New Pictures!

During our two huge snow storms I decided that it was a great time to go out and take pictures. So here are a few that I took during the last week.



This is one of the homes at Historic Deerfield where I have been working for the past three weeks. I am doing a 6-week internship with the marketing department. So far I am learning a lot and am enjoying my time there. Deerfield is a cool place and there is tons of old Colonial American history, if you want to know more check out the website at http://www.historic-deerfield.org.



This is the building where the offices are at Historic Deerfield.



I wanted to measure how deep the snow was after 2 1/2 hours of snowing last Thursday, so this is how much had fallen, about 4 inches. It was coming down quickly!



This is the front door of our apartment complex, and the 12 inches deep snow you have to plow through to get to the front door.



This is one of the cars in our parking lot after the two storms.

I will post more pictures soon, for some reason the other pictures are not loading.

Snow Day!

Today church was canceled because the roads were too icy and snowy to travel on. We were just recovering from a storm on Thursday where we got almost a foot of snow. Today we got another 5 or 6 inches. It also "snowed" freezing rain which I'm sure isn't helping the roads. Snow out here seems a lot different from Utah. It’s much icier and seems to coat the car with a layer of ice before the powder stuff. Also, the first time it snowed, we noticed that it initially stuck to the roads and not the grass. That seems very bizarre to me. I don't have any pictures, so maybe I'll get Casey to post some later. Casey comments that the snow is up to his knees behind our apartment. Remind me why we moved here?

Gone With the Wind

With all the free time I've been having, I've gotten a chance to read a lot of good books. I just finished Gone With the Wind and although it was a big time investment, it was well worth it. It comes in at over 1000 pages, but is an amazing novel that gives you an interesting historical perspective with characters and themes that are timeless. I just rented the movie at the library, so now I have another 4 hour commitment to see it! If anybody needs a good book recommendation and you have some spare time, or your patient enough to read it slowly over time, I highly suggest trying Gone With the Wind.

Wonderful Thanksgiving Week

I am sitting here typing this wishing that this week could continue a few more days. But, alas, I must return to school tomorrow.

We had a great Thanksgiving holiday. First I would like to announce that we have received our first snow of the season on Tuesday. It was an interesting day. The night before I checked the forecast and it said nothing of any expected snow. I woke up early at 5:30 am to study for a mid-term, and no snow. But by the time I left the apartment at 8:45 am there was a solid 2 inches of snow on the ground and more was coming every minute. I enjoyed the snowing part, I think watching it snow is very calming, something I definitely needed before the test.Suzy and I prepared a very nice Thanksgiving Day spread, much more than two people can eat. Before we got started on the big feasting I made some cinnamon rolls, which were oh so very good (quite possibly the best food ever). Since neither of us is a huge fan of turkey and we surely did not want to be eating turkey for the next week, we made a delicious spiral cut ham, which we are still enjoying. For desert Suzy made creme brulee, which was quite good. She did a great job making in for the first time.Oh, how I love cinnamon rolls. Seeing this picture makes me hungry for more...

On Friday, we braved the shopping scene, traveling over the Berkshire Mountains to a factory outlet mall. We found some good deals on stuff for our Christmas presents for each other. It was a fun day but quite cold. Then Friday nigh I sat on the couch with the grainy video on my laptop watching BYU beat #6 ranked Louisville in basketball (while simultaneously keeping track of the score of the Jazz game online), both of my teams won and I was very happy and thought it a good omen for the rest of the weekend.

Yesterday, we had our Elder's Quorum Turkey Bowl football game that all of six people showed up for. We persevered through temperatures in the low 30's and played for about 90 minutes. It was good to actually do some exercising that was actually fun and enjoyable for a change. Then, Suzy got to stay home and watch most of the BYU-Utah game while I went and helped a family in our ward move in. Luckily I made it back for the last half of the 4th quarter, the only really exciting part of the game. I must admit that after Utah scored to go up by one and BYU was facing 4th and 18, I did not think that they could pull it off again. But the good karma that I gained by sacrificing watching the game to give service came through, BYU scored and won the game. I am sure that I was very close to having a very serious medical condition because of the stress of those last few minutes. After that game I decided I would not, could not, watch the whole of the UNC-BYU basketball game that night, so I only watched the first half.

