17 Days.

Of Vacation that is!


We started out in Philadelphia visiting my parents and taking side trips to New Jersey and New York.

I think Brian's favorite part of the entire trip was the aquarium where he was able to pet the baby sharks and stingrays.

We also took a tour of the Battleship New Jersey

We visited Amish country and bought some homemade Amish treats.

It is sooo beautiful and green on the east coast. I really miss the trees that are everywhere!!

Upstate New York

As part of our trip out to Philadelphia, we drove up to Palmyra, NY to see some of the church sites. We were able to visit the Sacred Grove, Jospeh Smith's house, the printing press where the Book of Mormon was first printed, the Palmyra temple, and then we watched the Hill Cumorah Pageant.

We enjoyed amazing weather and surprisingly small crowds considering it was pageant time. I'm so glad Brian was able to see all these things that I grew up loving.

NYC

The last part of our trip visiting Mom and Dad Pope was spent in New York City. Probably one of my favorite places in the whole world.

Brian has been to NYC twice now, and is still adjusting to it. I just love all the excitement the city has to offer. I love that there are so many things going on, so many things to look at, so many people to watch...i love it all.

We were so excited to meet up with some great friends of ours who live in the city. Stacy and Hank are great! I wish we could move out there and be their neighbors.

Standing on Wall Street in front of the Stock Exchange.

Eating Gyro's off the street. Most affordable and yummy lunch in the city!

2nd part of our marathon vaca

After 9 days with my parents, we flew to Kansas City to meet up with Brian's family.

The first day there we headed to Nauvoo, IL. We stopped in Far West on the way.

In Far West, we realized there was a nail in the tire of the car.

Good thing the Robberts are manly men and can fix just about anything!

We finally made it to Nauvoo around 6:00 pm. I hadn't been to Nauvoo since I was 7 years old, so this was my first time seeing the temple there.

It was so beautiful!!

The pageant was great, although I would have enjoyed it more if it wouldn't have been 100 degrees out with 100 percent humidity. And that was at 9:00 at night, people! I promise I'm not even being dramatic about that. I have never been so miserably hot in my entire life. The 1 1/2 hr pageant seemed more like 5 hours because of the heat.


We are still so glad we went. I'm just saying....


Oh, and we got to see fire flies!!! The west coast is definitely missing out. I love summer evenings with fire flies :) They are so magical.

The next day we were driving to Branson, MO but we stopped at Carthage Jail first.

When we got to Branson we were all starving, so we obviously had to stop at this ginormous chicken for some food. It only seemed logical.

If you are ever in Branson, please go see the Shanghai Circus. It will seriously blow your mind! Unfortunately we couldn't take pictures during the show, but it was amazing!!!

Another highlight of that evening was having some guy at the circus do my hair for me. This guy was legit and totally sold me on this sweet hair kit thingy. I wish I had pictures of the hair-do he gave me in like 1 minute. It was so good my mother-in-law bought 3 kits right away!



And finally the last few days in Branson were spent at a water park....which was some great relief from the heat. We lucked out again with friends who live only a couple hours away, so they drove up to hang out for the day. Stephen, Shanda, Brian and I were all in the same ward the semester Brian and I started dating at BYU-I......we've been friends ever since :)

And this pretty much ends our 17 days of having so much fun with both sides of our family. It was a LONG trip, but so worth it. We played hard, shopped A LOT, ate some amazing food, and most importantly we created lifelong memories.

Now back to real life...

Celebrate America

This past weekend we headed to Driggs, Idaho for the annual Huntsman Springs, "Celebrate America" festival. It was actually pretty awesome. All day they had free events going on like a classic car show, pig races, comedians, bounce houses, an air show......we only saw of few of the things because we didn't arrive until the late afternoon. (We had to get some pool time in before we headed to Driggs)

In the evening they had an orchestra playing patriotic music.


Lots of people watching...my favorite

And then Jon Huntsman, who own this golf resort and opens it up for free every forth of July, came out on stage to introduce the main event of the evening...

Glen Beck was there to speak...just about America and our great history and bright future. None of his political ranting and ravings were included. His speech really made this forth of July seem more patriotic than any other one I've ever celebrated.

(the little white speck on stage is Glen Beck)

After he finished, they had an amazing firework show with music and slide show that would intermittently play. It was such a great night. We are already planning on attending next year.

Thank you Jon Huntsman for putting on this free event! We will be back! And next time I will bring more clothes. It get's stinkin' cold up there at night.