Official!

Many of you may already know this and many of you may not, Kory and I are trying to adopt a child to join our family. After 5 LOOONG months of paperwork, interviews, home studies, and classes we have finally been approved and are available for birth moms to see us. We wanted to share this here because you never know who is going to know someone. Please keep us in mind and in your prayers. We are so excited that we have this option and cannot wait for the day we can be parents!

https://www.itsaboutlove.org/ial/profiles/26245143/ourMessage.jsf

Day 5: Palmyra!!

Soooo sorry for the delay, we have had some internet issues along with some serious busyness. I know you were all checking every day to see what we did on day 5!!!! Palmyra!! This was by far my favorite stop on the whole trip. There was such a sweet spirit everywhere we went in Palmyra, the air was thick with history, and we had a very normal and fun missionary that showed us around. We met up with my parents for the Palmyra day. They had also always wanted to see Palmyra so with a little convincing we got them to meet us there.
We arrived there when everyone had just started church so we had some time to look around. We started off with a walk through the sacred grove. It was absolutely beautiful. There was a youth group there for a church lesson when we walked through. At one point they all started singing Joseph Smith's First Prayer. It was very special.
When we finished with the sacred grove we drove over to where Martin Harris lived and then to the print shop where the Book of Mormon was first printed.

Martin Harris Home.

As it says, Book of Mormon Printing Site.

It is crazy to see how far apart everything is there and to imagine what it was like without cars to get from place to place!

Our next stop was Hill Cumorah. I was most excited to see the Hill Cumorah. It is soo amazing that Moroni was once on that very hill, as well as Joseph Smith. Crazy! Here is a view of Hill Cumorah from the top monument.

At this point church was over so we headed over for our tours of Joseph Smiths and Alvin Smiths homes.

Day 4: Kirtland and Niagara Falls

Day 4 was our short driving day! We only had about 5 hours of driving to do and it was all split up in 1-2 hour sections. We were extremely excited about this! We knew we wanted to see the Newell K. Whitney store and the Kirtland temple. Those were our 2 big things we HAD to see in Kirtland. We started with the actual church owned sites. As we started our tour and began walking towards the Newell K. Whitney store my insides dropped! It was under construction!!!! This had been on the top of my list of sites to see on our trip.

Don't worry they still let us in. Phew! Apparently they were just fixing the old paint on the building and we just weren't allowed to smoke by it but could go in. (Ha ha ha, I thought that was funny that there were signs everywhere that said you couldn't smoke by it when I'm pretty sure we weren't allowed to smoke there anyway.) The store was extremely cool to look at. This was the original store and everything inside was made to look like we had really stepped back in time to the pioneer days.Here is Kory in the actual store downstairs.

Upstairs of the store, I did not know this but Joseph Smith and his family actually lived here for a time. In this room it is said they would look over plans for the temple.
The School of the Prophets. So many great men gathered here and learned more of the gospel. It was one of the most overwhelming rooms we visited the whole trip. Visions took place in this room. Also, happenings in this room inspired the Word of Wisdom.

We saw a couple more places owned by the church and then hurried up to see the Kirtland Temple. The temple was beautiful, no pictures were allowed inside. It was exciting to see the different floors and see where visions had taken place.After we finished with Kirtland we headed to Niagara Falls. I think this ended up being one of Kory's favorite places to see the entire trip. It was AMAZING! I had no idea they let you get as close to the falls as they do but it was almost frightening to be right up next to it with only a bar separating you from falling. As we stood there we would be completely dry one second and the next the wind would change and it would be as if it was a heavy downpour when in reality it was just from the falls.I had to include this picture because really? Have you ever seen Kory look this excited!

Can you see how close we are to the water there!?! Holy cow. It still gives me the willies.

When we were done there we drove to Rochester, New York to meet my parents. Coming up: Palmyra, New York!

Day 3: Nauvoo and Carthage

We knew we would want extra time in Nauvoo, not to mention time to go inside the temple. This is the first time we had to actually reserve a time to do a session! The inside of the temple was absolutely gorgeous! I was in awe the entire time. We stuck around and saw some different places in Nauvoo. Then it was time to move on. Carthage and a long drive were still waiting for us. Carthage was amazing. It is so crazy to know that you are in the exact same spot as Joseph Smith once was.

