Whittaker family

Alright, so this post is a little late. But Nate doesn't look at this anyways so it is okay. His birthday was on Friday and we had a great day! He even had the day off and didn't do ANY reading or work related things. It was nice. I think I could get used to that. But anyway, it was a great day for all of us. It started off with me slaving away in the kitchen making his traditional homemade German chocolate cake. This is a must have for him and although I do not fully enjoy making it, it turned out better than any of the previous years I made it. I must admit, last year I tried to cheat and use a box cake, with homemade frosting, and that just didn't quite cut it. The whole thing has to be made from scratch. It looked something like this:

It is really fun. I actually bought it more for me. I always have to get him something that I can benefit from as well. We just love being outside and doing things together so this was perfect.

Then Nate and I ordered take out from here:


And snuck it into this movie:



And then went and got these after:

We don't go out by ourselves too often so it was great. The movie was really funny too. Not one that I was too excited about, but recommend to other Steve Carrell fans.

So that's it. Another birthday wrapped up for him.

Yesterday after church it started to rain a little and the kids really really really wanted to put on their boots and play in the rain. I have let them do this a few times and they love it. I really really really wanted to take a nap or just sit inside, but I gave in.

Nate and Dylan were having cookies and milk together the other day and this is part of the conversation Nate said they had:


Nate: "Dylan, only one more cookie okay?"


Dylan: "Why daddy?"


Nate: "Because if we eat too many cookies we will get fat."

Pause

Pause

Pause

Dylan: "You mean fat like mommy?"

Ha ha ha, very funny Dylan!

Nate had a pretty good chuckle over this.

And so did I.

Here are some pictures of the last leg of our trip. We stopped in Kirtland and really enjoyed the historic village there. I must say, I was very happy when we were finished at Kirtland. It was a really hot and humid day and I was getting tired from walking around all week and trying to keep kids from climbing over the ropes in all the historic buildings. You could definitely tell the tour guide in the temple didn't like children. If Dylan wasn't glued to my side, the tour guide would get after to me. I think they get tired of all the Mormons that come there. The Community of Christ now owns the Kirtland temple, which was weird, but I could still feel the Spirit in there. So many special things happened there. Which was also weird because all the tour guide talked about was mainly the building itself and some meetings that occurred there. He hardly mentioned the really spiritual things that happened there. But anyway, here is the temple:

Just down the hill from the temple is the historic Kirtland village. My favorite was the N.K. Whitney store below. Really neat building and the School of the Prophets is in the upstairs of that building, along with where Joseph and Emma lived for a while.



Below: Some cute pioneer children.

Later that day Nate and I ditched the parents and met up with Elder Whittaker (Nate's youngest brother). He is in the Cleveland mission. He only has a month or 2 left on his mission and since we won't make it out to Idaho this summer, we stopped to see him before he leaves. It was neat to spend some time with him and see how much he has changed.

That concludes our trip.

Above: The Smith's log cabin. I think it is a replica, but I can't remember. It was so tiny and hard to believe that I was standing where so many neat things happened.

Below: The road connecting the log home to the Smith's frame home. If you look really close, you can see Dylan and Cassie running at the end of the road. They were a little hard to keep control of.

Above: Dylan on a bridge just before entering the Sacred Grove.
Below: The Sacred Grove. My favorite part of the whole trip.

Above: This is where the Book of Mormon was first printed. It was a lot more interesting then I anticipated. So much detail went into printing the first copies of the Book.

Above: In the visitor's center at the Hill Cumorah.

Below: On top of the Hill Cumorah. I really wish I would have gotten a picture from the bottom of the hill. It isn't a big hill, but it is really steep. I counted the climb as my exercise for the week.

That's all for now.

We had a really great trip with both sets of parents. I am glad they could both come and enjoy the sites with us. We headed to Niagara Falls the first day and after hours of rental car problems, we finally got there. It set us back a little, but we still got everything in that we really wanted to do.

The Falls were amazing, especially from the Canadian side. I couldn't believe how wet we got just walking by at the top. Our plan was to go on Maids of the Mist, but after getting so wet from just walking by and noticing how soaked everyone on the boat was getting, we all agreed that the view on top was just fine. Besides, Dylan had a little incident that almost took us to the ER, but Dr. Nate took care of it. I now realize that I didn't get any pictures of just the Falls. Oops.

Above: My parents, us, and Nate's parents. All wet.
Below: Dylan and a red eyed tree frog.

After enjoying the Falls, looking around, and eating at a very expensive Rainforest Cafe, we headed to the Welland Canal. My dad really wanted to see it and I thought it was pretty cool too. It is a canal that has lots of lock systems that raises and lowers ships so they can get from one Great Lake to the other. The Niagara Falls kind of messed things up with shipping goods, so the Welland Canal was built to bypass the Falls. I didn't realize there were so many little canal systems through that area with locks. Pretty neat stuff.

You probably can't tell in this first picture, but there is a ship in the back ground that is being raised up in one of the locks. It is like an elevator, but gravity fills underneath with water and raises it to the next stretch of canal.

Below: Dylan wanting a closer view of the ship that was in the lock. And his little follower close behind.

Next: Off to Palmyra. More later.

I need some help. For some reason, I was put in charge of the Ward Christmas Party this year. Yes, you read that right. Me.

So I need suggestions. They are already wanting an idea of what I have in mind and I don't know what to tell them. We did "Night in Bethlehem" last year and it was very successful, but we would like to try something different this year. Please let me know if you have any ideas or what your ward has done in the past. You can leave a comment or email me at briannef24@hotmail.com. If you are a blog stocker and have an idea but you don't want me to know that you are reading my blog (I know you are out there), then you can still leave a comment and click on "anonymous" so that I don't know who you are.

Any suggestions would be helpful. I will even invite the winning suggestion to come to the party, if you so desire.

I really am alive. We just got home from a family vacation to Niagara Falls, Palmyra and Kirtland. Both sets of parents came with us and we had a wonderful time. It was a busy trip and I am so glad I had the opportunity to see these places while we live so close. My parents are still here so I will get some pictures up in a couple of days.