Ohio

I really liked Ohio, at least the way we drove!  Wide open spaces, thousands of acres of farmland dotted with the dang cutest farm houses.  I always knew I was a farmer at heart!  I'd live in one of those farmhouses in a heartbeat.

Kirtland Temple

We ended up going to church at the Perry Ward near Kirtland because that were our ward boundaries that day.  I was so impressed with those people.  So many people came and talked to us.  The first words from several people were "Did you just move in??"  We felt so warm and welcomed.  We ended up staying for all three meeting, much to the children's chagrin.  What was cool was that even some kids and young women our kids ages came to introduce themselves before sacrament meeting, so that took away a great deal of "awkward" for them.

They said the doors have always been green.

I found out after church that a family in the ward had invited us over for dessert at 7:00.  I thought that was SO COOL!  Stephanie gave me her address and told me that they had three horses in the front yard, their house was down a long driveway.  Their backyard (just the lawn part) must be a whole acre, based on how many houses Utah crams into small spaces.  They had a forest of well established trees beyond that, a huge pond, a pig pen far enough from all that, that you can't smell them (at least I couldn't!).  There was a big barn for chickens and a cow pasture.  I felt like I could stay there forever!  Thank you Stephanie and Mike for your generosity in having us come!

While in Kirtland, we visited the Kirtland Temple and all the other Church sites around there.  The Community of Christ church owns and maintains the temple there.  Even though the feeling there was totally different than you find at our Church sites, I felt the Spirit confirm to me that Joseph Smith did have visions and receive revelations in the temple.  I felt grateful for that!  We also visited the Newel Whitney home, store, the ashery and the saw mill.  Establishing a community was quite an undertaking, and Newel Whitney, the successful business owner that he was, had a huge part in making it happen.

On the way out of town, we visited an Amish community on the recommendation of our new friends.  We stopped at an Amish store for cheese, treats and lunch!  That was really fun!  Going places like that makes me wonder about them, what they believe, how they live, etc.  Apparently Monday is wash day, because there were a lot of clothes on clothes lines!  It's the only time I've been an obnoxious tourist--trying to get a good picture of clotheslines!  I admire the simplicity of their lives, being self-sufficient for the most part.

Another cool place we went was Geneva on the Lake (Erie).  Mat went there as a kid with his family. He remembered playing miniature golf there and wanted to do it again.  We walked and walked until we found it.  We played a round and kept track of scores, but never added them up.  No doubt, our golfer Dad got the lowest score!


















We walked out to the shore of the lake gathered up more rocks on the beach.  They are so cool!  Perfectly smooth and flat, in all different colors.  Makes me wonder how long they've been in the lake getting beat up by waves knocking off the rough edges to become perfectly smooth like that.  Sounds like a parable!  Ohio is a beautiful place, and I loved exploring we got to do there.