When I woke up this morning my body definitely felt every single box that I moved on Saturday, and I still cannot move with out aching. I really hurt in places I did not know I had muscles. This morning I spoke in Sacrament meeting with the rest of the Elder's Quorum Presidency. I spoke about the importance of Home Teaching, so I guess now I have to go do mine.

Suzy and I both hope that all y'all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.

While having Thanksgiving by ourselves was nice in that we got to create some of our own traditions, but we both missed our families and friends and realized how grateful we are for them. And how grateful we are for a loving Father in Heaven who is watching out for us here in Sunderland.

West Coast Fans, East Coast Time Zone

Out here we don't get too many opportunities to watch Casey's favorite teams - the Jazz and BYU Football. This week we got the chance to watch both, two nights in a row. Unfortunately they come on VERY late out here. The Jazz game didn't start until 10:30 and BYU until 9:00. On Wednesday we watched the exciting Jazz game when Deron Williams raced down the court to make a layup and win the game at the buzzer (this sentence provided by Casey, I don't remember the details this well, or recall them with such excitement). It got over at 1:30, that part I remember. Yesterday we went to a friends house to watch the BYU game which got over at 12:30 and then we had a 30 minute drive home. We had fun supporting our teams, but are feeling a little sleep deprived now. Thank goodness for weekends!

Our Weekend in Maine

I am not going to post much in way of commentary of our trip but will let the pictures do the talking. We had a wonderful time while we were there. It was very relaxing and beautiful, we can see why so many people vacation there in the summer. Friday was a perfect day while Saturday it rained and we got soaked running around trying to find some lighthouses.

This is from Friday, as we drove along the coast. We stopped in Kennebuckport, Maine to see the ocean and the thousands of oceanside vacation homes. It was very pretty and the ocean was beautiful, but a little chilly.



This is the moon as we went on our ferry boat ride on Friday evening, also Suzy on the ferry with Portland in the background.





This is the first lighthouse that we went to see. It was raining heavily and visibility was low, but we had a great time.



This is Casey huddling in Suzy's rain jacket trying to keep the video camera dry while we search the horizon for the lighthouses we were supposed to be able to see.



This is the Portland Headlight, the most photographed lighthouse in the country, it was commissioned by George Washington. Off in the distance on the left you can see another lighthouse in the background, it is just sitting out in the middle of the ocean.



This is an example of a New England fall. I saw this view as we were driving home and had to stop and take a picture.

Relief

Yesterday was a long trying day, but it is finally over, and with it concludes my first round of finals. I cannot express how happy I am to be finished with Accounting (for now) and Economics. Studying for those finals the past four days or so has been long and stressful, but now I am free until Monday when new classes begin.

Suzy and I decided since we have a free 3-day weekend, to go on a little trip. So in a few minutes we are leaving for Portland, Maine. We will be there until Saturday evening. We are very excited, there are some fun things to do up there. But most of all we can just relax and enjoy the New England fall, which by-the-way is absolutely breath-taking. We will post some photos and what we did when we return. Until then we hope that all y'all have a good weekend too.

So a funny thing happened...

...to me on Saturday night. But first I must set the stage.

Suzy's Dad was in Boston for the week so he came to spend Saturday night and Sunday with us. I also had a former mission companion, who is at Cornell doing his PhD, in town for a conference. We met Suzy's dad at a a small farmer's market in town, where we bought the most delicious cinnamon donuts in the world. Suzy was going to ride back with her Dad and pick up some pizza, while I picked up my friend on campus and met them at home. I picked up my friend and we were having a good time reminiscing about the good ol' days, and catching up. Wanting to show off the great history of Sunderland I drove home a different way than normal to show him our wonderful old homes here. I was oblivious that doing so would through me off a little (you'll see what I mean in a sec).

