Upstate New York

It's a little dumb to try to put this in one post.  Some of my favorite things happened in New York.  Let's see if I can make it NOT a million paragraphs long.

DAY 1:  Palmyra

We were lucky to have Grandma Dorrie and Grandpa Jeff meet us for this leg of the trip! It was fun to experience this part of the tour with them!

We started our trip at the Smith Family farm. We toured the home and other buildings and then headed to the sacred grove.  It truly was a lovely morning and we felt blessed to be there.  We all tried to take some quiet time to pray and meditate while there and there were some sweet experiences.

After lunch we went to the Grandin printing press and it was a really well done tour, as well.  Not that I'd know...this was when Ryan and I realized a feisty 18 month old baby was not going to do well on the tours.  Grandin was my turn to take the baby out.  But my kids really learned a lot.

We headed to Hill Cumorah after that and proceeded to hike up the wrong way and roll down the super steep hill and crack a head (Seth's) on a sprinkler on the way down and deal with copious amounts of blood.  After that was resolved, we took a few pictures and chilled a little in the visitors center.

For dinner we sent Ryan to buy salad mixes and fruit at the grocery store because we were done with eating out at this point. We just spread out in the hotel dining room and ate some vegetables!



DAY 2: Fayette, Seneca, Watkins Glen

We drove to the Peter Whitmer farm first thing in the morning and it was my most spiritual moment of the trip.  I LOVED the video in the visitors center and was so moved by the small little house from which this marvelous work has sprung.  I loved the story of Mary Whitmer and loved how the Lord rewards the service of homemakers and small acts of service.

We decided to stop in Seneca Falls and visit the hall where the Women's Suffrage movement started.  Great free museum and I thought it was so good to have the whole family reminded of the importance of women's rights.



At this point, we decided to head back to our hotel so that our strung out baby could nap...Grandma said she'd take a few kids and explore the finger lakes area. As we drove back, Levi fell asleep.  We opted to drive while he napped, and looked up Favorite Drives in the area, because it was SO BEAUTIFUL.  We saw rave reviews of the Watkins Glen hike and realized the my mom was headed there as well. It was one of the highlights of the trip.  It was like hiking through a Disney fairy movie...under waterfalls, through grottos, in carved out river beds.  We were all enchanted and so grateful we hadn't missed it. (The day was capped off by some of the best Chinese I've ever had, just outside of Palmyra.)

DAY 3:

We were all excited for Niagara Falls and, frankly, I think everyone was a little disappointed at first.  It really is so seedy at the State Park there and I think my kids were underwhelmed at the view from the top.  As I expected, though, everything changed as we did the Maid of the Mist tour.  It was awesome! People were thrilled and appropriately in awe of those falls, when viewed close up from the boat. We spent 2-3 hours in Niagara and then headed to Kirtland, OH.

The Drive Across the Country

(I'm so excited to relive this trip by blogging it.  Hope it's not too boring for the 22 readers I have.)

In the weeks leading up to the trip, I surprised myself by being very nervous about it.  I drive by myself all the time and did it when I had little kids.  This time I had 2 teenagers, one who could drive and one who could run 6 minute miles to the gas station if I ran out or something.  So, I was totally caught off guard by feeling anxious about the trip.  I think it was being in very unfamiliar areas (and especially driving through big cities with a huge floating trailer and a Thule on top), with a very tight schedule.  I felt much better when we nailed down all of the hotel/airbnb accommodations and realized we could pack light enough to leave the trailer thing at home.

We left Spokane around noon and headed east.  The first night was a quick stay in Billings MT; nothing too exciting happened there.  I woke up the next day pretty excited though, because it was sunny and we heading to our first planned destination.




We took a quick 30 minute detour to Pompeys Pillar to see where Lewis and Clark camped and defaced the rock!




Theodore Roosevelt National Park is on the western edge of North Dakota and had been recommended by a friend.  We had about 3 hours to explore there and pulled into the town of Medora.  It's a cute restored western town, with fun shops and restaurants and show at night; I was sad we weren't staying there for the night.  We asked some locals for recommended hikes and started the sight seeing loop, stopping when the map indicated we were by those hikes.  It was so fun because the hikes were .5-1.5 miles and so we could jump out, explore for 10-20 minutes and jump back in.  We saw a "city" of prairie dogs, bison, mountain goats, wild horses and snakes.  The badlands are so interesting...the landscape has so much color and variety and our day was gorgeous.  It was the perfect stop. So perfect that we came back and visited it later that day, when I realized 30 miles away that I'd left my credit card at the gas station.  Ugh.

