Visiting Kirtland

Kirtland, Ohio is only about 5 hours from us, so ever since we moved to New York, we've been saying we were going to go... and we finally made it. I'm so glad we did, since it was so pretty and such a spiritual place! We went with some dear friends -- Andrea served her mission here in New York, as a site sister. She spent many months serving in our ward, Fayette. She went home about 1 1/2 years ago, and we've stayed good friends. She came back to visit New York, bringing with her husband (Deven) and her parents. It was our great privilege to go with them to Kirtland.

Newel K. Whitney store. He was the first bishop of the church. Opened his home and store to the Prophet Joseph. Such a neat man!

Inside the store

Upstairs in the store - this was the room that Joseph Smith used as his office.

Inside the store, in the room used for the School of the Prophets. Such an amazing feeling in here!!

Historic Kirtland - so pretty!

Johnson Inn, where missionaries would meet to begin their missions - persecution was bad enough that they had to meet in the dead of night in order to get out safely.

Loving the tour

The saw mill, owned by Bishop Whitney

Gorgeous scenery!

The ashery, also owned by Bishop Whitney. These were made here in the ashery, then sold to people who ground them up for windows, china, etc.

Cory, playing around in the ashery

More gorgeous scenery. The weather was perfect!

The Kirtland Temple (yes, now owned by the Community of Christ)

Kirtland Temple - we got to go on a tour through the inside, which was neat/weird. It was used as more of what we now call a tabernacle - for big meetings, etc. It also has classrooms on the 3rd floor, where Joseph Smith had an office, and where Hebrew classes were held.

Me and Andrea on the steps of the temple. She's one of my most favorite people. And no, we didn't purposefully coordinate outfits, but aren't we cute?

Kirtland Temple

We drove the 55 minutes out to Hiram, to see the John Johnson farm. Emma and Joseph also lived here for a while.

Joseph and Emma's bedroom - remembered particularly since it was out of this room that Joseph was dragged, to be tarred and feathered in a nearby field. The mobsters hoped to stop him from preaching the next morning, but when morning came, he was out on the front porch, preaching like normal.

In this room was where the 76th section of the D&C was received - God the Father and Christ appeared here, in vision.

The Johnson Farm

Isaac Morley farm - another place where Joseph and Emma lived.

Morley Farm - there was a cabin built up here, which is where the 4th General Conference of the church was held. It's also another known place that God the Father and Christ appeared.

The 6 of us.

Me and Cory, in the clearing of where the cabin stood.

One of the things that struck me most about Kirtland was how willing the saints were to open their homes to the prophet and his family. The spirit in Kirtland was undeniable. Given that we've lived the last 3 years where the church started, it was so neat to see where the saints went when they left New York. A trip to remember, definitely!

The rest of our weekend was relaxing. After conquering our mounds of laundry, we chilled. We ate at Five Guys (so yummy!), saw Star Trek (LOVED it!), had friends up from New Jersey for a nice Sunday afternoon visit, BBQ'd on Monday with other friends ... all-in-all, it was quite a nice mini-break! It's been so long since we had time to chill and just do whatever we wanted. I rather enjoyed it!!

GAH!

Look at this!!! Yea!!! Oh, I seriously can't wait...

The last hurdle...

Well, I have no pictures to post... but good news to share. In order to be a licensed chiropractor, one must take 4 National Board tests. Cory took Part 4 this weekend... which means HE'S DONE! It's a huge test, hands-on, costs over $1000... so yeah, it was a very big deal. He's worked so hard to get where he is, and I'm so proud of him! And soooo glad he's done!! He's only got a couple months left of class and clinic work... and then he graduates. His formal education will be complete. We're starting to see the proverbial 'light at the end of the tunnel' and it feels great! To celebrate, we're taking off on Thursday for Kirtland and we're going with some dear friends. I'm really looking forward to seeing the sights there, spending time with friends & Cory, and not having the stress of such a huge test hanging over us. Well done, Cory!!

Spring... finally

While it's been spring-like temperatures for a couple of weeks now, it's only been in the last week that the vegetation has finally begun to spring to life. Seriously, through the end of April, most of the trees were still bare. Now pretty much everything has come to life and it's beautiful. I love the haze of green I see everywhere I drive.