So I pull into the parking lot from a different direction, and, amazed at my good fortune for a good parking spot, proceed to park the car. Though I thought it odd that the parking spot did not look the same as it normally did, I ignored it too engrossed in conversation. We proceeded into the apartment building and up the stairs, as we passed the second floor doors, I noticed that they too looked different and I thought how interesting that both downstairs neighbors would change their doors on the same day. Again I ignored this and kept going up. I got to the top of the stairs and began getting my keys out of my pocket. While doing so I looked down and noticed that our neighbor had also changed and put out a welcome mat that seemed to have been tossed half way in front of our door.

I began pushing it aside with my foot as inserted my key into the door. I turned the key and nothing happened. I began to panic thinking to myself, "I'm locked out of my apartment, what am I going to do now?" I try the key again and my panic grows larger. Then I happen to look to my right at the apartment number, and it was ... wrong. Then it hit me, I was in the wrong stairwell. My heart sunk, and I felt so embarrassed as I tried to explain this to my friend. Then suddenly the door, which I had just been futilely trying to unlock moments before, opens, and my embarrassment grew to astronomical heights. A guy peers out wondering what was up.

I look up to him, we were halfway down the stairs, and I tell him I accidentally went into the wrong stairwell and apologize. He laughs, and in a kind attempt to assuage my embarrassment tells me that he has done the exact same thing before. As we head back down the stairs to the right part of the building, I think to myself that the difference between me going to the wrong door and him doing it was that I was sober, whereas he probably was not.

Anyway, that is my embarrassing story for the year. I hope that y'all enjoyed it.

Things are going well here for us. I have finals for two of my classes next week, so this week and early next week I will be busy cramming as much Accounting and Economics into my head as possible. The picture is a corn maze cleverly disguised as a corn field. It was taken from the town cemetary, and off in the distance you can see the church steeple of the town church.

Pest Control

Ever since we moved into our new apartment we have had trouble with little gnats that are constantly everywhere. After dealing with this for about a month, I couldn't take it any more. I consulted the source of all knowledge, the Internet, and found great advice for building a gnat trap. I also found out that they may be breeding in our house plant.

After construction of my gnat trap, and fixing any holes that they were crawling out of, I have found great success. I caught about 8 on my first day, and now, about a week later, we have over 20! I'm glad they are going away and that's one of life's little annoyances we don't have to deal with any more.

Add 3 parts Danny DeVito and 1 part Vizzini...

Close your eyes and try to imagine this in your mind (finish reading this before you close your eyes though). Picture a man that looks and acts like Danny DeVito, now add in a little bit of the voice and mannerisms of Vizzini, the lead kidnapper. Now throw in the subject of accounting into the mix and you will get my accounting professor, who is the dopplerganger of Danny DeVito. He has been teaching accounting for 45 years, and has more energy at his age than I could ever dream of. Sitting through his class for 3 hours twice a week is quite the experience. I want to say that it is entertaining, and it certainly is, but it is more than that. We, my classmates and I, sit in the class in wonder and amazement at his energetic lectures.

It was while I was sitting through such a lecture last week when I looked around at my 34 classmates and was astounded at the number of coffee cups sitting before them. About 2/3 of the class cannot function at 9 am without a 12 oz coffee in hand. But more amazing still is that when we have our 15 minute break at 10:30, most run out to the get another cup. I am amazed at the dependence on coffee just to function normally, at 10:30 in the morning.

Now that I am done with that rant. This week has been quite nice. The weather here is perfect, nice warm days with cool nights. Last Sunday Suzy and I took a walk around town and looked at some of the old homes near our apartment. Most of the historic homes in the town have signs on them that tell you the year they were built, it seems that the town experienced a building boom around 1850, but the oldest home was built in 1756, and it is still standing and lived in. We also found this enormous tree, I mean huge...like maybe 8 ft in diameter, there was a plaque in front of it that said that it was standing when the Declaration of Independence was signed. Cool.

Yesterday Suzy and I went with a few of my classmates to help build a home for Habitat for Humanity. Suzy got a crappy job of sanding windows, while the rest of us put up scaffolding and nailed up siding and soffits of the two-story home. I went and helped Suzy for the last 2 1/2 hours or so because she had such a crappy job and had no one to talk to. I cannot say that it was really fun cause it was not, but it was nice to be able to give meaningful service to someone who was in need. The lady that the house is for was there working as well.

