Spring Break! continued

Stop 6: Kirtland, OH

(including Hiram, OH, Amish Country & Fairport Harbor, Lake Eerie)

Historic Kirtland village.

Upper room of the Newel K. Whitney
store where the school of the prophets
was held.















The Newel K. Whitney store.

The Saw Mill The Ashery. Wicked cool.












The stone quarry where the saints got the stone to build the Kirtland temple (since the bricks in the area were sub-par). You can still see the marks from when they cut the stone!

The John Johnson Home & Farm. All of the paint colors are authentic to the original home, and it's a sign of prosperity (white and red were the cheapest colors - and thus the most common). It amazes me how much the Johnson's were willing to give up, including their beautiful, large dream house to follow the prophet!

This is the bedroom Joseph & Emma slept in

when he was attacked by the mob, tarred &

feathered but then preached on the steps the

next morning.

(Notice the checkboard floors.)

The Elder preaching where Joseph Smith

would preach on the steps of the John Johnson home.

A shot of the carriage house and barn.

Riding in the Amish buggy at the Middlefield

Cheese Factory. Yes, we did find a cheese

factory! And I loved it!

Mary Yoder's Amish Restaurant. Yay for Amish country.

Fairport Harbor on Lake Eerie. Some of the saints sailed into this harbor on their journey to gather in "the Ohio." There's a really cool story about the harbor in New York being frozen over and none of the ships being able to get out, but Mother Smith (Lucy Mack) prayed that the company with her would be able to leave. The ice cracked and it was open long enough for their boat to leave and then closed right up. Looking at the frozen harbor (at the end of March) I can totally understand how frozen the harbors could get.

The Lighthouse at Fairport Harbor.

The Kirtland Temple - absolutely amazing! I can't believe how the Saints were able to build this, and then for it to last for so long.

The Kirtland Cemetary.

A Little Catching Up

So, we have been a little neglectful of downloading pictures an updating the blog so here is a little bit of what we've been up to lately (with the exception of our trip - that will be it's own post).

Valentine's roses for me...

Valentine's sour patch kids for Aaron!

Valentine's tulips from my dad! I am so lucky to be one of his delightful, darling daughters!

Aaron's cousin Neil came up to visit while he was attending a conference in Bethesda. It was so fun to have visitors! You are all welcome... :)

We met some of my friends from BYU down in DC for dinner, but we wandered around for a while first. We discovered a few monuments we have never seen before!

Where Aaron proposed.

The monument for the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Super cool. It's one of my new favorites.

The White House. This is the closest I've ever been!

Celebrating Aaron being done with boards with appetizers & cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory!

Sunbeams

Yesterday our sunbeams were especially cute so I thought I'd share some of their moments.

Moment 1: For sharing time we were talking about prophets and there were pictures of 4 prophets on the board. One of the older kids picked the picture of Jesus getting baptized, and Sister G asked who was in the picture baptizing Jesus. The older kids were struggling and Sister G was about to help them when Mr. J (one of our sunbeams) shouts out, "John the Baptist." Sister G was a little shocked and exclaimed that he was right! Point 1 for the sunbeams!

Moment 2: Sister G then asked who else wanted to pick a picture. Miss A (another one of our sunbeams) can be pretty shy, but I knew she knew the pictures so I asked if she wanted to go pick one. She went up to the board and pointed to a picture of Joseph Smith. Sister G then asked if she knew who it was and she half whispered, "Joseph Smith." It was really cute. Point 2 for the sunbeams!

Moment 3: We moved onto singing time and continuing with the prophets theme Sister A put up 5 more pictures of prophets (all of which were the subject of a verse of "Follow the Prophet"). She asked if anyone knew any of the prophets and Mr. T (another one of our sunbeams) shouts out, "Samuel!" We expecting the kids to guess Moses holding the 10 Commandments or one of the more talked about stories, but no. Mr. T knew Samuel! He shocked everyone! Point 3 for the sunbeams!

We got many more comments yesterday about how cute the sunbeams were and how much they knew! We wish we could take credit, but the amazingness of the sunbeams has to go to the wonderful parents who take the time to teach their children and the sunbeams who learn much more than we tend to give them credit for!

