Glen got day off so we went exploring

There was this mist over the water that made the view so picturesque!  so peaceful.  This fisherman told us about Pizza Palace, so we went there for dinner on our way home.  It claims to have the best pizza in the states. The walls were filled with collages of super stars and their signatures.  That was fun.  It was pretty good pizza!!  the sauce and cheese they used was noticeably very delicious...good flavor.  Then we went across the street to the coolest ice cream place (in my opinion)  I love soft serve ice cream more than hard ice cream.  Well, this place had all the flavors you could imagine in soft serve!  So we all got cones!
Here are the flavors we got, Oscar got a banana ice cream cone, ginger got blueberry, Glen got pina colada, jack got orange, Gretchy got black cherry and I got a mini apricot (just to try ;) ) and german chocolate.
Of course everybody tried everybodys cones. it was so good. my favorite was the apricot ice cream!  I can't wait to go back and try key lime, grape, rum etc!

Old broken down Dam

 The highlight of this visit was catching a frog!  I felt like a kid again getting so excited to catch a frog and hold it and take pics of it.

Clover and Bucket End Loader

 hahahh  so My older sister got a bearded dragon lizard and my younger sister got hedgehog so that got me to thinking how we miss having our doggy with us.  i started researching lizards and then we made a trip to the pet store and saw guinea pigs.  I had g.pigs when i was growing up and loved them!  They would whistle every morning when we would come down the stairs and then i would give them a carrot.  so cute!
We waited a week to think about which pet would be best for us right now and the guinea pig won.  :)

The kids love them!...almost a little too much  :)

 I thought this was so cute of Gretchen.

 Ginger named one of the g. pigs Clover and Jack named the other one Bucket End Loader.  hahahah Such a boy!

More pics of the inside of our home

 I was so excited to find the glider rocker at a garage sale. i got it for 50 bucks and its like new!  i bought a bunch of cute kid clothes from the same people for super cheap too.  the yellow antique-ee short chairs were from some guys who were moving.  I really like them but we probably won't bring them back to oregon.  We were so blessed to get practically a whole household of stuff for free from this father and son that were moving. They had a garage sale and then were desperate to get rid of what they couldn't sell so it was really a win win situation.  we got their silverware, tupperware, dishes, homemade futon (nice and sturdy) ziplock bags to pictures from their walls.  etc.  It's really helped our house feel homey.

.

 This house looks big but it's just a two bedroom home.  Jack and Oscar share a large room upstairs and Ginger has her own room upstairs and Gretchy is happy living in the Closet. hahahahh (sound familiar Holly?) THe closet is actually really big. She has a bed in it and still floor space to play around on and some deep shelves she likes to climb in and play in.  The girls are excited to have their own space.  Me and Glen made the back open room off the living room our bedroom.  It works out nicely.  We just aren't a fan of having to go upstairs to use the bathroom.  (we've been spoiled having our own bathroom back in oregon).

 this is the upstairs hallway.  Off to the right is gingers room and a bathroom and to the left is gretchens hole in the wall.  :)

 View, looking towards jacks room

 We were so lucky to have a cute little ol lady give us her kitchen table because it was too big for just her.

 I love the front porch much better now.  I think our neighbors are liking the upgrades we've been doing too. adding flowers and replacing the rusty old mailbox with a new white one.

Surprise in my kitchen cupboard!

This was so creepy!  I reached up into my kitchen cupboard to get some crackers and this zoomed by.  eeow!  It moved so swiftly and smoothly over cans and boxes.  It gave me the creepy crawlies.
I finally caught it and then pursued going through everything in the kitchen making sure any open boxes or packages were in a sealed ziplock.  bla!  I haven't seen any since then.  fewf!

Visit to State Park

I just realized i didn't add and photos of Jack and Ginger.  They were busy collecting snails and shells.

An Experience I'll never forget!

 This is a replica of Joseph Smith's home. They built it using the existing foundation and they used the same tools and built is the same way as the original.

 This was the room that Angel Moroni appeared to Joseph. It felt amazing to be there and think of all the history here.

 The Palmyra temple is the only temple in the world where you can see through the windows.  They felt it was important to cut the trees back so the people in the temple had a direct view of the Sacred Grove.

 This is the interior of Alvins house.  These are the original walls!  This is house is 80% or so original.

 the front of Alvins House.

 The Smith family barn.

 This was where the Gold plates were hidden for a while.  sorry i don't have more explanation. The Sister missionary who gave us the tour was from spain and had a very heavy accent and was only eight weeks into her mission so it was pretty hard to understand what she was saying.

   we were left on our own to go through the Sacred Grove.  This was the best part of the whole visit. The kids were a bit distracting but I managed to get a few moments to myself.  I was surrounded in absolute beauty.  It's been a week since my visit to the Sacred Grove and I still find myself pondering the experience of just being there and thinking about what it was like for Joseph Smith.
Here he had a beautiful farm, humble home and gorgeous land.  He left it all to do the lords work.  What a sacrifice, but a sacrifice worth giving.

 This photo above is my absolute favorite.  (the photo i emailed to some of you wasn't the one i thought it was)  This is the place in my opinion where I think Joseph knelt in prayer so long ago.  Right where the sun shines down on the forest floor like a spotlight.