Find Joy in the Journey

Tuesday, July 20, 2021

Niagara Falls and Hill Cumorah

We left pretty early the next day to drive up to Niagara Falls. It was a 3 hour drive and once we found parking we headed to The Maid of the Mist to see if we could get tickets to take the boat ride. We got tickets right away and had a great time on the boat ride. This is my third time taking the Maid of the Mist and I still enjoy it. We did most of this trip in 2016 (minus the Kirtland part) with Sue and Cathryn and her kids but Jared and Lydia were so young we were glad they could experience it again. They both enjoyed the boat ride and got very wet. After the boat ride we hiked up to edge of the Falls and then checked out the observation deck. We are lunch nearby and then as we were leaving the restaurant it started pouring rain. It was raining so hard. We waited under a building edge for awhile but the rain was not letting up so Mark and David borrowed 2 Maid of the Mist rain ponchos and ran for the cars. It was very helpful of them.

Our next stop was the Hill Cumorah which turned out to be Lydia's favorite site on the trip. She really liked how "untouched" it seemed. It was very easy to see how it would have been when Joseph was visiting there. After our tour we drove to Rochester where we could stay for the next 2 nights.

Kritland, Ohio

Our Air BnB was in Eastlake, Ohio which is right by Lake Eerie and just 30 minutes from Kirtland. We dropped our stuff off at the Air BnB and found that they had an old original Nintendo game system. Jared and Lydia have only really played Mario Kart and Wii Sports and were fascinated by Mario Brothers. Mark and I had fun playing a few games with them and seeing what we remembered. We headed out for dinner soon after and then decided to go stop by the Kirtland Temple. The lighting is so much nicer in the evening and there were very few people around. We pretty much had the site to ourselves which was really nice. We walked around the site and sat down for awhile to talk about what happened here and how it was different. We listened to "The Spirit of God" before we left which was perfect. It was nice to stop by that evening.

After the temple we stopped by Lake Eerie to check out the water/beach. It is amazing how huge the Great Lakes are. Lake Eerie is the 4th largest and the warmest. We were not in swimsuits but all felt the water which was so much warmer than expected. Mark attempted to teach Lydia how to skip rocks and had some success. It was a beautiful Summer evening.

The next morning we briefly met up with Mark's brother David and his family before heading out to the John Jonson Farm for our tour. They had flown on a red eye from Oregon and were exhausted. They had booked a tour an hour after us so they took a quick nap and we went out for donuts and then our tour. Mark found a great donut shop that is supplied by an Amish bakery. The donuts were delicious and the bakery was really cool. They partner with disabled young adults to provide them with a work experience. While we ordered the "manager" was there and he was so patient and encouraging. It was really heartwarming to see how he cared for the employees and how they seemed really happy to be there.

The John Johnson Farm: sixteen revelations were given there including section 76, which we had just studied the week before. It was also there that Joseph and Sidney Rigdon were tarred and feathered and Emma and Joseph lost one of their twin babies. We took our tour there and then stopped for lunch at an Amish restaurant before taking our tour of Historic Kirtland. While we were touring the Newell K Whitney Store David's son Luke got his mission call! We were listening to the sisters and David called Mark so we paused our tour and listened to Luke read his call. He is going to the Fort Collins Mission. It so crazy because we were in that mission the year we lived in Northern Colorado and then were in Colorado itself for 7 years. He seems very happy to serve there. He had actually guessed he would go somewhere really boring like Nebraska and that mission takes in a corner of Nebraska. It was a fun moment to be a part of.

There are a lot of sties to see in historic Kirtland, the recreation is really well done and it was nice to get a feel for what it was like. For awhile the Whitney store was Church headquarters. The School of the Prophets was held there and section 89, the Word of Wisdom was received there. Historic Kirtland was Jared's favorite site we visited.

The Sisters were so excited to be part of the call!

After our tour we headed back to the Air BnB to wait for David's family to finish. Once they did we met them at their hotel and Jared and Lydia went swimming. We picked up dinner and ate it ate Lake Eerie. David and Cecily actually met up with some friends who used to live in Medford and now live in Ohio so we tried to give then some good space to catch up with their friends for the first part of this trip. After eating I went down to the Lake with Jared and Lydia. They erally wanted to play in the water/beach. We were there for a bit and then the winds picked up and we starting seeing a good amount of lightning, no thunder though. Eventually it started to sprinkle so I made then head back to the picnic pavilions which was a good thing because we got s pretty good rainfall once we reached everyone else. I was happy to be down at the water with them.

The beginning, Pittsburgh PA

We stopped in Pittsburgh on our way to Kirtland, Ohio. We had planned to do a church history trip for Spring break but all the church sites were still closed because of COVID so we decided to wait until Summer and see if things were open then. As we waited to see about openings we found out that Mark's brother David was going on a church history trip with his family in July so we asked if we could join them and spent 5 days with them last week. We were happy to get to visit with them before we move. Mark managed to see all 7 of his siblings since late April. It took a few different states and trips but it happened. I had it easy just meeting everyone in my family in Yuba City.

