Skip to main content

September 2022 - New York, Toronto, and Jackson Hole

We had a busy September with lots of travel.  I had a work trip to meet a customer at our new freeze dry facility in Albion, New York and I was able to see some church history sites in Palmyra as well as drive up to Canada for less than 24 hours to see the sites and go to church there Sunday morning before flying to Wisconsin for work.  2 days later Kyle and I drove to Jackson Hole for a long weekend.

New York:

I loved the drive from the Buffalo airport to our facility in Albion.  I left early in the morning so the drive was quiet and I passed lots of beautiful, scenic farms in upstate New York.  After work I made it to Palmyra to see the Grandin printing press, Palmyra Temple grounds, Sacred Grove, Smith Family Farm, and Hill Cumorah.  It was nice to sit in the Sacred Grove and listen to the Restoration Proclamation.  I love that the first line is "We solemnly proclaim that God loves his children in every nation of the world" and it closes with "we invite all to know as we do that the heavens are open."

Toronto:

I played tourist and rode Maid of the Mist, drove to the Ossington Chapel where I attended church for most of my mission, drove past the CN Tower, toured Casa Loma, and went to church in Spanish with the Christie Ward.  I was able to see some beloved friends and members at church.  I had to race through Casa Loma before driving back to Buffalo for my flight so I took pictures of all the signs and information and read them on the plane.  It was amazing to have a car while in Toronto--a luxury I didn't have on my mission--rather than relying on buses to get around.  It was so much faster to get where I wanted to go!


Jackson Hole:

Jackson Hole has been on our bucket list for a long time and it did not disappoint.  We had a really close encounter with a mom and baby moose, saw lots and lots of elk, some beavers, did a chuckwagon dinner, took old timey photos, walked around downtown and enjoyed the art galleries the most, and rode a tram to 10,450 feet for some delicious waffles.  The Tetons are stunning.  We met up with the Slagles there and it was fun to be together.  Plus, they got us matching Owala water bottles complete with Teton wrap-around stickers.

















Other happenings in September:

Liam had a preschool field trip to the Fire Station, Nathan hid in the laundry hamper made by Grandpa Swingle, Star Wars helmets with Wes Wes, Tad painted my face to look like a butterfly, and Liam wanted to go to Costco for a hot dog and to read books (he brought some in his backpack) for his date night.  Alexa, Tyler, and Dean also participated in the Pinewood Derby.  It was so much fun for them to decorate and race their cars.  Our Primary hired out a professional Pinewood Derby company who emceed and brought a fancy track complete with cameras, sensors, etc.  









Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

stairs and a silly little girl....

I forgot to mention a few August updates in my last post, and have some more Alexa stories (as always)...First, Kyle (with the help of Uncle Paul and Todd--thank you!!) finished the stairs and they look awesome!!  He completely rebuilt them (ripped them down all the way to the drywall). Second, both Kyle and I were supposed to be in this work athletic competition in August, but I had to back out for obvious reasons.  Kyle still did the tennis and basketball tournaments and made me oh so proud.  He even got this funny little basketball trophy for taking third place.  The other tournaments that week included horseshoes, ping pong, foosball, golf, Wii dance, volleyball, and a triathlon. We went to Ikea for breakfast last Saturday (so delicious and cheap!) and bought Alexa a stuffed puppy while we were there.  She now takes it everywhere continuously saying "puppy, puppy, puppy!"  Speaking of the puppy, she even dragged it through toilet water last week.  Yes, you
4 comments
Read more

December 2015 - Christmas in Indiana

Merry Christmas! We hit the road a couple of days after Granny's funeral to make the trek to Indiana for Christmas. The  kids did great the whole way.  I think it was harder on the adults!  We left at 4am and the first 8 hours were really bad due to wind and snow.  I-70 was closed unless you had chains and we were only a couple of hours in when we passed a sign saying I-80 was closed due to an avalanche warning.  Kyle screamed "Noooo!" and woke up the kids :).  We were so relieved to have Wyoming behind us!!  And we were very glad to have been driving an SUV with all-wheel-drive instead of our Toyota Matrix.  We got a new Mazda CX-9 only a week before the trip so that we can fit baby #3. We pounded out 14 hours the first day and then stopped for the night in Nebraska before continuing for another 10ish hours the next day.  The kids thought that sleeping in a hotel was amazing.  The weather on the drive home was clear and wonderful. although Tyler did poop h
1 comment
Read more

July 2023 - Baby Ian

We had a blast at the Stadium of Fire Journey concert with Sara and Jason.  We also hosted a Swingle 4th of July party at our house.  Grandpa Swingle said that's the first time he's actually been able to light real fireworks in over a decade.  We decided we should make it a tradition to have them come up every year (or move here ;). Baby Ian was born and he is HUGE!  11 lb 1 oz.  Melissa's water broke at 7:30am, contractions started after that, and he was born at home with a team of paramedics with them in the outbuilding at 9am.   Fun fact: he was born on Ian Beagley's birthday and they share the same name. We spent an entire Saturday pulling down and cutting up dead trees.  We rented a wood splitter and went to town.  The kids were a big help.  We did our annual reading challenge to earn tickets to Lagoon.  Our rule is 1000 pages for every grade level finished, has to be during summer, and Alexa and Tyler both had to write a book report as well.  The kids did great! M
Post a Comment
Read more