Mickey's Trick or Treat Party
We went to Disneyland last week and were able to go to the after hours trick or treat party. We had so much fun!! As you can see we all dressed up for the occasion!
Ricky's parents came with us as well as his brother Ryan, wife Leah and little Briar. It was so fun to go as family. The kids always like to have cousins with them at Disneyland.

We had three pirates who were oh so scary!

Bradley went as Pluto but slept through the getting ready phase. He was worn out!

Three witches! Ellie and Briar looked so cute! This is before the rain washed away all of our makeup.

Me and Ash. He could hardly wait to go and collect his candy!

I was so glad Ricky dressed up this year. It is much more fun when he participates!

This is all of the kids as we came into Disneyland. Ashton had his map looking for candy stations.

Brad was so cute in his Pluto costume! He hopped around happy as could be! After awhile he took off the head and everyone thought he was a pumpkin. I guess that works to.

Ellie fell asleep around 9:00. She was done. After the fireworks Ashton sat in the stroller and fell asleep in about 2 seconds. The rest of us toughed it out until 11:00.

Briar and her daddy! Ryan bought a mad hatter hat that was AWESOME!

This is my favorite picture from the night. These bags are FULL of candy! The way it works is that they have stations where you get candy. There are three stops at each station and they give you handfuls of candy bars at all three stops. Well, Bill and the boys went around to every station five or six or seven times. Brax and Burke literally could not carry their bags of candy. We came home with, for reals, 35 pounds of candy. This will be one of my favorite memories forever!!

Bake Sale!!
About a week and a half ago we had a bake sale for the kids to earn spending money for Disneyland. They have been waiting for this for months, so I finally got my act together and got baking. It turned out so well!! We had lots and lots of people come and got to visit with friends we haven't seen in a long time. Thank you to all our friends and neighbors who made this a great success!!

Trip to Rochester, NY
So on Friday the 13th of August Ricky and I decided to drive out to visit my parents on their mission. We left Saturday morning super early and headed east. It is about a 30 hour drive to get there so we had all kinds of fun. We stopped at my sister's in Kansas City for a night and then drove and drove! We stopped at Carthage Jail and Nauvoo on the way there.Carthage is a very sacred place as it is where the Prophet Joseph and his brother Hyrum were killed. They gave their lives as a testimony of the gospel. I love them dearly and loved taking my family there. The kids enjoyed being there. This is one of their favorite stories and it was great to take them there where it actually happened. This door is the door that bullets came through and shot Hyrum in the face and killed him. You can see the holes in the door-this is the door from the martyrdom. The upper window is the window Joseph jumped from and was shot as he fell.

Braxton and Burke were named after these two hero's of ours. Braxton's middle name is Hyrum and Burke's middle name is Joseph. We wanted a picture of them with this statue of their names sake.

This statue is right in front of the Nauvoo Temple. It represents Joseph and Hyrum as they looked over the city on their way to Carthage. It is one of Ricky's favorite statues.

This is the Nauvoo Temple. It is one of the most beautiful temple's on earth!

This is where Joseph, Emma and Hyrum are buried.

We didn't get to spend much time in Nauvoo as we were in a hurry to get to my parents as quickly as possible! We will come back though, someday!

Peter Whitmer Farm
This is the first site we went to with my parents. You can tell from this picture that the kids were a little wired. This is the day we arrived and had been driving for 3 days. They were thrilled to not be cooped up in the car.The Peter Whitmer Farm is where the church was organized on April 6,1830. This is the front door. Red is so my favorite.

We had to wait a little while to go into the home so the kids did some exploring. Burke is such a collector. Everywhere we go he collects things. This day it was acorns. He had all is pockets full of them. He cracks me up!

While we waited, Ellie gave us a few lessons and bore her testimony. She sounded just like the sister missionaries. I loved it!

The Whitmer Farm is beautiful! It is so green and lush. I loved sitting on the benches under the trees while we waited. It was perfect!