Day 2: Lots of Driving and Beginning of Nauvoo

Day 2 was our super long driving day. We had stayed in Sioux Falls, South Dakota the night before and realized that one of Kory's areas from his mission was on the way if we just added 20 minutes to our trip. This was the best decision ever. It was so fun to drive through one of his areas in Minnesota and hear his stores about different haunts he had there. Unfortunately since it was such short notice nobody was home that we tried to stop and see.

That afternoon we arrived in Nauvoo, we had just enough time to make a couple stops before everything closed up.

This is in Wilford Woodruffs Home. That is Wilford Woodruffs actual glasses and hat box. Kory and I about to head across the Mississippi with our handcart.

Then we ate at the YUMMIEST restaurant ever. It was a buffet of really delicious home cooked food. WOW! We were both amazed. Unfortunately no pictures of the delicious food, we were too busy stuffing our bellies. Later that night we went to one of the funnest outdoor shows.I had to throw this in. This is what happens to your windshield when you drive along the Mississippi at dusk. In case you can't tell these are bugs. They were huge! We literally could barely see out of our window.

Trip Across Country: Day One

As most of you know we recently took a trip across country. I have been planning this road trip since before we got married. My parents live in Maryland and I have always wanted to see all the church sites. Easy solution? It took some convincing for Kory to go along with it, but after much insistence we had it all planned.

The first night we stayed in a truck stop in Rawlins, WY. I don't know why but this seemed like such a mature thing to do. Ha Ha. Saying that seems funny but I really did feel that way, roughin' it on the road. We left there bright and early the next morning to stop at our first main sight. Mt. Rushmore. Along the way we passed Martin's Cove, Kory has never seen Martins Cove and since this was a church history tour it made perfect sense for a pit stop.

Mt. Rushmore was cool. It was not as large as I expected it to be. I was expecting those faces to take up a lot more room then they did but very cool all the same.

Summer Projects

It has been forever! Kory and I have been soooo busy! Remember awhile back when I mentioned I needed projects for Kory, well, don't you worry! He has been keeping us very busy and still has a mile long list to go! Hopefully I don't bore you out of your minds as I take you through our past few months!

I have been begging to put in a fence since we moved in. Behind our house are some railroad tracks that not the nicest kids use as their path. It wouldn't be such a bad thing except for some reason they all have thought our yard is part of the path. I have yelled at these scary kids numerous times but they keep doing it, dropping garbage on their way. Kory did NOT want a fence. The boy is from wide open spaces in Idaho! He did not want to feel closed in. Finally after 2 1/2 years of living here we reached a compromise. We would fence in enough of the yard to keep people out but leave enough open that he can still look out every morning. I know this makes no sense. Here are some pictures:

My man, digging a post hole.

One side of the fence

I had to put the gate, even though it is blurry because it alone took us as long as that whole other side.

I thought after finishing the fence we could take a little break. Of course not! Kory wanted to build a shed. We have also wanted to build one of these since moving in and just haven't had the time or money. We started browsing all of the pre-fab sheds Home Depot and Lowes have to offer until we had seen enough to make up our own. I told Kory the biggest the shed could go was 8' x 10', well I had to work the day he and his dad built the frame and came home to 12' x 12'!!!!!! Grrr. Oh well, he put a nice loft for storage in there, we can finally have an extra freezer, and he has a place to work.

Kory's parents were so nice to come and help build it.

Before the final touches.

Ta-da! There will still be 3 little windows in between the front trim pieces but that is down the road.

And last, but not least, by popular demand, our date night wall. A month or so ago Kory and I could not decide what to do for our date night. It was nearing the end of the month, we still had date money in the budget but could not think of anything fun. Kory finally suggested I come up with a project or something we could work on together in the house, it could be anything I wanted to fix up or add as long as we could work on it together.

My sister-in-law Krystal had just done a cool collage of pictures on her wall and I had always wanted to do one myself. We went to the dollar store and picked out some frames then picked out and ordered our pictures. We came home and spray painted our frames red underneath, then black on top, sand papered the edges a bit and designed our layout. It took a few days for our pictures to come in and it was seriously just like Christmas when they did! I love the way it turned out.