We stopped in Fargo ND for the night and were able to go to a 9:00 sacrament meeting before we headed back on the road.  We headed south into Western Minnesota and stopped at the town of Walnut Grove to visit the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum.  We spent about an hour there, looking at artifacts, and pictures, touring replicas of buildings that Laura had been in and buying fun souvenirs.  After, we drove 5 minutes down the road to visit the site of the dugout (famous in On The Banks Of Plum Creek) and it was my favorite part.  Though collapsed, it was fun to see the actual site where she lived and it was truly beautiful.  (We hadn't quite gotten to that part of the series when we visited, but we just started a few weeks ago and all of us, okay...except Gabe, are finding it so fun to picture the place because we've been there!)

Our next stop was Chicago, and the drive there was kind of awesome.  It was beautiful and we loved seeing the landscape change as we drove over the Mississippi river.  We stopped to eat dinner on the banks of the Mississippi and watched the sun set.  I kept thinking "THIS is why I planned this trip." Later that night, my usually non-verbal teenage boy talked to me in the dark for 3 hours while we drove into the city and it has become one of my favorite memories from the trip.



Chicago was crazy! It was unfamiliar territory for all of us and I loved the experience of riding the Metra, walking on city streets, finding our way around.  My kids had a kind of hard time with the smells and the humidity and lots of walking but there was still so much to do.  We had yummy doughnuts at Doughnut Vault, great deep dish pizza at Giordano's, a fun visit with my step-siblings who work at the former Sears tower.  We were disappointed that the lovely rainstorm we experienced shut down the observation deck.  We toured the Grant park, took pictures at the Bean and did a (kinda lame) boat tour of the lake...I learned later that the better boat tours go down the river.  Our favorite part were the 2.5 hours we spent at the Art Institute.  We checked out 3 audio tours, which we shared, and used the guide that tells you what to see if you only have a short time to visit.  SO SO SO GREAT.

We left Chicago around 5 pm and headed to Sandusky OH.  We stayed in a small, hot, spider-infested cottage about 20 minutes away from Cedar Point Amusement park, but I'm hoping it's one of those things that will turn into family legend.  Cedar Point totally blew my expectations out of the water.  It is the one of the best known rollercoaster parks in the country and is built in the middle of Lake Erie. It was the cleanest amusement park in the best location! The lines were short, the weather was mild and I didn't have a baby to worry about.  We went on some pretty epic rides and I had some pretty thrilled kids.  Most of my kids will tell you it was their favorite part of the trip.

We again left at 5pm, in order to meet Ryan's plane at 11:00 and we did it!  We were blown away with how gorgeous upstate New York was as we drove in.  Completing that trip felt like such an accomplishment and I was so happy to have Ryan (and Levi) with us to experience this epic vacation.  Watching the kids be reunited with their baby brother was the cutest.



We were ready to start the Church History part of our Church History tour!

LDS Church History Tour Itinerary and tips for planning!

So, if you've been anywhere near me in the last few months or follow me on Instagram, you are well aware that we just completed an epic road trip in order to visit a majority of the historical sites that are sacred to the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  I've had so many people ask me for my itinerary so I thought I'd record it here, along with a few tips.  I'll probably record more details of each spot in the coming weeks here, as well, but I wanted to have a quick reference for people who are interested in how we did it!

TIP#1:
We had planned on flying to New York, but as we looked into the logistics of renting a vehicle big enough for 8 people AND dropping it back off or paying the extra fees, it just made so much more sense to drive to New York and back.  Truly the best decision we made, I 100% promise.



TIP #2:
In preparation, I began looking for websites that had good info on how to do a church history tour and I really couldn't find much.  I did however find these books: The LDS Family Travel Guide.  I LOVED them.  It was so nice to have a hard copy in front of me, with basic maps and timing suggestions and tips and directions.  I used it to plan and I took it on the trip.  It's a little dated but that really wasn't an issue.  I just used it as a guide and then used google, maps, yelp and phone calls to fill in the rest. I also really liked the basic background the books gave on each site. We used them in family home evening lessons before the trip and read them aloud as we drove to the sites during the trip.

TIP #3:
We used hotels (thanks to some discounts from my dad, the two rooms we needed were less pricey!) and airbnb.com.  I LOVE airbnb so much.  It's a really affordable way to lodge a family of 8 especially in bigger cities.  It's the first place I've looked for any trip I've taken in the last year.  Feel free to ask questions about where we stayed in the comments.

TIP#4:
Spiritual preparation really helps if you want to have the best experience.  We held a family fast the fast Sunday before we went, asking Heavenly Father to bless us to feel His Spirit and to help us deepen our testimony of the restoration of the Gospel.  We also assigned each child to an area of the trip and asked them to present pictures, stories and outlines about what we'd see each place and had them give their presentations in family home evenings prior to leaving.

