Our first Anniversary

This blog is going to be long so i suggest you go grab a snack and a comfortable chair. June 27, 2009 Levi and I got married. I can't believe it has already been one year. "The first year is the hardest" myth didn't feel like it applied to us newly weds. This year has been a great introduction to the rest of our lives together. This blog is on our one year anniversary adventure and every moment, as you will see, was a blast. We love our little Emery but it was great to have each other to ourselves for the three days we left Em with my sister Emily. As hard as it was, it was worth it.

This is our little family saying goodbye for the weekend! Emery was not as near as sad as i thought she would be saying goodbye. I secretly was disappointed...

Levi wanted the whole weekend to be a surprise. I sure was surprised when we drove to the New York Border. Some of the surprises were ruined when the border patrol asked exactly what we were going to do in the U.S. Looks like we were going to go to Palmyra! Surprise!!

Once there we dropped off our bags at the bed and breakfast. It was definitely an interesting experience. The Lady was nice enough but defiantly a little wonky in head. This is the bathroom. Got to love that wall paper!This was our room. We were afraid to fall of the extremely high bed. Levi also had to point out, there was no one to stop us from trying on the antique wedding dresses! The stay was complete with our chocolates, water bottles, and candle lit breakfast. (oh how i wish i could have taken a picture of that!) Breakfast: Fermented Fruit salad and undercooked quiche, most important meal of the day.

I wish that the antique shops in Canada were as full of spectacular deals as the ones we found in Palmyra were. I just loved this little stroller thing-er-abobber. If we had a bigger car I would have snatched up everything i took a picture of. You will understand when you see all these pictures.

This made Levi really appreciate the washers and dryers we have today. If he did the laundry more often he would appriciate them even more!!

A camera taking a picture of a camera! Always a classic...

One of my new favorite colors. This shop made me want to go buy a lottery ticket in hopes i became rich, so i could have all these items i wanted.

OK this couch...love of my life....was only 100$!! Levi and were just going crazy over it. We tried thinking of all the possible ways of getting it home with us until we were finally forced to say our sad goodbyes.
Hey look...that's me! In the first publication site of the Book of Mormon( in downtown Palmyra). The missionaries led us step by step on how The Book Of Mormon was made after Joseph smith finished translating it. This is me learning to fold a sample book of Mormon the same way they did it. I can't believe they did it all by hand!

This is where they would arrange all the letters onto a slate which eventually got put on a press and made into the pages of the B.O.M. I always thought that it would take forever gathering up all the right letters but the missionary said that they got fast enough that they didn't even have to look at which ones they were grabbing. Another interesting thing is that this is where the "upper case" and "lower case" letters came from. The little ones were on the bottom and the bigger ones were on the top. coolio eh!

-The press...very cool...very old.

After they printed the pages, they would fold them and then trim them up with this device. There is a sharp blade on on to top wooden peice. They would drag it across the pages until they were ship shape ready for some binding glue and leather back. Most books back then were paper back, but Joseph Smith paid extra to have it leather bound so that it would look more like the bible.

They used real gold to stamp "Book of Mormon" onto the binding.

I always see the printings of these pictures in various church sites, but it was amazing to see the originals. They were way bigger than i ever thought they would be.

Levi and i really liked this display. They said the reason the bible and book of Mormon don't have any writing on them in the painting is because they go hand in hand and should be thought of as equal. The book of Mormon and bible below the painting are from the same time period.

The hill Cumorah was really fun to walk up not just because the great exercise but helped us think of all those stories we were told about the church history more realisticaly.

This is the "Frame House" just down the road(and in a different county) from the Smiths "Log Home". This home was only theirs for a short while before someone else who could pay their dues before they could, took possession and moved it. ( This is what i got from the sister missionary giving us the tour. So there is a possibility i could be a little off...) Most of the rooms were 85% original and one of the rooms was 95% original. It was amazing that they have preserved it this long for us!

This is the original fireplace where under these bricks Joseph smith hid the plates when the mobs persecutors were coming.

I thought this picture was cool because if you look beside the dresser there is a place where there is no white wash. There must have been some furniture or something blocking that part of the wall where they didn't paint. i wonder what it was!

This is the room that is 95% original. I believe this room was Joseph smith's parents room.

The cellar.

The sink.

This is the kitchen. It is amazing what improvement this house was to the home they lived in when this one was being built.

This is the Smith home that pops into everyone head when someone is talking about it (or at least for me anyways) behind it you can see the sacred grove.

Where i was standing when i took the picture is where we are to believe the angel Moroni stood when he came to joseph. Even if it was not the exact spot, it is amazing to think we were standing in the airspace where Moroni was standing. The two beds were where the boys slept (3 to each bed) and the back room is where the girls were.

The girls room.

This is the kitchen.

this is where joseph's father worked making and repairing barrels. This is also where joseph hid the plates once again because of the mobs. He hid them in the floor but then moved them to the loft. The mobs came and destroyed the the shop, and dug up the floor boards but never thought to look in the loft

The entrance to the sacred grove. Even though we don't know exactly where in the grove where Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ spoke to joseph smith, it was amazing to know we were as close as we are ever going to be to that location. And who knows...maybe we were standing in that exact location. Prophets have said this to be the 2nd most sacred place on earth.

We didn't want to leave and spent as much time as we could in there. It definately was the best way to spend a one year anniversary. It was amazing to think we were walking where the most important thing in our life began. When we were walking and talking about our temple sealing coming up, Levi popped the question. So now we are officially engaged to be sealed. Another Surprise!

This will have been the 3rd time Levi has proposed, and this by far has been my favorite one!

I now have my engagedment ring, my wedding band, and now my sealing band.

These are some strawberries we found in the sacred grove. I was dissapointed they were too ripe to eat.

