Greenbriar Lake!

Every Tuesday we go to a beautiful Lake called Greenbriar State Park.  It's am awesome lake about 15 minutes from our house and the kids love it! 

It was our last time this week before school starts so we took a bunch of pictures and did an awesome Ice cream run to Nutters! We are so blessed to have good friends here.

Hunter and his buddy Dean.  

 Bridger has a girlfriend!! We have this cute girl in our ward who just loves Bubba.  She has a saying where she says "Give me five...Oh yeah" and he repeats it back to her.  It's the cutest thing ever.  I can't wait until she's 12! Actually it's 13 to legally babysit in Maryland.  Darn.

A visit to Palmyra

We tagged along to New York with Jon on his business trip!

We stayed most of the week in Syracuse, NY but one night we were able to make the hour drive to Palmyra.

It was such a beautiful sight to see these flowers.  It was a little taste of Temple Square that  I miss so much.

The Sacred Grove was incredible.  Words cannot describe the beaut

 In the visitors room before the Sacred Grove.  There was a beautiful statue of Joseph kneeling during the first vision.  It was so detailed, I had to take a picture.

 The entrance of the Grove

 Jon was reading the kids the story of Joseph Smith from the Hymn "Joseph Smiths First Prayer"

 This is what Bridger thought of that...

 Joseph Smith's bedside. It was really cool for Hunter to see this and picture it in his head.  He was really grasping it and he's really excited to be baptized

 As you walk to the House of Joseph Smith, you look over at the trees and there's a temple in the forest.  We didn't even know there was a temple in Palmyra.  It is so beautiful!

 This is where Joseph would hide the plates when the mobs would come for them

Hill Cumorah

 This was a pretty steep hill we walked up to the top.  I volunteered to carry Bridger to work off some of the YUMMY pizza we had just eaten!

This is the memorial above the site where the plates were buried.

The Rosamond Gifford Zoo~!

We tagged along Jon's New York work trip for a last chance to spend some time playing and swimming away from home before school starts!
In Syracuse, NY we were pretty local to some amazing church sites and a pretty cool zoo!
This is the Rosamond Gifford Zoo and it was so fun for the  kids.  They didn't have as many animals as some of the other zoos we've been to but the hands-on activities made up for it!  The kids were able to pet the Elephants, birds, rabbits, turtles and more!
We spent the rest of the time swimming and playing in this cute mall with a library and movie theater in it!

 

 

Bridger had fun "milking" this wooden cow! Real water came out! 

 

I loved this picture of Hanna! My boys will be running circles around the animals and I'll look over and see Hanna just sitting and thinking.  She's a sweetheart and doesn't realize how special she is.

 

This was our first time at the zoo with a potty trained Bridger.  This is what he looked like 50% of the time.
As much as I love not having to buy diapers anymore, it's really more of a pain in places like this!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gift shop exploring! Can't leave the zoo without the kids excaping into this store.

Amusing ourselves in the summer!

I think  Hunter is getting bored of summer break.  I find him doing weird things like this all the time.  He's sliding the door open and shut to see how it moves his face.... uh... ok!  Sometimes, I'll look over at him and he's staring off into space and making these weird sound effects with his mouth and hands.  I'll catch his attention and ask him what he's doing.  He'll say "Oh I'm just playing out a war scene in my head"... Should I worry??!!

 Well most of time he's not too crazy and he's actually growing up way too fast.  He had his baptism interview this last week.  He was very nervous he wasn't going to pass so he studied with Jon for an hour before!  We told him if he passed, we'd take him out for a treat afterwards!  Luckily we all went to Krumpes for donuts!!! ( soooo good, such a great find in the city of Hagerstown!)

One of the great benefits of moving here to Maryland is all the quality time we get to spend with our family!  Sometimes it's so hard to be away from family, we can't stand it.  And other times, we catch these lucky moments when all is great and we are truly becoming such a close family.  All things happen for a reason and we are choosing to soak up every minute of "family time" we can!

The Hagerstown Ward Slip-n-Slide Activity!

The ward sets up this HUGE tarp down a hill right next to the church and throws dish soap and a hose on it!!! The kids had a blast.  Oh and Jon!

 Ok I don't know if it's the age or what but I can't get a normal smile out of this kid... UGH!