Okay...onto the schedule.  I'm including my cross country drive because it was just so cool, but obviously it will all be different depending on where you live.



Day 1: Leave Spokane and drive to Billings, MT (7.5 hour drive)
Day 2: Drive to Theodore Roosevelt National Park  (4 hour drive).  Explore for 2-3 hours.
            Drive to Fargo ND (4.5 hour drive)
Day 3: Drive to Walnut Grove MN; visit Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum (3.5 hour drive). Stay 2 hrs.
            Drive to Chicago, IL (8 hour drive)
Day 4: Explore Chicago (Boat ride, Doughnut Vault, Art Institute, the Bean, deep dish pizza)
            Drive to Sandusky OH. (4.5 hours)
Day 5: Visit Cedar Point Amusement Park for 7ish hours.
            Drive to Rochester NY. (4.5 hours)
Day 6: Visit Sacred Grove, Smith family farm, Hill Cumorah, Grandin printing press
Day 7: Visit Peter Whitmer Log home, hike Watkins Glen State Park Gorge
Day 8: Drive to Niagara (2 hours) Visit Niagara Falls. 4-5 hours needed.
            Drive to Ohio (3.5 hour drive)
Day 9: Visit Kirkland visitor center, Kirtland temple, John Johnson farm.
Day 10: Visit Isaac Morley farm. Drive to Valparaiso, IN. (4.5 hr drive)
Day 11: Scrap plans to visit Indiana Dunes State Park (dumb rain). Drive to Springfield IL (3.5 hr
             drive.) Visit Lincoln's Tomb, Abe Lincoln Presidential Museum for 4-5 hrs. Drive to Nauvoo,      
             IL. (2.5 hour drive)
Day 12: Spend the day at Nauvoo.
Day 13: More Nauvoo, Carthage Jail, Nauvoo temple baptisms.
Day 14: Drive to Kansas City, stopping at Adam Ondi Ahman. (4.5 hour drive)
**here you could do Independence MO sites and Liberty Jail...we'd already done that a few years ago.
Day 15: Drive to Denver CO (8.5 hour drive)
Day 16: visit Breckenridge CO, hike Flatirons
Day 17: Drive to Salt Lake City (8 hour drive)
Day 18: Drive back to Spokane (10 hour drive)





So that's how we did it.  It was truly the trip of a lifetime.  I'll spend the next few posts talking about each place in detail, should you want more information.

Spring Break 2015

Just a little bit of family record keeping here, folks, sorry.

It seems lately that we've been planning long, costly summer vacations and thus have less budget and time off when it's Spring Break time.  Ryan is sweet about trying to help me make the spring break fun even though we are just staying home.

Last year it was out of control 2-3 major activities every day and no one was quite up for that this year.  We decided that we'd plan 1 family activity every day around 3-4:00 and Ryan would leave work early to make it happen.  The kids also had a work project that they needed to complete every day: cleaning out the garage, detailing the cars, etc.  We're the nicest parents.

Monday: Wild Walls climbing walls.  This was definitely the best one of the week (should have done it at the end!) We got a babysitter for Levi and headed downtown.  Most of the family had never done it before and we all had a great time.  Seth was really good at it (big surprise...the kid has no fear) and Emma REALLY loved it.  We kept trying to think of a way she could get a job there.

Tuesday: 3rd annual bike ride to Red Robin along the fabulous trails we have here in Spokane.  It's about 15 miles round trip and the kids are troopers.  We left a little late and while we enjoyed our burgers during dinner, I was getting really concerned about how dark it would be on our way home.  I was right... it was completely dark the last 3 miles.  Ryan was riding with Faith and was even further behind then I was.  I ended up sprinting home and grabbing the car in order to rescue him from a dark cold couple of miles.

Wednesday: Family Hike and Ice Cream.  We told the teenagers that they had one opt out night and they chose hiking night. Booooo! I had come across a site that listed the 5 best family hikes in the Spokane area and wanted to try one out.  It was called Big Rock and it was pretty short and steep and ended at a, wait for it...really big rock! We stopped by our favorite ice cream place on our way home as a reward for our loyal hikers.

Thursday: Cinderella movie night!  I kind of love that Gabe chose to hang out with the family on the girly movie night.  He totally liked it, don't let him tell you differently.  We all thought it was great...love when things live up to their hype!

Friday: Big Backyard BBQ with friends and neighbors.  Our kids always pick this one when we ask what they want to do and it's always so much fun.  Those kinds of events sound like a huge effort and then it's not at all.  Even though it got really cold for the 2 hours that we had the barbecue, people stayed and chatted and the kids ran like crazies and it was a great night.

