Our trip back east

Spence and I left the kids for 9 whole days last week to go on a trip back east. We left them with my mom for the first 4 days and then had our friends cousins babysit for the rest. They did awesome and didn't even miss us much, which made our vacation fun. (It would've broken my heart to hear them sad we were gone. But they never complained to us!) We went with Danny and Kasey Perkinson and had a BLAST! We flew into New York and saw the sights there for 2 days, then drove to Boston for about 2 days, then Montreal and then Palmyra. We had an incredible time and couldn't have without the help we received from our family and awesome babysitters! We feel so blessed to be able to go on a trip like this and enjoy time together, all the while knowing our kids were safe and happy.

So here are some pictures and I'm not going to comment much and explain everything because I'm totally tired and I'm a lame blogger anyway. So here it is.....
Rockafeller Plaza


At the MET, SO COOL! (To say the least! Just trying to keep it short)


Spence, Danny and Brett Crandall (Danny and Kasey's friends from high school who lives in Manhattan and met us at the museum) at the MET


Me and Kasey in Times Square


Freezing on the Staten Island Ferry at 1a.m. (My blood runs very thin now that I live in HOT AZ!)


And from New York we drove 3 1/2 hours to Boston, possibly the coolest city in our country, in my opinion. Spence grew up in Boston for part of his youth so we love any chance we get to go there!

The four of us in an area now known as "The Big Dig." It used to have a huge double decker highway running basically through the center of the city and in a effort to beautify (and probably more reasons than that) they dug an underground freeway that now runs under the city instead of through it. The area is now a beautiful parkway full of green grass and trees, fountains and places to relax, eat, read, etc. Fun fact: In the Big Dig project they used enough concrete to make a sidewalk from New York to L.A. and back 3 times! Crazy!



Paul Revere's Gravesite


In an old cemetery along The Freedom Trail in Boston


A Boston Landmark


There is SO much beautiful architecture there!!


We had the opportunity to go to the temple for our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, in each of these four cities (part of the reason we chose each city). The Boston temple is stunning, of course.


And then we were off to Montreal. We planned our trip so we could see the beautiful leaves change colors. So we got to experience a week of fall weather and stunning scenery! IT WAS AMAZING!! Spence served his mission in Montreal and so that was our motivation behind going up there. It was so fun to see a little part of where he was.

Here is the base of a huge statue in a popular tourist area in Montreal. Like most everything we saw....beautiful. (I wonder how many times I use that word in this long post!)


Warming up and getting hot chocolate!




Check out the beard my husband was working on! Well, it was really just lack of shaving for a couple weeks. He doesn't usually have quite this much hair!



Eating at a fun pasta place. Too bad non of us were looking at the camera!


We made fun of Spence's lazy eyes....


....so then he gave us this.


A huge catholic church in Montreal. Again... beautiful architecture.


After enjoying chili Montreal we crossed the border again and arrived in Palmyra, New York. Palmyra is home to a few very sacred places in our churches history and it was an honor to be there. I'll post a few pictures but we have a lot on another camera that we brought and I havent't put them on the computer yet. So I'll post some pictures of the Sacred Grove and some others when I get them. But here are a few.

Inside the Peter Whitmore home.



Does it get more beautiful than this?!


At the Hill Cumorah.


There will be a few more to come when I get them from the other camera.