Finishing our NJ bucket list: July highlights

July 2017

James and Heidi at the San Antonio Temple during our house "hunting" trip

Look how dirty she is!!! The best part of this picture is not in the picture but Abi is thoroughly enjoying the fact that her Granddad is pushing her on the swing. She knows how to get spoiled.

The outdoors is great, isn't it?

My parents have an amazing garden! All it's missing is the mysterious stone wall around it and it could be a thing of legend and fantasy for generations! The grandkids love to be there with Granddad and Grammy and Chewy, the dog, of course!

Granddad with the grandkids in the garden

This is becoming a tradition for some reason. Haha! Family photo at Mary Jane's house on July 4th. Here is 2016 and 2017

Independence Day 2016

Independence Day 2017

This whole day is so fun and exhausting but at least I can keep track of my family! Haha!

Family naptime

Check out this cute family!

Abi with Grammy's kittens

Abi and I love fireworks and especially watching Fireworks in the back of Granddad's truck all snuggled up! Oh, to be a kid and see everything for the first time again!

Watching the fireworks

Our drive out to Kansas was stretched out to include some sight-seeing but the trip back home to NJ was quick! We did the 21-hour-drive (if you didn't stop) in two days with several long breaks. Kids need to stretch, turns out, so we stopped at a truck stop with a grassy picnic area and put a big sheet on the ground so the babies could move around for a bit. These poor kids were tired of traveling by the end but they were great troopers!

Picnic break on our roadtrip home

While we were resting at the truck stop, Abi complained of an owie on her shoe which she had complained about for a couple days but I finally took time to get a good look at her shoe and was shocked to find a thorn stuck in her shoe and sticking up into her toe space. This poor girl! Talk about mom guilt!

"My shoe has an owie!"

Her toe had a little puncture wound but James was able to remove the thorn from her shoe and all ended well. But wow! I will not delay checking on complaints of pain in the future!

Abi's poor toe

As James had accepted a new job in Texas and we knew we'd be moving very shortly, I began to panic as I realized I had not exhausted the northeast yet. Ha! Not sure I ever could - there is so much to see and do! So I made a Northeastern Bucket List and we worked to check off as many things as possible.

We visited the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall because James had not done that yet, although Abi and I had. It was a perfect day to go because it was an historic commemoration day of the day they read the Declaration of Independence in public for the first time, so they had loads of people in costume and re-enacted the public reading and all that jazz. It was great! Felt like we were back in history hearing it for the first time! I loved it!

Visiting Philadelphia: The Liberty Bell

Abi never fails to make us laugh. I was trying to take a picture of her stomping in the water but instead, she fell. So here is the falling pic...

Splishing and a splashing...

...and here is the "fell" pic.

Oops!

Another bucket list check was seeing Princeton University which is hailed to be one of the prettiest campuses, if not THE prettiest, in the US. It was gorgeous! I cannot deny that! I wish we could have gone inside some of the buildings but it was SO hot and our kids were not the most cooperative. Someday maybe we'll go back.

Princeton University is beautiful!

Getting my workout

Happy at the park

OK, this may be one of my most favorite pictures of Abigail! She and I were outside hunting lightening bugs and I caught one and showed it to her in my hands but it started to fly away so she jerked her hands up to protect her face and accidentally smashed the bug in mid-flight against her face! Haha! He was stuck there... still glowing. I shouldn't laugh but her face was priceless! And the irony of it was adorable! It's that moment when the act of preventing the anticipated outcome is what made it actually happen. She handled it well though once she could see her face in the selfie camera. This was a memory for the books!

Lightening bug accident... aka, my favorite picture!

This girl's hero is Humpty Dumpty, I'm pretty sure - so we got her this game for her birthday. It was a winner!

New game for her birthday

Happy birthday ice cream cake for Mom and Abi!

Is this not the most adorable set of pictures??? These cuties riding the rocking horse their granddad made for my kids? Abi will have to learn to share now...

Audrianne

Hyrum

I told James I was not moving away from the northeast without seeing Phantom of the Opera! We had to see the quintessential Broadway play and being the adoring husband he is, he took me! It was wonderful, of course, and so moving. James enjoyed it, too - it was his first time seeing the whole show and we loved discussing it afterward. So amazing!

