Palmyra

After church today we went to Palmyra. I packed a picnic lunch Saturday night and made sure everything was in the car before we left for Church this morning. I fed Jackson right before we left the church so he was full and he and Aby took nice long naps.

It was a nice drive. We are in a smaller car right now (rental car, ours is in the shop from the pre-Christmas accident) so it was a bit cramped and there is no leg room in the drivers set for Jason so I GOT TO DRIVE, which I really enjoy doing. As I said, the kids were both asleep the whole way there so Jason and I got to talk and enjoy the black and white scenery. We saw deer and turkeys on the way there. It was nice to just be 'us'.

This was Jason's first trip to Palmyra, the exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls is up at the visitor's center there so our plan was to go and see them. Since the kids were still sleeping I drove him past the temple, Smith farm and Sacred Grove as well as the 4 churches (a presbyterian, baptist, evangelical and methodist church all on different corners of the same intersection). Finally we decided it was time to wake the kids up. We both changed our clothes in the car (a little harder for the driver in a cramped seat) - well out of the line of vision for any peeping toms - and them went inside.

There was a lecture just about to start so there was an overload of people there. It was a bit much for the kids so we went back to the car, ate our picnic, and then drove to the top of the Hill Cumorah. We were all by ourselves up there and it was beautiful. One side of the hill still snowy and innocent and the other side green for all the snow had been melted in the sun. There was a huge snow drift right on the stairs that led to the statue of Moroni but it didn't deter us from climbing through it.

Climbing through the snow drift and petting the stray cat that was there were definitely the highlights of our trip.

We were not able to see much of the exhibit but it was still a good reason to go and have some family alone time.