Amazing Vacation

Hold on and get ready for the longest blog post in the world! Seriously. It has been a fantastic, amazing, and busy 2 weeks with my family. In order to cover everything that we did, I'll give a semi-short description of each place followed by pictures. Some of the random pictures are out of order, but that's ok. The final pictures of the blog are 3D ultrasounds of our baby girl and our baby boy!

My parents, grandparents, and sister all arrived at our house exactly 2 weeks ago. They were tired after having a long drive across the country, so Sunday was mostly spent resting. Monday and Tuesday gave us a chance to show them some of our favorite places in Cleveland. Among them were the West Side Market, the Case Western campus (my dad and grandpa are big into college campuses), Kirtland, and the beach at Headlands State Park.

These are mine and Allison's "puzzle rocks" that we made.




Wednesday morning we loaded up the car and drove to Niagara falls. As we got close we could tell that the weather was not going to cooperate with our plans. It was raining as we got out of the car and walked to the view overlooking the falls. It was actually sort of cool because the mist of the waterfall rose up and blended with the low rainclouds, almost giving the illusion that there was a second waterfall in front of Niagara that was "falling upwards" to the sky. We all took the Maid of the Mist boat tour and had a great time standing in the rain with the mist and wind from the falls circling around us. After the boat ride a few of us hiked up on the pathway that lets you get closer to the falling water, and then we all met inside to watch the IMAX film about the falls. I guess we figured that if the weather was too bad for us to go out, that IMAX was the best substitute available. That night we stayed in a hotel on the way to our next destination- Palmyra.

Thursday we went to Palmyra, New York. There are several interesting church history sites here that we saw, including The Sacred Grove (where Grandpa got lost), the printing press, the Hill Cumorah (which my dad just had to roll down), and the place where the church was organized. Evelyn and I also enjoyed hanging out and giving ourselves "mini-tours" to keep her quiet during the missionary's presentations. Attractions included leafs, rocks, dirt, and flowers. Also, I have to mention our lunch at Chill-and-Grill, a local diner that was actually pretty good. That night we drove to Albany where we stayed with Arlen and Lorinda, (sort of relatives but not really since the only relation is through my aunt's family- more like friends, actually) who were very nice and who made us a great breakfast.


Friday we woke up and, as mentioned before, ate a great breakfast, and then we were off on the road again. Our destination was my aunt Susan's house in Connecticut. According to Mapquest, the drive should have only taken about 2 hours. Figuring that we had all day to get there, we decided on a more circuitous route that meandered down through the Catskill mountains and through the town of Hyde Park. There, we went on a tour of the Vanderbilt mansion which has been preserved as a "monument to the gilded age." The sheer size of the mansion was incredible (about 55,000 square feet), and even more so when you consider that this was only a very small portion of all that this family owned (The Biltmore mansion in North Carolina, for example, is a whopping 175,000 square feet). An interesting point that the guide made was about the name given the era- "the gilded age." Gilding, as defined by Wikipedia, means"Having a falsely pleasant appearance; sugarcoated." It is amazing that people could live such a lavish lifestyle in the midst of the great depression. In fact, when it came time to sell the mansion (fully furnished with 700 acres of surrounding property), the family could not get anyone to buy despite the incredibly low asking price of 250,000. Finally, the National Park Service acquired it for the price of $1 to preserve as a historic landmark. On our way out of Hyde Park we stopped by the Roosevelt mansion, but arrived too late for a tour. We were still able to walk around the grounds, however, before continuing on our trip and arriving at Susan's house that night.




Saturday was an amazing day at a place called Old Sturbridge Village. The village covers over 200 acres and employs hundreds of staff and volunteer workers, all playing their parts exceptionally well, to recreate a New England town as it might have been around the turn of the 19th century. It was fascinating to talk to the various craftsmen about their trades. Especially interesting, I thought, was the surgeon. As he told us, "you can't call me a doctor, because that would imply that I had some sort of formal training." Also, we got there on a good day because besides the normal workers, there was a regiment of volunteer militia-men who walked the grounds giving demonstrations, and later staged a battle reenactment. The whole day was informative, interesting, and most of all- Fun.

Here's Rachel getting some practice on the birthing chair! There's a hole in the middle for the baby to fall out of.

Nice Pig. Makes me hungry.

Sunday we took a much needed break at Susan's house that included church, going on walks, sleeping, reading, and breaking into people's homes through the unlocked garage doors. That's my Grandpa. Actually- don't worry, because technically nobody was living in the newly-built houses yet. We also went to visit an old cemetery. Evelyn didn't see the appeal in old cemeteries, however, so me and her walked over to a nearby skate park with nobody there and had some good times with her stroller.

This is the biggest tree in Connecticut. Oh Baby!

