Alas...David had finished his research, finished his dissertation, stressed, aged 10 years and finally defended! It was a great defense, probably the best one I've ever been too (okay this time I'm not being bias because he's my husband, it's actually just the only dissertation I've been too, so he wins the best award from me.)
His P.I. was fantastic and had so many wonderful things to say about him she really did a lot of research on Dave and our family and probably spent way to much time on putting together a presentation of him, I only wish I would have recorded it, because she was quite thoughtful and really put in a TON of work in his behalf over the past four years.
Anyhow, we had a few days between his finishing of his Ph.D. and starting his 3rd year of medical school, so we tried to think of some place we'd like to still visit while out here since we could be back out west in a couple of years, so we opted for New York, but not New York City, we headed to upstate New York to view a little LDS church history.
Joseph Smith, the first prophet of the restored Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, was living in Palmyra when he fourteen years old. He went into a grove of trees by his home to pray about which church to join, in the end he received a revelation to not join any of them, but that he would be directed by God to restore the gospel the way it was in times of old, with proper authority. He spent the remainder of his days, spreading the gospel, serving others and sharing his experiences with everyone he met. He was eventually killed by an angry mob because of his beliefs. And since we are mormons, this is a special and sacred place for us and one we really enjoyed visiting.
The day was extremely hot and humid, but it was still fun to take a walk in the woods as a family, visit the replica of the Smith's family farm and beautiful home they built, but only lived in for a few months.
This was Joseph's room as a young teenager.
There are no complaints on the size of our house after seeing this 'somewhat' two bedroom hosting way more family member than I could ever imagine having under one roof everyday.
And though we didn't get to go through the temple on our visit since we had the girls with us, it is still so fun to see how beautiful they are.
This is the Hill Camorah where we believe Joseph Smith found an ancient record, that with help, he later translated into the the Book Of Mormon.
Since we were already facing about an 8 hour drive, we decided a 30 minute detour in Ohio on our way to New York would be acceptable. So, we stopped for a few hours in Kirtland, Ohio.
David's brother was living in Indiana when Jeana was only a couple of months old, so along with the young babe, Grandpa and Grandma, we went to visit their family and visit Kirtland, Ohio, which is also a place heavy on history of our church. Little did we know someday we would live close enough to visit again! Anyhow, lots has changed in 7 years, but it was still fun to visit with our now older, kids. And since I was 7 1/2 months pregnant, technically all of us got to visit the Kirtland temple.
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