Boards!

While we were gone last week for Spring Break, Aaron received the results from the patient-based boards (dental licensing test) he took last Thursday and...

HE PASSED! and with flying colors I might add!

I am so proud of him! He totally rocked every part of the examination. He is now done with all sections of the boards and almost set for graduation in May! Watch out for Dr. Roundy!

EllaRue Photography

Hey. I just realized that I neglected to attribute our beautiful wedding photos (& bridals) to Shayna at EllaRue Photography! She did an amazing job and was so fun to work with! We would totally recommend her. If you're looking for a wedding photographer or for someone to take family pictures she's awesome!

You can also check out her blog... she posted some of our pictures recently!

http://ellaruephoto.blogspot.com/

Game of the Week

We really enjoy playing games and do so often. We have our favorites, but we also love to try new games. I thought it would be fun to share some games we have discovered and to get ideas for new games we should try.

This week one of our new favorite games is Ticket to Ride: Europe! Our friends Justin and Beth bought it and we LOVE it! Hopefully they won't get sick of playing it with us!

Here's a brief synopsis of the game from Boardgame Revolution:

"Ticket to Ride Europe takes you on a new train adventure across Europe. From Edinburgh to Constantinople and from Lisbon to Moscow, you'll visit great cities of turn-of-the-century Europe. More than just a new map, Ticket to Ride – Europe features brand new gameplay elements including Tunnels, Ferries and Train Stations. The game will also include larger format cards and Train Station game pieces."

There is an original "Ticket to Ride" which we have not played, but we heard that the Europe one was more fun anyway.

Please feel free to share your opinion of this game or other games you would or would not recommend! Happy gaming!

Ramblings in Response

Just up front – I probably won’t post like this very often at all. There was just a lot I wanted to respond to from another post, so I thought I’d do it here. My friend Ashley posted a fiery post on her blog recently about educated women and the way that women of the Church view education. It may be helpful to read her post and the comments from it first as I’m partly responding to her post.

I agree that some women get defensive because they don't want to feel demeaned. I think that many people defend their choices by pushing them on others to prevent feeling inferior, but I don’t want to get into that. I believe our society today (both in the Church and outside of it) is more supportive of women achieving educational goals (as it should be), but I also believe there will always be those who have chosen not to pursue the path to “higher education” who will defend their choice by justification and defensiveness. I also believe that a woman's education extends beyond one she obtains formally. I feel like both of my parents are highly educated and value education (as exemplified by 2 daughters with masters degrees, one who just finished her bachelors and one getting ready to head right into college), even though they both received only some formal college education. They are successful and have raised (in my opinion) a very successful family!

I know many extraordinary women, some who have advanced degrees and some who for whatever reason did not pursue higher education. I have learned a lot from (and I owe a lot to) all of these women. I don’t believe that any woman should be classified as educated or uneducated, especially in the Church. We all have circumstances in life that we have to react to and make sacrifices for. That being said I think that everyone (including women) should pursue as much education (formal and informal) as possible, and I think that that is one of the many great things about the Church – it urges us to do so.

Weber Stake Academy, 1905

I personally am one of those daughters of my parents with a master’s degree. I worked hard and really enjoyed school. I felt that it was important for me to continue pursuing my education and I was blessed to be able to do so. I can’t say that I would have made all of the same choices had I been presented with different opportunities and choices in life. We can each only make choices with what we are presented with, and that is and always will be different for each and everyone one of us. Like serving a mission, I firmly believe that what I learned on my mission will make me a better wife and mother. Does that mean that someone who didn’t serve a mission can’t be an incredible wife or mother, absolutely not!! It’s just what I needed! I believe that education can work in much the same way. How blessed we are to have a loving Heavenly Father to guide us down the path that is the best for us. My hope is that we all support each other on our respective paths, not with a judging eye but with a compassionate heart.

That being said I also think we need to urge young women today to seek education and as the scriptures admonish, “Seek learning, even by study and also by faith.” I could go on and on, but I don’t want to add any more to my disjointed ramblings. Thanks Ash for getting me thinking about this today. I hope your RS experiences improve in the future!