Mike's 2 week break
During mike's 4th year of dental school the students are randomly assigned 2 weeks off during the year. Mike had the last week of September and the first week of October off. We decided to make the most of it and hit a bunch of things on our list. We decided to do 2 big trips.
The first week we headed south to Ohio. I really wanted to check out Ohio Amish country. It was a little out of the way, but such a cool place. We went to one of their big markets. There was a huge petting zoo/ farm. There were animals just walking around everywhere. There was a horse the size of our car named Big Ben. We got some baked goods and lunch, which were all really good. On our way out we drove through town and through the countryside, seeing all their homes. Vi was really into looking for their buggies on the road. It is still so crazy to me that people still live like that only a few hours from where we live. We headed up to Kirtland after that. We pulled in just in time! The lady that was locking up walked right out as we came up. She took us in and gave us a quick tour. It ended up being nice, because the normal tour is 45 minutes and I doubt Vi would have stayed interested that long. After going through the temple we headed over to the LDS visitors center. We were the only ones there and the 2 sister missionaries catered the whole thing pretty much to Violet. It was really nice and such a pretty night. We stayed longer than we had planned but it was a really fun day. The girls did great in the car too. We got a hotel just outside of Kirtland for the night.
The next morning we woke up and drove straight to Buffalo NY. We went to the restaurant where the buffalo wing was invented. They were so good! From there we drove to Niagara Falls. It was a really nice day and we got there right before the big crowds all came. We did the Maid of The Mist tour. Violet was not a fan. She did not like all the wind and mist and wearing the poncho. I had to hold her pretty much the whole time. Grace seemed completely unfazed by it all. We got pretty drenched and the wind was seriously crazy, but it was so fun.
From there we drove to Palmyra and went to the Hill Cuhmora because we only had a little bit of time before the girls needed to go to bed. We weren't really paying attention to the dates and didn't realize it was 188 years to that day that Joseph Smith walked from his house to the hill to receive the gold plates. It was really nice to take the girls there and sit on this beautiful hill and think about that historic event. You can really feel the special spirit there. We headed to the hotel and got the girls down. The next morning we headed to the smith farm and sacred grove. It was another gorgeous day and hardly anyone there. It was really fun to have Mike see all the sites for the first time. We went to look at the Martin Harris home and the publication site for the Book of Mormon. Everywhere we went the sister missionaries were so cute and helpful. They really went out of their way to make things kid friendly. They did such a great job.
We then started our long drive back home. We stopped in Cleveland to grab dinner with Silva at the Melt. That was really fun. The girls did so well in the car until the hour before we got into Cleveland. I think they both had just had it with all the driving and they hadn't had great naps. We expected at least one melt down. We ended up getting in pretty late, but it was another really great day.
The whole trip was so fun. I have really come to love these family road trips we have been going on during our time in Michigan. We have been able to see so much of this part of the country. It's always so great to spend time in church history sites. I know the girls will be too young to remember going, but it meant a lot to me to have our little family together in all those special places.
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