Quick Trip to Palmyra

After thinking about doing it for 10 years, we finally decided to attempt the trip to Palmyra for the Hill Cumorah Pageant! I have to admit to being the one who held back for so long....I really did not want to make the trip with the kids because I hated travelling with little ones. But we are now well beyond little ones, and our kids are really quite good travelers (well, except for Savannah who seems to need to go to the bathroom anytime she is tired of sitting in the car!) so we took off at 6:30 pm on a Friday night for New York. We got to our hotel about 2:00 am and slept in late the next morning, then spent some time in the pool (because we all know that is the favorite part of the trip!) Then we spent the day sight-seeing in Palmyra before going to the pageant..... Here are the kids with Wicked King Noah

Acting crazy at the Printing Shop where the Book of Mormon was originally typeset and printed LETTER BY LETTER! It really made me appreciate the technology we have nowadays!

Joshua in the Sacred Grove

Savannah walking in the Sacred Grove

Our family at the Sacred Grove (Joshua was the photographer)

Savannah at the large Smith Family home

On the Smith Farm looking back at the Palmyra Temple

The small Smith Family Home where Joseph Smith first saw the Angel Moroni and was told about the gold plates in his upstairs bedroom. I believe they said there were actually 11 people living in this house!

We had a great time and were so glad we went. However, we made one fatal error and that was not lining up a hotel room for Saturday night. (Chris was debating whether or not to go on up to Niagra Falls so the kids could see it, so we hadn't arranged for a room) By the time we started searching for a room at 11:00 pm we were unable to find anything available. We decided to start driving towards home and kept calling hotels along the way only to find that everything was booked! Somewhere around 2:00 am, we realized that we were going to be driving ALL NIGHT! I fell asleep and Chris took over till 5:30 am, then I drove till 7:30 while he slept....it was ALL I could handle! So he took over and brought us the rest of the way home where we promptly crashed into our beds!