So there we go... detailing the 5 days a year that we seem like the funnest family ever.  #selectivejournalingFTW!

Quick Quote

Jane:  Today we watched whales mate in Life Science.

Ryan:  How did that go?

Jane:  There was ALOT of splashing.

I've changed how I feel about my mothering

Levi is cute, smart, funny, so good for my big kids, the best little caboose ever.  But if you want to ask me, personally, the biggest blessing that has come from having this 6th child, I'd tell you: Levi has changed how I feel about myself as a mother.

I've spent my whole mothering career feeling pretty mediocre.  I had some ideas about what a "good" mother would be and I didn't think I was those things (selfless, nurturing, liked tucking her kids in at night, in control of her temper...) I knew I wasn't awful, but I sure wished the kids I loved most in the world could have someone with better parenting skills hanging out with them all day.

I tried really hard.  I made lots of goals and asked for lots of help and forgiveness from Heavenly Father.  It's just really discouraging and sad to feel like you're not that good at your MAIN job.

When we realized that Heavenly Father wanted us to have another baby, I was really scared.  I felt super overwhelmed and sub-par at the job I was doing with the 5 kids I had.  I remember praying and listing the many other women who had less kids than I did and who I felt were WAY more skilled at motherhood than I was.  BUT...I have a deep testimony that Heavenly Father knows what we can do and what will bless us and that He gives us commandments only because they will make us (and our families) better in the end.

I clung to that belief, HARD.  I remember being 6 months pregnant and going to Emma's high school orientation and literally sobbing as I drove home.  I had no idea how I was going to manage high school (all new to our family) and middle school and elementary school and preschool and a newborn.  Complete craziness.

Levi was born and I began taking care of those 6 kids.  He was my worst sleeper AND I'd lost my milk. I researched those problems and trouble-shot and tried new things that I'd never done with other kids.  I kept waking up and loving him and the rest of them and giving my ALL to those kids.  Eventually, I got my milk back and I taught that baby to sleep and Ryan kept telling how impressed he was with the way I'd worked so hard to do the things that were necessary to nurturing a child.  I took that baby to concerts and track meets and carpools.  I taught Faith to read, encouraged Gabe in his running, read scriptures each morning with Jane and Seth, made decently healthy dinners most nights.  It was really hard.  It blew my mind at how much I was asked to do each day.

A defining moment happened at the end of the school year (2014).  I had felt promptings at the beginning of the school year that Seth was dealing with Inattentive ADD.  I made a few calls to people that might help, got a little reading material but, honestly, I couldn't follow up on it.  It was just not possible.  I talked to his teacher (who had taught him in 2nd grade and moved up with the whole class to 3rd grade) and she said "oh yes, he for sure has it, but he's smart and he's managing school just fine.  I have a grown son who has ADD and I know how to help and I'll let you know when I think Seth needs more." At the end of the year, she called me in so that I could help pick his 4th grade teacher (something that the teachers are NOT technically supposed to do) and we talked and decided who we thought would be best for him.  I could feel her love for him and felt so grateful for her.  As I walked down that hall thinking of how lucky we were to have Mrs. Gothmann in our lives, I felt the Spirit clearly say to me "I knew that you couldn't give Seth what he needed this year, and so I made sure he had a teacher that could." I began to cry as it really sunk in that I am not doing this huge, important job alone.  I KNEW that Heavenly Father was my total partner in all my efforts and I felt this huge weight lifted.  I can be a good mother BECAUSE I have Him.

There are two other things I've realized during these last 18 months.

1.  I am able to do the really hard, selfless things that being a mother requires.  I saw myself sleep less, read less, be with friends less, exercise less so that I could be the mother my kids needed.  I think I've always been afraid that I wouldn't be able or willing to do that stuff.  But I did and I am.  I am selfless enough and nurturing enough and better-at-not-yelling enough.  I am!  (I still don't tuck my kids in bed though...) It was almost a relief to realize I had it in me.

2. My kids don't deserve a perfect mom.  They don't! None of us do.  We deserve a mom that tries, and gives us a lot of her best stuff, but we also deserve a mom who fails and messes us up. Seriously! We are all made better as we learn from our mother's successes and failures.  I have, for the most part, stopped feeling horrible for all of the times I fall short.  It doesn't make me try less, at all!  I just don't berate and hate myself.  I simply remember that 1) I have shown that I will do that hard mom stuff and 2)Heavenly Father is making up the difference and I keep striving and loving those children.

Isn't that so so great?  Isn't that so lucky that I got to learn those lessons at 39? How grateful I am that we have this soul-stretching calling and that Emma, Gabe, Jane, Seth, Faith and Levi are mine forever.