Last Wednesday Sean and I were talking and decided to take the kids to see the Hill Cumorah Pageant in Palmyra, New York! We both have seen it many times growing up, I was even IN the pageant with my family when I was 8. We've taken the kids to Palmyra twice but not when the pageant was on. We were very excited for them to get to see it. We love church history sites.
The kids outside the Smith's log cabin.
Right outside the Smith's frame house, just up the road a bit.
After going on a tour of the Smith homes, we walked down to the Sacred Grove. Then drove in town to eat lunch at a VERY yummy pizza place. I'm positive that every single person in the restaurant was LDS.
Sean took kids on a tour of where the Book of Mormon was printed.
Then we drove back to the Hill Cumorah and went up to see the statue of Moroni.
The kids weren't very pleasant up to this point so I was pretty frustrated with them. We went down to the visitor's center and got to listen to the little tour in front of the Christus hoping to feel the spirit a little bit-instead of anger and wrath! It worked!
After we looked around for a while we went into watch a movie-Ledger didn't last long so I took him out. He LOVED sitting looking at Jesus!
When he finally got antsy I took him outside to walk the sidewalk where we wouldn't get rained on. You could here the piped in pageant soundtrack, he'd stopped and look around every time it got a little loud. All the cast members were starting to walk around in costume at this point. We were praying it'd stop raining-they don't perform in the rain so it would have been canceled! Oh, and this was the LAST night! After Sean and the kids came outside we all walked over to the seating, I did not know you could save seats-I was worrying over getting good spots to watch-so we got some long string from the car and tied a bunch of chairs up! Plus some families that were across the row from us (you can't save seats in the front middle) said they'd watch over them for us! I'm sure taking pity on us with because of our five kids! The kids were still not being very charming-so we piled them back in the car to drive down the road to the temple to walk around.
I can't count how many times Sean and I have been on the OUTside of this temple and haven't gotten to go INside! Someday!
Back at the Pageant armed with rain coats and candy we set in to wait! We were SO excited! The kids were champs and waited patiently (I'm sure it had nothing to do with the treats!). I know each one of our kids had a lot on their minds with the anti's with bull horns SCREAMING at everyone. I literally had to grab Trew by the shirt to keep him from tearing across the field to tell them they weren't being nice!
Ledger's new trick is to make fish lips when he takes a drink from his sippy cup!
And wouldn't ya know the rain stopped about a half an hour before the performance!
It was amazing! Just like I remembered it!
(Sean and I both hadn't seen it since 1998)
The kids LOVED it and were silent during the whole show! I'll never forget the look on Embree's face when Christ ascended-she lit up with a HUGE smile! It was such a great experience! I'm hoping we will get to be in it in another year or two! Ledger fell asleep literally right at the beginning and slept soundly all the way to the car (again anti's screaming into bull horns), to the hotel and into his crib!
The next morning we hit up this beautiful chapel (along with about 900 other people) for sacrament meeting. The ward only has three decon's to pass the sacrament so they asked for volunteer's. It took about 22 men/boys about 45 minutes to bless and pass it to everyone! They had two long tables in the way back of the room with twenty tray's of each bread and water! It was neat! The sacrament meeting speakers was the Hill Cumaroah Presidency, it was really interesting and the spirit was strong. We had one of the most amazing experience's. And it was also...
Dallin's 10th birthday!
After church we walked to the temple.
Then we drove to the Peter Whitmer farm. It was a beautiful day!
We had a picnic lunch.
Then we had cake and presents for the birthday boy!
Thrilled with his Star Tours shirt!
Ledger slept the afternoon away.
In the visitor's center we watched an incredible short video-holy cow it was amazing!
I can't even find the words to describe it, I'll just say that the 25 people who could fit in the room and watch it left sobbing and stunned--all happy tears and goose bumps. When we could speak again Sean asked where else they showed the video and the Sister said only right here. It's a must see. I'm so happy our kids got to experience feeling the spirit like we did twice that day.
Then we drove to Bufflo, NY and checked into our hotel.
Sean took the kids swimming.
Beard boys!
Ledger was chillin' the next morning before we left to go see Niagara Falls!
The view waiting to go on The Maid of the Mist!
Ledge looked so cute in his poncho!
He even had his own little window he watched out of the whole ride!
I've been to see the falls once before but we just viewed it from the Canada side.
This was MUCH better!
That's up where we were waiting to board the boat!
Embree got a little nervous for a while and wouldn't let go of the pole!
Once we were back on US soil we jumped in the car to meet up with the DeWitt's who were driving back from Illinois at a travel stop in Eastern New York. We ate lunch and talked with them for a little while! We love them!
Despite some bad attitudes and arguing we had a really, really great trip!
I'm hoping they only remember the good!
No comments:
Post a Comment