Finishing our NJ bucket list

Crawling around the house

Another bucket list item was the Hill Cumorah Pageant in Palmyra, New York depicting the story of the people here in the Americas spoken of in The Book of Mormon and Jesus Christ's visit to them shortly after his Resurrection. It was beautiful and Abi was the best part! She absolutely loved it! She couldn't quit talking and exclaiming and oohing and awing! We were basically the worst "theater neighbors" ever but the people around us were nice and thought she was cute so it was ok.

Hill Cumorah Pageant stage

Before the show, the actors all walk around the audience and take pictures and chat and Abi basically stalked this cute couple who were dressed as the prophet Lehi and his wife Sariah. She kept chasing him and calling his name. I love that she recognized him from her little picture Book of Mormon for kids.

Abi was so excited to meet Lehi!

It's amazing how many people are involved in this pageant!!! So good!

The stage all full of actors! What a lot of work!

On our way back to NJ, we stopped at a ma and pop place for BBQ lunch and ice cream. We ate it in their garage on picnic tables. No joke, it was really quaint but so cool.

Ice cream

We also checked off this bucket list item: the Priesthood Restoration site where Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery were visited by John the Baptist and given the power and authority to baptize in God's name. We love this beautiful piece of Pennsylvania! I definitely got my exercise in though.

Supermom!

Sunday best

Oh man, we had saved most of our boxes when we moved to NJ just in case our next move was not sponsored by James's job. Well, when we found out his new job in Texas was moving us down, we got rid of all those boxes! Wow! What an awesome load! It feels so good to not be storing that anymore!

Reducing the junk

So many good people helped us clean our house before we left! We miss all you amazing NJ friends! Our movers packed and loaded our house so we were left with just our air mattress, sleeping bags, pack-and-plays, and luggage for our last night in our beloved NJ home. We celebrated by eating the last of our ice cream from our freezer. Haha! Abi thought it was fantastic to have her own tub of ice cream!

Last meal at our NJ home

Because we are crazy, we made the 21-hour-drive to Kansas a second time in one month! We headed to Texas by way of Kansas because why not? We stopped along the way to attend church and let everyone stretch a bit. The babies just wanted to crawl around and I couldn't demand they be still since we were going to be in the car all day so we sat in the foyer for church and played. They loved it. I'm sure God would have approved. :)

Getting some exercise during church

Another northeast bucket list item was Kirtland, Ohio to see more church history sites I've never seen (yet) but unfortunately, our schedule didn't leave room for it. We did however get to see Nauvoo, Illinois! What a beautiful city this must have been in it's hey-day when it rivaled Chicago in population! Now it's so tiny, there's hardly a hotel or restaurant to accommodate all the tourists. So worth seeing though!

Family at Nauvoo, IL Temple

We got to watch a bagpipe band which Abi loved!

Bagpipers in Nauvoo, Illinois

Her very favorite part of this stop was the Nauvoo Brass Band. She hasn't been able to see an instrumental band up close before and she could hardly handle her excitement. She was seriously counting off for the band, conducting the beat and telling them to "Go!" and hollering out, "Another! More!" They thought she was fantastic! The band adored her!

Nauvoo Brass Band was Abi's FAVORITE thing ever!

Several of the band members walked out to meet her when they finished their concert. It was so cool!

They were SO good to her!

Heidi and Juli at the Nauvoo, IL Temple

All the various performing groups do a big variety show together each day in the evening. We made sure to go as the Nauvoo Brass Band members suggested it and it did not disappoint! Abi even got to participate. Here she is waving to her band member friends while wearing her hat she made during the pre-show for the number when all the kids were invited to join the performers on stage.

Watching the big show

Here she is on stage soaking up the music!

Abi got to help perform and sing

The drummer from the Nauvoo Brass Band found Abi after the big show and gave her a drum stick with a scripture verse written on it. It was so touching and personal of this gal to think of Abi! Someday when Abi is a famous drummer, we'll attribute her success to this moment!

Such a cool moment in Abi's life!