Monday we arose bright and early and drove to Boston! Once we were finally able to find parking and regroup (we were in separate cars) we lined up for a Boston Duck tour. This was cool. The Ducks are actually modified amphibious assault vehicles used by the military. They look like boats on wheels. Our tour guide, a self professed John Lennon wannabe, drove us trough the streets of Boston showing us all of the historic locations and buildings that the city had to offer. After a while, amidst quacking from all on board (yes, we made duck noises), we drove straight into the Charles River where the tour continued via waterway. The whole thing was a lot of fun, and Evelyn even got to try her hand at steering the Duck while we were on the water. Also, this was a fantastic way to see and experience Boston when we had a very limited amount of time. On the way out of Boston we made sure to visit Lexington and Concord, as well as the Minute Man National Park and the Concord North Bridge. All of these places seemed to make the claim the "The shot heard around the world" took place at that location. When pressed on the subject, an agitated tour guide set the record straight by explaining the "the shot" is actually a metaphor...or something like that. Actually, I had never realized that the battle didn't even take place at just one spot. Rather, there was fighting all along the 20 mile stretch between Lexington and Boston known as Battle Road. On a less informative note, Evelyn really, really liked playing in the water at the bridge. I think this was her favorite day.

Here is Evelyn's "Don't-mess-with-me-while-I'm-driving face."

Tuesday didn't really go according to plan. We were going to drive 5 hours to Amish country in the morning, and then spend the entire afternoon doing Amish stuff. Somehow, this 5 hour drive turned into an 11 hour saga with detours to Valley Forge (which was actually pretty cool) and Delaware. To quote the chief map-guy and navigator of our trip- "We can't be in Delaware- we aren't even supposed to be close to Delaware!" Well, I guess that is one more state we can add to our "places visited" list.

Allison and Eva both had their first fast-food hamburger on this trip!

Welcome to Delaware!

Wednesday was a long, busy day, but also one of the best on the trip. We began by going to a working Amish farm. Actually, it wasn't Amish. It was a working replica of a working Amish farm, which I thought was probably better since we had more freedom to explore than we would in a real home. There were also tour guides to bring us through the farmhouse, and explain how- and why- they Amish live the way they do. It was all very interesting and the lifestyle was actually sort of appealing (but I think after about a week I would be ready to turn on some lights and hop in my car again). Evelyn loved the farm animals (except for the horse- the horse growled at her) and I stayed with her to play with the animals while the rest of the family took a bus tour. According to Rachel, it was pretty cool and they got to meet some real Amish craftsmen and talk to some cute Amish kids. When they got back from their tour we went to lunch at an Amish-style restaurant which, as it turns out, is much like any other family restaurant but with really good mashed potatoes and gravy. After lunch we did some Amish shopping before getting in the car and heading off to Gettysburg. At the visitor's center, most of the group watched a movie about the battle before we got in the car and took a self-guided tour of the battlegrounds. Wow. This 3 day battle took place over a large area and inflicted huge casualties (somewhere around 50,000). It made me wonder if anyone ever stopped in the middle of all the carnage and thought about how stupid it all was. Probably not. Actually, it was sort of the turning point of the civil war, so I guess it wasn't that stupid. But still sad. It was sobering to see all the monuments to the different regiments that were wiped out as a result of the battle. That night we drove until 2:30 a.m. to arrive in Cleveland.



Thursday we relaxed at home. That was nice.

Evelyn has finally started to cuddle with us a little bit! We take all we can get.

Friday morning we went to Lakeview Cemetary which is about a mile from our home in Cleveland. The Wade chapel is my favorite part of the cemetery as it is so full of symbolism and amazing art. The tour guide gussed that we were LDS (because our family is from Idaho) and gave us the 'LDS tour.' It turns out that he has done a LOT of research into how the artistry will impact people from different religions. The most interesting part was that one of the men on the wall was called the Urim and Thummum (There was a special priest that used a perfectly round ball that showed the way to go with the power of God). The stained-glass window was also especially cool. We also saw the Garfield monument and Rockefeller's giant stick-in-the-ground grave. All the women-folk then went to the doctor where they got to see Rachel get an ultrasound. Our babies are doing great! Our little girl is weighing in at 3 lbs 11 oz and our little boy is 3 lbs 14 oz. They will be quite tiny in four weeks when we meet them. After the ultrasound the girls returned home for the rush to get everything packed up to leave. That evening we drove my family to the airport and said our goodbyes. As mentioned in the previous post, they are giving us their van so we will have room for our new additions that will arrive in about a month. All said, we had an absolutely incredible and unforgettable vacation with them.

This first one is our little boy. He wasn't in the greatest position, so his right eye sort of looks like it's not there. Don't worry, the doctor assured us that all is well. He sort of looks like a little old man.

This is our little girl. She is rubbing her eye with her hand, but you can see the other eye, the nose, and her little mouth. She looks very sleepy.