OHIO!

Chris and I kept a secret kept for four months... from his brother Aaron. Aaron is attending dental school at Case Western University in Ohio, and we thought we'd pay a visit… and tell only his wife. After much anticipation, planning, and covering up any mistakes we may have made in slipping some hints here and there, the week we'd been waiting for had finally arrived. We went the 3rd through the 9th of June. Aaron was shocked – it was fun to see his reaction! He gave Chris a huge hug, pulled back and looked at him, and then hugged him again, as if to say, "You're here!" It was cute. 

This is their cute home. I can't lie and say I wasn't jealous to have a home!

My good friend Jenny told me to say hi to the cows and horses for her. Little did she know what a fun week we would have - without seeing one cow or horse! The City of Cleveland is beautiful, and Aaron and Julie live far from any farm land… the ghetto is basically their next-door neighbor. You wouldn't think so by looking at their street, though. It's very well-kept.

Ohio, little did we know, has many hidden treasures in it. But there was one we did know for sure of - the Rollercoaster Capital of the World, Cedar Point, where I have patiently waiting TEN years to go. May I say - it was TOTALLY worth the wait! I will talk more about that later... I want to go through the trip in order, giving you the highlights. This may turn out to be a very long post - I have LOTS of pictures; I have been told I have the tendency to take too many. We managed to squeeze in so much in one week that you may get tired of seeing how much fun we had. Feel free to lose interest at any time.

Here we are on the airplane, anxious for our trip... or tired of the airplane... you choose which I was feeling, depending on how I look. Boy, do I love airplanes... :( 

I somehow forgot to take a picture of the sweet reunion of brothers. Just take my word for it - it was worth the four month wait. That evening, we went out at Abuelo's Mexican restaurant. Yum-Yum! 

We got in at about 5:00, so the day was gone. This picture is the next morning after Julie so willingly cut my hair - yes, even shorter than before. That airplane picture was a nice "before" picture... the after shot is better... I think.

That day we just hung out and relaxed. It was so nice. And that night, we went shopping, where I discovered my new favorite store. Ah, H&M. It was my first trip. It definitely won't be the last.

We went out to CPK that night at the Legacy Village. Beautiful mall.

The next day we headed to Kirtland. Aaron and Julie actually go to church in Kirtland, so it's pretty close. It was really cool - very interesting. The temple was beautiful, and we actually got to tour it. The history of it was cool, of course it's the first temple so it's really important. The RLDS church owns it now and they have their own view of things, so it was really interesting to see the contrast and hear the history. It didn't quite have the right spirit there, the feeling was a bit weird, but it was neat, nonetheless. Here is Chris and I - why he's frowning? Not sure.

Julie and I

The brothers :)

This is Sidney Rigdon's home, across the street. It is privately owned now.

Next up was the visitors' center. This is where we saw the history of Kirtland with the church.

Chris kept putting this sticker on the back of everyone else, that says "I'm helping to preserve Kirtland Temple." He thought it was so funny - until it was put on him. I had to get a picture. And no, I never told him it was there. One of the missionaries did. :)

These next few pictures are what they used to build the temple... they're own kind of mill. Everything was run by this water - it was amazing!

It was really neat to see how simple the tools they used back then were. The things they used to build something so big and beautiful were so simple and humble. Very cool.

This was Newel K. Whitney's home, or a replica of it.

This is the Newel K. Whitney store, which is all original.

This missionary was funny. She told us her rule was that if we touched anything, she could hit us. Aaron kept reaching for stuff, and though this picture is staged, she really did hit him. 

With her scriptures.

This is a room where Emma Smith gave birth to one of their daughters. Can you imagine?!

These next pictures are of the School of the Prophets, where revelations were given to the leaders of the church. Christ appeared here personally - it was one of my favorite rooms. So humble, so lowly and peaceful.

These were the sisters that were our guides. They were by far the best sisters we had out of all the church history sites we went to. It was nice because in Kirtland, we happened to be the only visitors at the time. it was just us four with them, and we got to know them a little bit individually. They even sang for us. :)

Next stop was our dinner cruise that evening. It was on the Nautica Queen, on Lake Erie. It was so much fun! This shot was before dinner, waiting for the ship to take off.

Julie, Aaron, myself and Chris at dinner

On the top of the ship after dinner

Awww...

This is Barbara and her husband... can't seem to think of his name. Bob, maybe? Anyway, they were so funny! She got right in there dancing with us (when I say us I mean me... and sometimes Julie) - we were the only people dancing, I think. We had fun. Barbara busted out her moves on the electric slide. They were a cute couple. She hugged us all goodbye at the end of the night. 

