Palmyra

Next stop...Palmyra.  Or, a little place called Wolcott, New York.  The mother of one of Jake's best friends growing up in Brussels lives there and we stayed at her house for a couple of nights.  It was one of Rachel's favorite parts of the entire trip.  And for good reason too!  We spent the morning eating chocolate chip pancakes on their picnic table out on the back deck, and spitting cherry pits out into the yard that backed up to a large apple orchard.  The kids loved running around out there, occasionally picking some raspberries to eat.  I can see myself being very happy living forever in a place like that.  Emily took the kids across the street to pick as many cherries as they wanted.  (We are very tempted to head back there for apple season)

 Later that morning they took us to Sodus Pointe.  Tommy was pretty excited that we were going to a place named "Soda."  My kids are a little obsessed with soda...probably because they never get it.  Anyway, it was this great little beach on Lake Ontario.  Rachel was pretty happy that she didn't get a mouth full of salt water when she went swimming.

 We went a little crazy about ice cream on this trip.  The humongous scoops and dirt cheap price!  We just don't get that in Princeton.

 With our friends, Dave and Emily, in front of temple and sacred grove.

 Palmyra Temple.  Kate has been obsessed with the temple song ever since.

 Joseph Smith's house was closed for the evening when we got there.  So sad!  Luckily, unknown to us at the time, we got a second chance.

 The Sacred Grove

 Tommy is just too great.  He was so excited to see exactly where he prayed.  We obviously don't know, but we found a good spot.

 The Pageant!  This was one of the main reasons we made the trip.  With Rachel getting baptized in a few months I thought it would be a good opportunity to experience a lot of these church sites and events that play such a big part in our church history.

 Kate really can be a great sharer.  I love Tommy's face!

 After church we decided to make our way down to Ithaca.  On our way we saw a sign for Peter Whitmer's farm.  Don't ask me why we didn't know about it, it being another really significant place.  We stopped to visit and learned this was where the church was formerly organized.  The first General Conference was here and where the translation of the Book of Mormon was completed.  It was also the place where the three witnesses were shown the gold plates.  Pretty cool!

 At the farm there was an elder missionary who was telling us about the printing house where the Book of Mormon was first published.  He told us it was worth the trip back, and that it was open on Sunday...as well as Joseph Smith's house.  So we did it.  On the way we saw another sign...how did we not know there was a monument at the top of the Hill Cumorah??

 Looking down on the stage of the pageant.

 This is one of my favorite pictures of the entire trip.  Tommy lifting the "rock" (a prop from the pageant) to try and find the gold plates.

 Ah, too bad...they're gone

 Inside Joseph Smith's house

 Upstairs where the angel Moroni visited Joseph

 Trying out Joseph's cane

 A corner on one of the streets in Palmyra had four different churches...Presbyterian, Episcopal, Methodist and Baptist.  No wonder Joseph was confused.  We heard someone call it the four corners of confusion.

 The first edition of the Book of Mormon

 The original painting

 We lucked out having no crowds (especially in pageant season) and got to ask as many questions as we wanted.  We learned so much and the missionaries there testified of all the little miracles that happened in order for the Book of Mormon to get published.  Very cool.

They were right, it was definitely worth going back!

TorontOh, Canada!

After Niagara Falls we headed to a cute little town called Niagara-on-the-lake (a recommendation of the concierge) for a picture perfect picnic next to Lake Ontario

Just too cute!

 And in trying to get out of the town and onto Toronto (remember we had no map) we bumped into Fort George.  When I saw the uniforms and heard the drums I told Jake we had to go inside...Tommy heaven!  He loved it!  This was definitely one of his favorite parts of our entire trip.

 Watching the musket demonstration

Atop the CN tower.  It was the world's tallest tower back when it was built in the 1970 up until just a few years ago.  It is still the tallest free standing structure in the western hemisphere.  They know it and take pride in it too...it was ridiculous how much it cost to ride the elevator to the top of this thing.  But, what else are we going to do in Toronto?

 The glass floor

 What I see when I look down ;)

 The hockey hall of fame was closed when we walked by, but a picture was good enough for me

 Toronto is A LOT like New York City.  They even have their own little Time's Square.

 Another great hotel pool.  Except this one was freezing!  Tommy has mastered his float.

 We took a very unexpected LONG walk to find the ferry that took us out to this island (can't remember the name).  It reminded us a lot of the ferry out to Governor's Island in NYC.  This island was pretty great, no cars, a little amusement park, playgrounds, a beach, etc.  We could have definitely spent more time here but there were more places to go, things to do.

 Getting out of Toronto was a headache!  We thought we would be going opposite of traffic with an upcoming Indy car race but we were stuck in heavy traffic for a good two hours.  The kids watched a movie through it and when it was over Tommy says, "Okay, are we in New Jersey?"  Oh boy, not even close.

Jake and I were both very relieved when we made it back to America.