sat down on a bench, enjoyed the peace and quiet there, and read the account of the first vision in the scriptures.

When we were done with the sacred grove we got back into the car, drove over to the site where the Book of Mormon was published, but we didn't have anytime to stop and do the tour.  That will have to be another time.  It was approaching lunch time so we actually headed back up to the top of the Hill Cumorah, busted lunch out of the cooler, and ate while enjoying the view.  It was pretty incredible.

When we finished lunch we decided that it was time to head home.  Hannah was excited to see us, but sad to leave the neighbors house.  She had a lot of fun playing with Claire and Harrison.



Palmyra temple picture courtesy of ldschurchtemples.com
Stained glass windows picture courtesy of ldschurchtemples.com
Hinckley window picture courtesy of ldschurchtemples.com
Sacred grove view from temple picture courtesy of ldschurchtemple.com

Another year of marital bliss

Happy Anniversary Nathan!

You still make me laugh just as much as I am in this photo.

August -- stressful, decorative, painful, and puzzling

**A reminder for those who may have forgotten -- we couldn't purchase our PA house until we sold our IA house.  With that reminder these next few paragraphs will make more sense.**

Stressful part:
The first two weeks of August took FOREVER to complete simply because of our house.  There were many esthetic repairs (and a few structural ones) that needed to be made on our house and those repairs got delayed until August 12th -- grrrr!  So we had to wait around for a few weeks before we could close on the house which made things stressful, trying, taxing, difficult, hard, tough, traumatic, tense, and extremely frustrating.  Those words alone cannot even come close to painting an accurate picture of what we went through the first few weeks.

However, the day finally came and we closed on our house here in PA.  Hallelujah!  It is all over with!

The day we closed on the house we went to Home Depot, picked up some new door knobs, and changed the locks on the house.  Hannah enjoyed helping Nathan using his tools.  She LOVES to help.

Decorative part:
In our little moments of spare time we have spent the last few weeks putting holes in our walls and making it OUR home by hanging pictures, mirrors, shelves, and other decorations.  I'm hoping that in several months we can slowly start painting our house to add more color and character to it.

First, we hung pictures above our mantle (for the last 14 months we had them on the mantle leaning up against the wall).

We bought this mirror on sale over a year ago at Home Depot with the intention of hanging it in our bedroom.  Well, we finally hung it this weekend!  Now I just need to find a dresser or some other kind of furniture to re-finish so that I can put it underneath the mirror.

Nathan (with Hannah's help in finding wall studs) also hung this mirror that I found at Hobby Lobby a month ago.  It was originally a $180 mirror, and I got it for $36.  Gotta love Hobby Lobby!  Again, now I just need to find a small table to re-finish to put underneath the mirror.

In April, I found this letter decoration at Hobby Lobby for $13.  I thought it would look awesome in our entry way so I purchased it and have been holding onto it for 4 months.  I knew I wanted to change the color of the letter, but I wasn't quite sure what color so I waited (you'll see the final product a few pictures down).

Earlier this summer one of my friends from church gave me this shelf that she no longer wanted. I took it off her hands and figured I could refinish it.  So I sanded it down, spray painted it, and we just hung it on the wall, along with our newly colored letter decoration.  I think it looks pretty good.

Before:

After:

So far, those are the decorating things we have done to the house this month.  When I get my fall decorations our house will look more festive.

Painful part:
Many of you know I've been taking horseback riding lessons from a dear friend, Shawn, who owns several horses.  Earlier this month I went for a riding lesson and got to ride a different horse so that I could see/feel how each horse has different strides, trots, canters, behaviors, quirks, etc. This here is Ilana, but she is nicknamed "Lans."

Things were going great and we were all having a good time.  But then Lans got spooked by something in the training rink and bucked me off.  Not very fun!  Apparently I did everything right during my fall so I didn't get injured too much.  My nerves were a little rattled, but that's normal.