The pictures that I am including are of the homes in the area and other images from our walk last Sunday. First the house from 1756, second the huge tree (kinda blurry), and third a cool old farmhouse and it is all one house!

This is NOT an announcement

Funny story... On Saturday we went shopping to find me some new jeans. Not an easy task, but you have to try. We were at a mall in Springfield and wandered into the JCPennys. It looked a lot different from your typical JCPennys and we quickly found out that it was the catalog outlet. They had a lot of random furniture so we started looking at it. We ran across some cribs and were casually looking at the prices. Most were about $130 and up. Then there was one that was $35 for both the crib and the changing table, and it was surprisingly cute! We thought it must be a mistake, so after browsing the rest of store, we decided to ask the sales person. It was indeed $35 for both pieces. After short deliberation, we decided it was too good of a deal to pass up. We had to make a quick trip to Lowes to pick up some tools to disassemble it so it would fit in the car.

We were laughing about it all night. I kind of feel like the girl who buys a wedding dress before she even has a boyfriend, but if I had found a wedding dress for $35, I probably would have bought it too!

Boston Temple

A few weeks ago we drove the two hours to the Boston Temple. After getting lost a few times, we finally found it. It's beautiful and we're glad to have one so close.

The picture is a little funny. Casey took the picture himself and he always does a funny face when he does that. Also, the sun was very bright.

Who knew moving could be so complicated...

After packing up all our stuff, selling our house, finding an apartment on the other side of the country, driving all the way out here, and finally unloading and organizing everything, I thought all the complicated stuff was over. I was wrong. It turns out that registering a car and getting new licences in Massachusetts are no small task.

I first started to figure this out back in Utah when we were looking for renters insurance out here. I figured I would just call all the big insurance companies, get a few quotes, and pick the best one. So I called Statefarm, Allstate, and Nationwide. They don't do ANY insurance in Massachusetts, not renters, not car insurance, nothing. Luckily, Geico does renters insurance, but not auto. We later found out that Massachusetts insurance premiums are set by the government. Companies are only allowed to offer discounts for certain things and the big guys want to set their own prices to be competitive.

So last week we go to the DMV to do all car stuff. Turns out you can't register a car without Massachusetts insurance (not a bad idea to prevent all those uninsured motorists, but they forgot to mention it on their website). Also, you have to have about 15 documents proving your identity (okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it was a lot more extensive that I was expecting). On our second trip back and over an hour of total wait time, we finally got new plates and temporary licences. After all this, I only had to wait another hour to get it inspected (the first place I tried had an hour and 45 minute wait).

One more random thing...The other day we were driving through "downtown" Sunderland (meaning a post office, library, church and a Subway sandwich shop) when we saw a BYU Idaho bus driving through! We could not possibly think of a reason why they would be all the way out here. It was fun to see though.

School Starts

I found a new high and am now addicted. On Friday we attended the 3 County Fair in Northampton. It was a typical county fair and we saw all the 4H animals and other crafty projects and jams and stuff that peoples won the Blue Ribbons for. Even met a guy with a pig down and the livestock pavilion that said he was gunna win him the Blue Ribbon :)

But seriously, we saw pig racing which was quite amusing to me. The highlight was, however, the DEMOLITION DERBY!!! This is my new addiction, it was so cool (if you couldn't tell it was my first). There were four heats ranging from 8 to 15 cars. The initial collisions were the best as some cars drove to the end then accelerated rapidly to smash into the others, in reverse (got to protect the engine). Pieces of car and bumpers were flying every which way, and by the end only one or two cars could even turn the tires. It was a blast. If you have not been to such an event, I highly recommend it, especially if you can sit with people with family participating

School began yesterday (Tuesday) but classes have not. I spent the last two days in orientation and team building activities with my classmates, and the real work begins in the morning, wahooo. If you don't here from me for the next few weeks it will be because I am drowning. Our first two semesters in the program are divided into terms, and they push you fast and furiously. It will surely be me doggy paddling my way around just trying to keep my head above the water for a while until I can get a hold of something.