We also found some wild rassberries!! We sampled them. Not as tastey as the ones off the bushes in my parents backyard.

Levi found snails with his sharp eyes.

After leaving the sacred grove we walked around the temple grounds. It was such a pretty temple with stainglass windows that resembled the sacred grove beside it.

Next up...Niagra falls!! On our way there we stoped at a diner that was on the food network on Diners Drive-ins and Dives. We have wanted to go to a place that was on that show together since we started dating 3 years ago!! It was so good. We sat right infront of an orange juicer. I'll take one please! They put the orange in the top... whole... and it sliced and juiced it right into the cup! very snazzy.
They smoked all their meat in the back. We caught some of that sweet action on camara!

This is our hotel we stayed in once we got to niagra falls. We felt all grown up, with the vallet parking and checking in all by ourselves.

I forgot to take a picture of just the bathroom. I was in love with the giant jacuzzi tub, expecially after the groody little ones we have been living with for the past 2 months.

Here I am with tickets to Maid of the Mist. The boat goes right up to the falls and we got soaked, but definatly worth every penny!

-us honeymooners loving every minute of it.

getting closer!

I don't know why we ever tried to keep the hoods of our ponchos on. We still got drenched!

Downtown Niagra Falls was packed with musems, stores, and fun places to eat. This is Levi plunking down for a rest at the guinness world records museum.

This picture is of the Days of Thunder car is for Darren. There was alot of Hollywood props at the Planet Hollywood resturant, but Levi thought this would be his favorite.

George Clooney....hmmm nice fit don't you think! haha kidding?

Lassy!

That is one big kiss!

The Hershey Store. Always a delisious stop.

I want these kiss lights in my future home. Loved them!

All the treats look amazing so we just had to get something for each of us. Can you guess what we picked?

Of course levi picked some sort of cookie...always a favorite. He got a Reese cookie with peanut butter in the middle and i got a skore cheese cake.

And what could make a Hershey store better than to have a coke store right beside it!!

We celebrated our anniversary date the saturday night because Levi had big plans for us on our actual day. We had our Diet colas and went out to dinner at Applebees.

Happy One year anniversary and welcome to Canada's Wonderland!! (biggest amusement park in Canada!)

I could not stop laughing at Levi's hair after a rollercoaster ride. I was practically crying and just kept saying through my giggles that he looked like Joseph Smith. It looked way better in person but you can get an idea of it.

Dan and Lynnae came with us to the ammusement park even though Dan hates rides almost as much as Levi does. They both wore motion sickness patches that are for sea sickness behind their ears the whole time. The next series of pictures are of Dan and Lynnae about to go on a ride.

Psyclone, the ride. Dom dom DOM!

"life is good, life is great, life is wonderful. Life is good, life is great, life is wonderful..."

Did you know Dan liked the ride Pyclone? Well neither did we by the looks of these pictures. A convincing man offered to do a demo sketch of Levi. We were considereing getting one done together but changed our minds after seeing his "demo". It didn't look anything like him!!

Levi has never been much for rides but was such a trooper and went on all the rollercosters except one. It was a great ending to our weekend away. It poured all the way home, making it a long drive home, but just gave us more time to be together. I can't wait to spend another year with my best friend and love of my life.

Where the air is sweet

I am not kidding around when is say that the berry fields here are surrounded a warm sweet scented air. There are so many berry farms in and around Ottawa but big sis Emily took us to one of her favorites. After sitting in the middle of a Field, plucking some juice red ones for our baskets (and mouths) we cooked up some strawberry jam. The whole day was great which got me excited for the blueberries to bloom because...you guess it...round two with the Jam!!
This is Emery in her new git-up from Grandma Peterson all ready to go berry picking. I had to post two of the outfit pictures because the first one didn't show off her newly pierced ears. She is such a little lady.

This here is Tobin. We filled up four baskets with strawberries so we were happy to have his happy helping hands.

The finished product. Since we could only do one batch at a time...these were only a few of many. I never knew the fruits of my labour really could taste so deliciously fruity.

Emery six months.

I have always thought Emery would stay a baby forever so I'm more than surprised when she got her first tooth and her ears pierced. I've reacted in ways i never thought i would. For example: i seem to be avoiding giving her toys because i can see them being shredded with her ridiculously sharp tooth. I've also being having dreams of my little ear pierced Emery asking to wear my make up and shave her legs. EEK! I had been excited for her to grow up, and now that its coming...and coming quickly I'm wondering if there is any way to keep her a baby forever. A magic potion maybe? Anyways this is Our little Emery on her June 8th her six month birthday and June 9th getting her ears pierced.
She forgave me faster than i thought. All she needed was a soother and a snooze. What a little trooper....she did better than me. I started bawling as soon as she started to cry. I've never felt so bad...as you can see.
Thanks to Emily we got snapshots of the whole process. I was so grateful to have her there.

.5 million dollar baby

We have been trying to take advantage of all the museums here. First up is the Royal Canadian Mint where they make special addition coins. Cameras were not allowed on the tour so we had to take a lot of our pictures in the gift shop, which was disappointing. We saw a gold roll of metal that was 16 million dollars! holy smokeroos!This is a .5 million dollar brick of gold, and i touched it....and so did Emery's bum. (lots of people hold it so i didn't' let her touch it with her hands.) They had 3 security guards watching over it which made it even more tempting to take. Emery samples everything, including this well used tourist Olympic coin....How sanitary...

Levi being an owl...hoo hoo!Levi was not very paitent waiting to get his picture taken and ended up trying to take his own picture in the coin. it turned out rather well if you ask me!

I'll keep this short and sweet...we had fun that day and finished off eating at the foolish chicken. A local chicken restaurant with foolishly Delicious food mostly made up of chicken.