I knew that the best thing for me to do was to get right back on the horse, so I did.  Shawn attached her training rope to Lans' apparatus in case of another incident, and we started to walk around some with me on the horse to gain my confidence back.  After 10 minutes of walking, we headed back over to the scene of the accident and Lans got spooked again by something, reflexed causing me to loose my balance and fall off again.

With this fall I got some minor rope burns on my hands and I knew that my entire body would be sore the next day.  As I was getting up from my fall I noticed Shawn went right into action and started disciplining her horse by doing some training exercises with Lans in that corner of the rink.  I just sat back and watched Shawn work her magic.  It was pretty cool.  Ten minutes later, she had me get back on the horse and we walked around for about 5 minutes before I dismounted and called it a day.

The next several days were filled with aches and bruises, sore muscles, and a few bandages on my hands for my rope burns.  All of this, of course, took place at the beginning of the month with the drama of the house.  Timing was awful.

I am happy to say though that since then I have been back for another riding lesson (with my original horse) and things are going great!

Puzzling part:
My house has become the gathering place for some of the kids on our street during the summer. I think it's because they get bored at their homes so they come over to mine.  One day the kids wanted to play with puzzles so I let them go to town.  That inspired me to do this 750 piece puzzle of the World Trade Center.  Pretty cool.

Well, that is what happened to us in August.  Glad it's over with!

Wrapping up July

It seems lately that at the end of every month I find myself looking forward to it and hope that the next month will be less chaotic.  However, it turns out that each month is just as crazy, stressful, demanding, and busy as the previous month.  Here is a little of what we did for our month of July:

We ended up putting 508 miles on our car alone with our church callings: 395 of those miles was for Nathan's high council calling, and 113 miles was for my calling with the Young Women.  Let's just say that Nathan is pretty much gone 2 of the 4 Sundays each month.  For one Sunday he usually spends about 10 hours total for one high council visit (traveling time, meetings, visits afterwards, trainings, etc).  Sundays are not a day of rest at our house.  The Lord's work is never done.

On a funnier not, one afternoon Hannah was taking her bath, and she started to cry (somewhat hysterically).  When this cry happens it is usually because she has pooped in the bathtub and she FREAKS out about the little prize she leaves behind.  So I went into the bathroom expecting to find a stool floating in the tub, but I came in to find this:

Apparently, she had dropped some of her toys outside the tub and thought she could get them herself.  She got halfway out, but couldn't seem to push herself back in/up.  Hannah was totally stuck.  It was so cute and funny that I couldn't help but take a picture.

In the middle of the month we had to say goodbye to some very dear friends (who were also our neighbors).  I am so, SO sad about this!  This couple invited us over to dinner when we were house hunting last year in PA.  We clicked instantly as friends and Hannah loved to flirt with Rich (especially at church).  Hannah also loved it when Pamela would come with me grocery shopping, or running any kind of other errands.  As sad as I am about this move, I couldn't be happier for them and the incredible opportunity they are about to embark upon.  Good luck Rich and Pamela.

I ended up making a chore chart for Hannah to hang up in her room.  Right now, it is still a "toy" to Hannah.  We are working on having her not play with the magnets.  I can't take credit for the idea -- I got it from Pinterest.

Our biggest news for this month is that we finally sold our Iowa house!  WAHOO!  We closed last week and are no longer homeowners (until August...hopefully).  It is soooooo nice to have that burden off of our back.  It seems now that the only ties we have left to Iowa are the friendships we have made (and we really miss our friends by the way).

On the day we sold our Iowa house, Hannah and I drove up to see some friends who live about 30 minutes away.  They have a beautiful piece of property with lots of land, and they also have 5 ponies, so Hannah got to have a pony ride (this is her second one so far in her life).  This pony's name is Cowboy.  Hannah had a blast, and knew exactly what to do -- hold on to the saddle, put her feet in the stir-ups, etc.  She loved every single minute of it and did not want to get off.  The entire way home she kept saying "Ride Cowboy!"