Everyone always says they love the fall colors... and I include myself in that category... but I also love the spring colors! Green, obviously, but purples and pinks, too.

Our yard - in the forefront is some kind of white lilac type tree (I think) and it smells divine - and in the back are trees that flower with gorgeous white blossoms, before they eventually turn into just leaves.

NYCC campus - no idea what kind of tree it is, but it's beautiful and colorful.

Another tree on campus - again, no idea what it is - but I like it!

A view from my co-worker's office, overlooking our beautiful campus.

And we finally got around to planting the herbs we got from the wine tour. We planted them on the side of our house - in limited space. We're not sure how they're going to do, but hey - at least we tried!

I LOVE SPRING!!! And I'm so happy it's finally here!

Wine tour

Yep, that's right. We went on a wine tour. Friends invited us to go as the designated drivers -- and offered to pay for our tickets, let us drive their minivan, and give us an extra $50 to put up with them -- so we agreed. It turned out to be so much fun! I know most people don't think of 'wine country' and 'upstate New York' as the same thing, but there are tons of wineries around. We drive past them all the time, but never stop - so we thought it would be a great way to see some wineries and more of this beautiful part of the country we've called home for the past 3 years.

We hit 16 wineries in 9 hours. Wow. At each winery, you got a taste of a prepared food, paired with some feature wines (we had grape juice, water and lemonade instead). Each food featured a particular herb - and you got a recipe of the food, plus an herb to take home and plant. So, for example, we had this very tasty bruschetta at one of the wineries - and then got a tomato plant to take home. At another one, they had this divine jalapeno bread, and then gave you a jalapeno plant. Most of the places also had cheese and crackers for tasting. A couple of them had fudge (yum!) Some had salsa, jams, and assorted dips. You get the idea...

This picture says upstate New York... there's thousands of barns like this one; they're everywhere.

Our first winery - Scott & Krista, Jessica, Pat & Carissa, me & Cory

Most of the wineries are situated very close to Cayuga Lake, making for a very nice view.

The weather was gorgeous - highs in the 80's and very sunny. Sooo nice!!

Cory and I bought what we're jokingly calling 'Mormon wine'. It's grape juice, made locally at one of the wineries. It was very tasty - and pure. It's not made from concentrate, no high fructose corn syrup - nothing but smooshed grapes.

Just the girls, at our last winery

Me holding all the plants we got. 16 of them. Now we need to go buy some planter boxes.

Off the top of my head, we got: oregano, dill, rosemary, pumpkin, tomato, purple pepper, jalepeno, thyme, sage... and a bunch more. We're going to have our own little herb garden, and I am quite excited about it. We got to see some beautiful wineries, got sunburned, made stronger friendships, and overall had a great time!

The Big Apple

We took another weekend trip downstate. Cory went to a seminar on Chiropractic and Pediatrics, held down in New Jersey. Lucky for us, the location of the seminar was only a 20 minute drive from our friends house. A BIG thanks to Brett and Erin for letting us crash at their house, entertaining us, and saving us a lot of money that would have been spent on hotels and food. Game night was awesome, and I can't believe I forgot to take a picture!

While we were in Jersey, we thought we'd spend a day in NYC. It was our 5th time visiting the city, but we still found lots to do.

We went to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens and it was pretty! I love spring.


We also went to the Met (short for Metropolitan Museum of Art). Yep, it was huge. And awesome. They had so many things to see!

They had 13 original Van Gogh paintings - the one in the center is one of the self-portraits he did.

Mmmm, hot dogs on the street!

Grand Central Station

Grand Central Station

We capped off our long day in the city by doing a session at the temple. As you can see in the pictures, it's not a "typical" temple - no gardens, no parking, nothing like that. It's on a busy street corner of Manhattan. What was amazing was that once you were inside, it felt like a temple. All noises and the craziness that is NYC faded, leaving peace and quiet. It was a nice way to end our day in the city.

It was one great weekend, and I'm sad I didn't take pictures with Erin & Brett. We had a fabulous time staying with them, and were sad to go! We wished we lived closer so we could hang out more often. 5 hours is a bit too long to make frequent visits... but we had a great time while there!!