The Whitmer Farm is an opperating farm and the kids thought this corn was neat. Burke told me he was hungry and wanted to eat a piece of corn. What a nut!

My dad giving us a lesson about the Whitmer Farm. He and my mom are so in their element here in the mission field. I love listening to them teach.

This is inside the home in the room where the church was organized. It is an awesome room!

Log Home and Sacred Grove
This is just a cute shot of the kids eating popsicles on the back porch.Tuesday evening we went to the Log Home and the Sacred Grove. We went after hours so we were able to be taught by my dad. This is the main room on the bottom floor in the log home. We talked down here and then went upstairs. The upstairs is a sacred place. This log home is reconstructed, but it is the very same air space that the original log home was built. Upstairs is the room where Angel Moroni appeared to Joseph Smith as a boy-it is the very air space that he appeared.

This is Ashton listening to grandpa tell the story of Angel Moroni coming to Joseph Smith. We all felt the Spirit and then bore our testimonies. It was a unique experience that I will never forget.

This is my mom bearing her testimony. These are moments that will not be forgotten.

By the time we finished in the log cabin it had gotten dark. We walked through the Sacred Grove anyway, even though it was dark. It was still peaceful.

Ellie couldn't get enough of grandma and loved being with her!

E.B. Grandin Building
This is where the Book of Mormon was published. This is such a neat place to visit. It is very hands on and it shows you exactly how the BOM was published. It took much sacrifice and painstaking effort to publish this great book.

The kids loved this site. The loved seeing how they printed each letter and then bound the books. They all remembered what they learned here. It is so neat to see my kids learn the truths of the restoration and have their testimonies strengthened.

This is an up close view of the Palmyra Temple. It is beautiful and the setting adds to the beauty of the temple.

Niagara Falls!!!!!
Yeah! This has been one of my favorite places for over 10 years! I was so excited to come back and bring my kids here. This is the American side of the falls. You can just see the tip of Horseshoe Falls in the distance. I forgot our passports and birth certificate's, so we couldn't go to the Canada side. It all worked out okay though and we got to do everything we wanted to do.Burke and Ellie at the overlook of the falls.

Braxton standing at the overlook.

Ashton with his usual amount of enthusiasm!

Poor Bradley was having a major meltdown at this point. He is crying in almost every picture but this one. The only way to calm him down was with food.

This is at the top of a huge tower thing way above the water. It was super windy and a little nerve racking with kids up so high. Of course they were perfectly safe, but looking down was a little creepy!

If you ever go to Niagara Falls you have to ride the Maid of the Mist. It is a boat that goes out to the falls and into the mist as close to the falls as it can get. Naturally you get wet so they give these sweet blue ponchos. The kids had so much fun playing with them. They really are a crack up!

Niagara Falls is in my parents mission-at least the American side-so they were able to drive up and ride the boat with us. It was so fun to have them there! We laughed and laughed as we got pelted with water from the falls.

I love this picture of Brad! It is so his personality-happy and cheerful! This is clearly post melt down.

Notice the path of blue ponchos up the side of the hill. When we got off the boat, Braxton, Ellie and I walked up these stairs up really close to the falls. Like I said, it was a really windy day and the water from the falls soaked us!! I mean, but shoes were full of water and my poncho didn't help much. It was like someone was dumping water over us there was so much water. It is one of my favorite memories with my children. SO FUN!

I took the rest of the pictures from the boat. I couldn't take many because there was so much water misting over us. We were all wet, before the kids and I hiked up the stairs. My dad had his suit pants and nice shoes on and they got soaked. We found it quite funny!

This is still the American Falls. There was a constant rainbow as we drove by.

This is Horseshoe Falls. I can't even describe how powerful it is to be so close to this water. It is loud and you are surrounded by the falls. It is amazing!! I don't think you could get any closer to these falls without mishap.

This is another boat going into the falls. You can see how neat it is from this view and how much water there is.