July 2010 happenings -beginning of month

Whitewater River Valley train, what a fun 1.5 hour train trip. Kinda like the Heeber Creeper for you Utah folks. It is up in Indiana, at the end of the trip there is a great town you can visit and see some cool historic sites. Then you ride the train back. On the train the kids got to meet Abe Lincoln!

James' team the Raiders won the championship!

We visited Berea and Harrodsburg Kentucky on a long day trip. We bought a book of day trips from Cincinnati and took some fun drives. Berea is the arts and crafts center of Kentucky, they were having a quilt show. These were amazing.

James just had to touch one, but only with the special gloves.

Hands down, the most amazing tree in Kentucky. An Osage Orange tree in Harrodsburg, KY.

A primitive structure you could check out in the fort that was rebuilt in Harrodsburg.

A fun diner we stopped at for lunch. It had the most amazing grilled cheese sandwiches.

Another trip to the Cincinnati Zoo! Their new exhibit was the Komodo Dragon.

Feeding the giraffes is always a fun experience.

July 2010 happenings -end of month

One of our favorite places is the Cincinnati Zoo! We just love that place, and have bought memberships for the past couple years. They just made a new entrance to the zoo last year, which has these great rhinos. Everyone stops to take pictures. We took more pictures of this peacock, than I care to remember. He was beautiful though.

The kids love to feed the lorikeets.

Ginny on one of her first merry-go-round rides. She had a great time.

Since it does get so hot here, they have misters throughout the zoo. Ryan held up Anna so she could get a face full of the cool mist.

Such a darling picture of my cute parents at the zoo.

Okay, I know I have enough stuffed animals, but I just couldn't resist him! And he was on sale for only $24!

While my parents were here visiting we got to go to Big Bone State Park, it was really hot that day and my parents declared they were "never moving to Kentucky", the humidity did them in about. We had a great time hiking around and seeing the pretty Kentucky scenery.

We all really enjoyed our trip to the Louisville Slugger museum. Everyone got to go in and tour the factory, get a small souvenier bat, and hold some pretty famous bats.

The world's largest bat outside the entrance

Anna holding a famous batter's bat...can't remember whose...argh.

Yeah, ditto for Emma

The company originally made butterchurns. Emma and Anna got to try one out.

Yes, Ryan got to see a real RACING TRACTOR. Folks, only in the south.

July 2010 happenings - Nauvoo

We had a nice trip to Nauvoo over the 4th of July weekend. None of us had been there before, and it is amazing how there is so much to see and do. The church has restored so many various buildings, that you can experience Nauvoo like it was when the pioneers lived there. The most breathtaking thing was seeing the Temple. In my mind I had thought that it would have been small, like the Kirtland, OH temple, but no, it is very large. The church rebuilt it on the exact footprint that the original one was built on. Just to see the size of it, and know the pioneers built it, is an amazing feat.

We took a nice tour around the city to see all the various sites.

Our Hotel we stayed at was really nice.

They had an area called pioneer pastimes where the kids could play games that the pioneer children did, and dress up. We spent quite a bit of time here.

It was Band Time! A wagon with a band on it, came around and played for a while. The elder missionaries went out and danced with all the children. It was a good time had by all.

Brigham Young's buggy.

Ryan's broad shoulders were used to carry various little girls throughout his summer with us.

Anna had so much fun, she just couldn't stay awake and wouldn't wake up even with Daddy blowing in her mouth.

We took Sunday afternoon to see Carthage, where Joseph Smith was martyred. It was a special place, indeed.

Virginia climbed up her first step while at Carthage.

There was a GIANT oak tree there, certainly old enough to have been growing when Joseph was killed.

We visited Joseph, Emma's and Hyrum's grave site. Anna had a terrible habit of picking flowers this summer, wherever we went. Yes, I know....

Finally a dip in the Mississippi river came at the end of our visit. Emma "accidentally" fell in. She is our little river rat.

And our drive back home, everyone was plugged into a movie.