Later that day, we actually headed back up to help the Markel's unload 4 truck loads of hay (which by the ways smells awful).  After the men unloaded the hay, Hannah got to go on another pony ride, though this time it was a larger pony named Shannon, and Hannah rode it bareback style!  Again, Hannah knew exactly what to do -- she grabbed the horses mane and held right on.  Shannon is actually the horse I ride when I go for my riding lessons (did I mention I'm taking riding lessons too?).

Nathan and I also got to go on nice date this month.  One of my Young Women that I work with was in a play with her parents, The Crucible, so we went to go see a matinee.  Afterwards, we went and had dinner at the Nittany Lion Inn to celebrate the closing of our house in IA!  Dinner was delicious, and we were the only people in the dinning room (we ate dinner at 5:30 pm after all).

Nathan went home teaching later in the month, and Hannah helped Nathan get dressed.  She loves helping Daddy choose ties, put his belt on, get his socks, and help choose his shoes.  This time, Hannah wanted to wear a tie so Nathan helped her put it on.  Hannah loved it.

One funny thing that Hannah did this month was actually on Sunday.  We all got up at 10:00 am (still not quite sure how that happened, but it was amazing because we all slept in!).  We were out in the family room when Hannah farted.  She turned her head, looked over her shoulder, and went in a circle or two trying to see where her fart went.  She then said "see loud?"  We laughed and she laughed.  It was priceless.  Afterwards, we got ready for church (it starts at 12:30 pm -- ugh).

And today when I was laying down during nap time, Kronk came up and decided to sleep on my stomach.  Weirdo.  I guess he just needed some reassurance.

Our 4th of July

First and foremost, our house was more decorated this year for Independence Day than it was last year.  You may remember that last year we had just moved from Iowa so we were still unpacking boxes then.  Plus, I made some new decorations this year.

I spray painted some kidney beans to fill my vases.  I'm actually excited about these beans because I can store them and use them over and over again for other holidays.  I know some people will put M&Ms or other candy in there (which is a brilliant idea), but I can't do that because they will get eaten by myself, or by one of the many kids that come over to my house in the course of a week.

And I also made a few wreaths to hang on a few of our doors to help make the house more festive.  I think they turned out really cute.  Plus, they were really cheap to make.

We spent our Independence Day shopping for mattresses, bedding, lawn mowers, work shirts for Nathan, eating, napping, more eating, visiting with neighbors, and then of course, watching fireworks.

In order to celebrate for the 4th of July we had to dress for the occasion.  I got Hannah's skirt from Walmart for $4.  Isn't that awesome?!

I also did her hair really cute too.

Our next door neighbors invited us over again this year for a tasty BBQ.  It was nice not to have to drive somewhere or sit in any traffic.  We love our neighbors.  We made a tossed green salad and some Funfetti cookies for the kids.

Hannah enjoyed the Doritos chips and got them all over her face.  She would not stop chowing down on them.  Luckily, I got her to eat some corn and watermelon, which is a miracle in itself.

After dinner, Nathan napped while Hannah and I played outside with the kids (luckily, it wasn't too hot here).  As dusk approached the fireflies made their appearance, and Hannah was freaked out by them.  She would scream and pretty much sat on our laps the rest of the evening.

Once it got dark enough, our neighbors put on a cool firework display.  This was the first time that Hannah had seen any kind of fireworks.  I was a little nervous and thought that she wouldn't like them (noise, smoke, sparks and all), but she LOVED them.  She was totally engrossed, jumped up and down with excitement, and loved every minute of it.  She loved watching Claire and Harrison play with the sparklers, but her favorite were the bigger fireworks that put on a cool display.  The last picture is of Hannah jumping up and down during one of the bigger displays (it's a little blurry...sorry).  It was so fun to watch her.

After the fireworks we walked back home, put Hannah to bed, and then we ourselves turned in for the evening.  It was a nice, enjoyable day.