Home again Home again jiggity-jig!

April Showers brought us May flowers!
And Ohio is filled with all this spring.
Now that it's June it is warm enough for lighting bugs and humidity that is only going to get worse as the summer progresses. I am having a hard time wrapping my head around that and getting used to the constant sticky skin feeling.

However, Sean and I started our summer off with a bang!

We went on a two week sabbatical to Kirtland, Palmyra, Canada to see Niagara falls and then to Utah. When we got married we took a mini honeymoon and then headed right to Ohio so Sean could start up with school again. So we planned a trip for the second half of our honeymoon and marriage celebration. I happy to announce that after 6 months we are still happy and even more in love! I like the idea of taking “honeymoon” trips to celebrate our life together.

The first part of our trip we drove to Canada with stops in Kirtland Ohio and Palmyra New York to tour the church history sites. It was so nice to see where Joseph Smith had lived and strengthened the church and get a tangible knowledge of the things the early saints went through.

We got to take a tour of the Kirtland temple that the Community of Christ church has restored. 

We learned about Newel K. Whitney and all that he did for the church and the building up of the Kirtland area.

We did a session in the Palmyra temple.

                                            This is our attempt to take a picture with the timer : )

We got to visit the Sacred Grove.

And see Joseph Smith’s old homes, Hill Camora where he received the gold plates and the beautiful visitors center there. It was like a mini Temple Square visitors center. We also went to the Book of Mormon Print shop. It’s nice that the church is the same no matter where you go. Even down to building a visitors center.

There is this intersection in Palmyra that has a different church on every corner. Huge, beautiful, old church buildings. 

From there we made our way up to Canada where we were able to see Niagara Falls! It is so amazing. They are beautiful. And definitely worth the trip. (Uhmem (that is me clearing my throat trying to get your attention)) **We only live 4.5 hours away from Niagara Falls so you can use as a stopping point on your way there when you come to visit us!** I do have to warn about something though. When you drive over the boarder they do not stamp your passport. (I was deeply saddened by this). They only stamp it if you fly. We got me a passport just for this trip so that we could go to the Canada side instead of staying in New York (totally worth it) but then I didn’t even get a stamp!

 

While in Canada we went to the “Oh Canada Eh!” Dinner theater and enjoyed a night of good food and live entertainment.

    

We had a couples massage and went to this quaint little town called Niagara-on-the-lake. It was full of little shops and cute little houses and I loved it!

We also went to Toronto. It poured rain the entire time so we didn’t get out of the car but we drove all around and saw downtown. They have an area like time square in New York. We went to an old castle that is being restored and had our gas pumped by Mohammed who sends his best wishes to everyone in the States! He was so cute. This was actually an amusing gas pumping experience. I was driving when it was time for gas and I had never had my gas pumped for me before. Mohammed came to my window and I just looked at him for a minute not knowing exactly what he wanted. He told me I “was looking at him like he was crazy” he was just trying to help so that I wouldn’t get all wet. Such a nice guy!

We ate at a great Greek place that had yummy gyros and amazing roasted potatoes. They put French fried in their gyros though. Funny.

After our road trip adventure we flew to UTAH! It was so nice to be home. We spent time with both of our families. We went to a baseball game, watched Emma play in a soccer tournament and take silver, went swimming, played lots of games and had tons of yummy food! We visited with extended family and attended 2 wedding receptions. We had a golf lesson and I played my first real game of golf! It was fun and I am not too bad (according to me). We went boating were we had to wear wet suites because it was so COLD, and we played backyard baseball. We got to watch Lindee’s softball game. And left our whirlwind trip wishing we had more time.

Madi got to come home with us and spent a week in Ohio with us. Many exciting stories from that trip to come!

xoxo

P.S. Every time S and I get home and I sing “Home again, home again, jiggity-jig” he asks me where it comes from. I never have the answer. I just know that my Mom used to sing it with us when we were little. However, I did a little bit of research and found out that it's a Mother Goose nursery rhyme:

To market, to market, to buy a fat pig,

Home again, home again, jiggety-jig.

To market, to market, to buy a fat hog,

Home again, home again, jiggety-jog.
To market, to market, to buy a plum bun,

Home again, home again, market is done.

Some of my favorite things

Bite size snickers.
Watching a Midwest storm roll in.
Drinking cold fridge water from a straw.
Waking up without an alarm.
Green left turning arrows.
Post-it notes.
Snuggling close and talking in the dark with Sean at night before we go to sleep.
Little forks.
Clean sheets.

xoxo