This is another unique couple on the ship. In this picture, she actually just proposed to him! It was really cool. She gave him a ring and everything, and he was crying. I asked her how long they had been together and when the big day would be. She told me that they had been dating for five years, and the wedding would be in August. She is a little antsy, I believe. She then told me, "I've gone gray waiting for him, and now he's gone bald!"

It was so beautiful up there. It was so hot that day, and the breeze was so nice.

Me and Julie :)

The brothers again, having a good time

Cleveland at night. So pretty.

CEDAR POINT! Like I said, ten years. I have heard about how wonderful it is, seen all the rides online and dreamed of going one day. It was so much fun. The park is huge! There are 17 rollercoasters! We didn't ride all of them - the lines were all almost an hour long and there were actually some that weren't recommended. But we hit all the ones we really wanted to go on, with one exception. There is one with a 400-foot rise and drop that we missed out on because it was a windy day and it won't run if it's too windy. The sad thing was that it finally started going at the end of the night. We ran over there and while we were waiting in line, it quit running. It started up again while we were walking away out of the park! I guess we'll just have to go again!

I regret not getting as many pictures as I should have of our favorite rides, but here are a few. They have a snoopy theme at the park, so we got a picture with them. :)

This ride was called the Maverick. This was Chris's favorite ride. He thinks it tops the Hulk in Universal Studios' Islands of Adventure. I disagree - but it was a blast. It was won the "Best New Ride" award in 2007.

This was my favorite ride at the park. It is called the Millennium Force. The first drop is 310 feet and is almost a straight incline down. It was amazing! It's on the edge of the park, so when you are riding up - and up - and up, feeling like you'll never reach the top, you can enjoy the view of the city over the lake when you look to your left. It was really cool.

Being silly - I have to say that a guillotine is the last place I want to get stuck! It hurts!

Julie and I in an intense fake game of checkers

Next on the list was Palmyra. We headed out on Saturday morning; it is a four hour drive from Aaron and Julie's house. We first went to the Martin Harris farm; it was just a house to take a picture of. It's privately owned, but there's a sign in front telling the history of it. It's actually a replica; the original burned down. It's beautiful, though. This picture is Chris pretending he's August Rush in the field next to the home. 

"The music is all around us. All you have to do is listen..." Silly Chris.

Julie and I in front of the home

Next stop was the Grandin print shop, where the first 5,000 copies of the Book of Mormon were printed. Boy, has printing come a long way since the 1800's!

This is where all the small individual letters were kept - capital and lower-case. They had to lay them in reverse, too - try to do that for the entire thing. Exhausting, I'm sure!

This is where they hung the sheets to dry

Next was the Smith farm and the Sacred Grove. The next few pictures are a little out of order. :(

This is the smith home, this would have been the "great room," I suppose.

In front of the sacred grove

This is the top floor of one of the Smith homes. There were two beds like this, and there were three boys to a bed. Can you imagine?!

This is the fireplace where Joseph hid the plates at one time when a mob was coming to attack the home. I just thought it was really neat.

In front of the Palmyra Temple. It's a small temple, which surprised me. It was one of the first small ones, I believe.

Some of the windows of the temple. Apparently this is the only temple that has some clear windows in it. President Hinckley wanted people to be able to see the sacred grove from inside the temple. Pretty cool, huh?

This is the Hill Cumorah. They show the movie "Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration" at the visitors' center here. It was incredible. I'd seen it once before, and it was still awesome. Not to mention the fact that we had been to almost all of the places that are in the movie and then we came out to the Hill Cumorah where some of it happened, and it was incredible. I am so grateful for Joseph Smith and cannot say even the smallest part of what I feel. I am so blessed to live in this time of restoration and I love the gospel. It was such a blessing to be able to go to these places and allow my testimony to grow.

This was one of the Smith homes. They had two; this is the smaller of the two. This is where Moroni appeared to Joseph Three times that night - years after the first vision.

This is the view of the temple from the Sacred Grove.

In the Sacred Grove. It was so beautiful.

We stayed the night in Palmyra and then headed off to Niagra Falls the next morning. I had been there before, but I was young. It was nothing less than GORGEOUS!

We did the Maid of the Mist, which takes you into the falls. Okay, not into the falls, but close enough to where you can't see anything because of all the mist! It was awesome! It was surprisingly cheap - $12.50 a person, and it was totally worth it.

Don't we look cool :)

This was before we were soaking wet...

...This was after!

After riding on the boat, we walked up the stairs that take you almost next to the falls. See below in the picture. The little trail? Yep, that was us. So fun.

So beautiful!

This concludes our tour. Thanks for enduring for those of you that did; I hope you enjoyed it!

Thanks, Aaron and Julie. We had a blast!