We left Charlottesville mid morning on Monday and our first stop was in Pittsburgh which is about 5 hours away from Charlottesville. None of us had been to Pittsburgh and we enjoyed spending a little over 2 hours there. On the drive up Mark gave a mini lesson on Andrew Carnegie (and Robber Barons in general) as he was so influential in Pittsburgh. Jared loves it when we Mark gives horsey lessons on our drives. Lydia occasionally seems interested but its definitely more of a Jared thing. In Pittsburgh we rode the Duquesne Incline, ate polish pierogis and Kilbasa and found an awesome ice cream shop called Klavon's.

The incline was used to take people home from mines mostly from what I understand but also used as public transportation. The have old wooden cable cars and the view of downtown Pittsburgh from the top is awesome. From a distance Pittsburgh looks really nice with the rivers, tons of bridges and nice skyline but once we were walking around downtown we could feel the "grittiness" of the city. Nobody really enjoyed the pierogis, the sausage was better received.

The ice cream shop was not only delicious but a really cool site as well. It used to be an old apothecary and originally opened in 1932 as a neighborhood apothecary and ice cream shop. In 1936 there was a big flood in Pittsburgh and the shop had water almost to the ceiling. There is a line of the wall today that was drawn in 1936 to show how high the water got. The family was up a floor and had to be rescued by a rowboat. The shop was closed in 1979 and sat dormant for two decades. It reopened in 1999 as a drug store soda fountain and then new owners bought it after stopping there on a vacation in 2011. When you walk in its like stepping back in time. There were so many fun details, the ceiling, the chandeliers, the shelves at the back are full of medicine and medical instruments all the way from the 1930's, the countertop and stainless steel equipment, I love shops like this. Mark and Jared split a brownie sundae and Lydia and I split a mint and chocolate one. It was the best stop. We were happy to have l little break from the drive and see a small section of Pittsburgh.

Sunday, July 18, 2021

Goodbye 4354 Dickerson Road

We got back to Virginia Monday evening and were so thankful we did because we needed as much time as possible to get our house ready for a final walk through on Saturday. It was an intense, frustrating, discouraging, overwhelming, irritating week. In the middle of all those feelings I also felt so much gratitude for our friends the Shaws and Hendricks who basically raised Jared and Lydia that week. They took them swimming at pools and to Chris Greene, fed them dinners and kept them happy while Mark and I worked on our house. We did have Jared and Lydia complete jobs at the house to help us get it ready but overall they had a really fun week while Mark and I stressed all week. It was so helpful to have such kind and generous friends step in and look out for Jared and Lydia and Mark and I. Not only will Jared and Lydia miss their friends but I will miss Julie and Christa a lot they are wonderful, thoughtful, generous people.

We have really enjoyed our house, it has been so good to us. I will not miss trying to maintain that "yard" at all but I do appreciate the space and memories it gave us. That being said with the way the market has been around here and all the work and time we spent on that house that week I 100% wish we had just sold it. We would have made a lot of money and not even had to do any repairs in this market. I am not worried about it renting but the tenants just moved in last Thursday and already need things done. Their movers broke two of the steps on the back staircase from the upper deck to the lower deck and they want the doorbell replaced. We never had a working doorbell the whole time we lived there and never missed it but I guess they like doorbells? I think they will be fine as tenants and Melissa, our property manger will do a great job but I wish we would have walked away and not spent a week trying to make the house perfect. It was exhausting.

We stopped by the house after church Sunday to do a few final things like move the grill and then took a few pictures. Jared and Lydia had really not spent much time in the house that week and I think they were glad (but also sad) to have some time to walk through the house and take some pictures. It has really been a great home for us the last 6 years. It really is their "childhood home" and we were so happy there. So even though I do wish we sold it I do appreciate what it gave us very much.

Saturday donuts and yard work. I hate yard work and ended up spending way more time than I thought I would need on the yard.

Our attic was never this full the 6 years we lived there. I have no idea how well things will do in there but there are a lot of memories in that attic now and yet we still sold and gave away so much stuff.

We have our duffel bags 96% packed for Cairo. That was another stress of the week, before we could clean and paint we had to finish packing our bags for Egypt and weigh them at the airport to make sure they were under 50 pounds. Mark also had to work at the airport Tuesday and Wednesday night and we had to move stuff from our house to the Leavitt's house where we are staying until we fly out. It was just A LOT for 5 days. The Leavitt's are in Arizona until the 28th so we are house/cat sitting for them. We are so grateful we could use their house!

Some of our Cairo bags. We have 8 of these and 2 large suitcases. I think we will take one more bag but Mark is not so sure. We will see.

Pictures from Julie and Christa:

Tyler and Jared have been best friends since Kindergarten so it will be hard for both of them to not have regular time together. Tyler's birthday is July 28th and to celebrate Julie took Tyler and a few of his friends to Kings Dominion for the day. They played in the water park and rode as many roller coasters as they could. Jared had no fear and loved all of the roller coasters. He had never really spendt a day at an amusement park and is a big fan. He was so happy to go with Tyler. They stopped for dinner at Cici's pizza which is a perfect spot for pre teen boys and he just had the best day. He was gone from 9:00 until 10:15 at night. Julie was a rock star to help those boys have such a fun day and make some great memories.