Mendon, NY!

Well yesterday we decided to do some more church sites. We hit up Hill Cumorah to have a little picnic and to take a quick picture of Nora and the Hill. Then we headed to Mendon.

First we have proof that Nora actually got out to "look" at the Hill Cumorah...

Mendon, NY is a very special place for Leisha's Grammi (unfortunately we never got to take her there!). The Young families started moving to Mendon from about 1826 to 1829. As we all know, Brigham Young is Leisha's great great great great great uncle and we wanted to see where he lived. One of the first stops we made was to the cemetery. Here are the graves of Miriam Works Young (Brigham's first wife) and Solomon F. Kimball (Heber C. Kimball's father and Spencer W. Kimball's great grandfather).

Just down the road from the cemetery are the home sites for Heber C. Kimball and John P. Green. Both of these men have connections to the Young family. Further down the road is the Tomlinson Inn. It was here that Phinehas Young (Brigham's brother) purchased a copy of the Book of Mormon from Samuel Smith (Joseph's brother and first missionary of the church!). It was his intent to find the flaws in the book. Well he didn't find any! And then the book circulated through the Youngs living in Mendon.

Just a short drive from the inn is the home of John Young (Brigham's father and Leisha's great great great great great grandfather). The picture shows Leisha pointing to the homes on either side of the street. Well they are both the home of John Young! At some unspecified point in time, the front half of the home was separated and moved to the north (the right side of the picture) side of the road. The two homes are owned by the church and we are pretty sure the missionaries live in the smaller portion on the right.

This was an awesome little trip and we plan on visiting a few more times before we move back to Washington. Maybe next time we will try to find the home site of Brigham!

Afternoon at the Sacred Grove

Nora's first official visit to the Sacred Grove (the other times she was eating in the van!).

Emma checking if the Smith's are home...

Nora at the Whitmer Farm

Proof that Nora got to the Whitmer Farm! She is even smiling about it!



You can see the bokeh Emma in the back of this one!

And yes I know that Leisha's face isn't in any of these. I wonder why...

Emma at the Whitmer Farm

My little tree hugger...

She is smelling the flowers...

For some odd reason dandelions don't seem like a weed when this little girl is holding them :)

Spring at the Whitmer Farm!

Some pics from our afternoon at the Whitmer Farm.

My favorite...the eastern redbud



Maples

Apples!

We are going to miss this in a month!

Some random pics for the G'ma's...

Here are a few random pics...

Nora in the tub.



Emma helping in the kitchen...well watching anyway. She loves her "monkey shirt".

Nora watching her daddy work on his thesis...

Nora's first trip to church!

Today was Nora's first trip to church. She did great, or so I think...as you know, I don't actually do any of the work... However, Emma did great in Nursery and I had a good time in Elder's Quorum... This was Nora's first Sunday outfit, complete with Grandma D socks! She is pretty dang cute if I say so myself, although she tends to have a pretty serious face in most of her pictures. Maybe she knows something she isn't telling me...

Emma is a great big sister and is always willing to give Nora her binky when she starts to cry...and sometimes when she isn't...

I love this picture of Emma. She looks so grown up with her hair pulled back in a bun.

Last day with Gramimi!!!!

We decided to take one last trip to the Sacred Grove with Marion before she left for good. It was a cloudy day and we just had enough time for Marion to take a short tour and walk through the grove before a thunderstorm. And I think all the Chlarsons know how much Marion likes thunderstorms...(for those Adams' and others, she doesn't like them, just ask her great grandmother's horse...)

The Grove was beautiful. Some of the smaller shrubs and bulbs were starting to push and it made a beautiful green carpet amongst the flooded low areas.



Emma made a new friend who gave her a ladybug to hold. The new friend just happened to be a girl that got baptized in our ward while we were gone. Emma was so happy that she held the girl's hand all the way through the grove!

Leisha and Nora of course stayed in the van and had a lite snack of milk and cookies. The cookies were for Leisha...

I am sure Marion will kill me for this, but hey she has pictures of me on her facebook that are just scary!

We miss you Gramimi! Emma keeps asking for you to come back and make lasagna...

Gettysburg and Lancaster county with Gramimi!

So we decided to take Marion down to Gettysburg and Lancaster PA for the weekend. Our first stop was some pretty waterfalls down by Watkins Glen, NY.

Stop 2: some park in the middle of PA while Nora got some food! Emma enjoyed playing on the rocks and picking up leaves and sticks.

Stop 3: McPhearson Ridge, where the battle started. I think all our stops coincide with a Nora feeding! Emma loved the cannons all over the battlefield She also loved to climb all over the monuments.

Marion in front of the monument to Gen. Reynalds. He was shot in the back of the head as he turned around to look at the city of Gettysburg.