We have done some other fun things this past week, but I choose not to comment on them at this time. That is a task that I will leave to the wonderful wife of mine. I hope all is well for you my friends and family.

Speaking

As we arrived and began unpacking our things here in Sunderland, Suzy and I made predictions on when we would get callings and when we would have to speak. I am pleased to announce that, as of today our second Sunday, we still have no callings, which we were sure we would have by now. I think that it was because the bishop has been out of town.

However, we received the dreaded call Wednesday evening asking us to speak today. That was much quicker than we anticipated. Our assigned topic was, "Share your favorite scripture and a personal experience, and you are the only two speakers." Luckily, they called a new member of the bishopric and he and his wife bore their testimonies and took up quite a bit of time. Our talks went well, and they are over with, I think we are safe for the next about 4-6 months. It was a balancing act to prepare a good talk but not too good, we don't want to be speaking too often, which is a definite danger in our ward.

This last week has been a busy and fun one. We had intended to go to Six Flags down in Springfield, but the weather was unseasonably cool, which was a nice break from the hot humid weather when we arrived, I enjoyed it much more than Suzy did. We traveled out to Boston to go to the temple, which is a very nice one; it just explodes at you on the freeway, though not quite like San Diego or DC do. After the temple we went to Minute Man National Park, where the battles of Lexington and Concord were fought, the first blood of the revolutionary war. That was very interesting, we learned things about those first battles that they did not teach in school.

The ward Relief Society had a retreat to Camp Joseph in Sharon, Vermont (the birthplace of Joseph Smith, about 90 miles north of us). She had a wonderful time. On Friday, the priesthood holder that they had going with them had to cancel due to illness, so they asked me to go as the priesthood holder. I enjoyed it too. It is a beautiful part of Vermont, very mountainy compared to here. It was a relaxing weekend, except for the sleeping part. We had small cabins that fit two sets of bunk beds, which were short and not so comfortable. Overall, we had a good time and enjoyed the Visitors Center at the birthplace; it was a nice conclusion to our little Church history tour.

This next week will be busy as we prepare for school and get the rest of our to-do items off the list.

We cannot find the camera right now, but when we do a few pictures will be posted.

Moving In...

So we finally made it here to our cozy, little apartment. Our stuff seemed a lot heavier as we had to carry it all up to the third floor. Luckily the missionaries were able to come help us out with the stuff that was too heavy for just the two of us. We spent Thursday just getting all the boxes in and Friday and Saturday trying to figure out where to put it all. We still have more to put away, but we finally got the big desk assembled which gives a place to put a lot of stuff.

Today we went to the Amherst Ward. The people there are amazingly nice. They are very excited to have new people in the ward and I think they are already plotting which callings they will give us. They seem a bit short staffed in every organization, so they are all trying to get more people. The Relief Society is having a retreat this Friday and Saturday so I will be going with them to Sharon, Vermont - the place of Joseph Smith's birth. It should be a lot of fun. The members said they get together a lot and it sounds like they are a very close ward, so we are excited to be a part of it.

Next week we are planning to do a few fun things before Casey starts school, so we'll try to take some pictures to post.

Nearly Done Driving

These last 400 miles were some of the hardest, our bodies yearned to be done, but we had to press forward and push through the wall to make our destination.

After the 2600+ miles and 10 states that we have driven through, I would have to say that New York has the cleanest, smoothest and best patroled roads of them all. Of course they had better for the nearly $50 we paid in tolls driving through it. I cannot imagine how much money they rake in daily just from the semi-trucks alone. To top it off I am sure that their other taxes are just as high, gas there is the most expensive we saw on the trip, from $2.79ish in Pennsylvannia to $3.05ish once you cross the border. Wow.

Today was a fun day the driving notwithstanding. We stopped into Palmyra and saw the sites. I must say that the Hill Cumorah is very very steep, think the steepest part of the trail to Timp Caves, it is a good thing that it is not quite so high, and mst people cheat and drive to the top anyway (at least those not driving a huge moving truck and towing a car). The area is very beautiful full of greenery and blue skys. The weather was quite perfect, not too hot or too humid.

We then headed over to the Smith Family homestead and saw the frame and log homes of the Smith's. Very cool. And we had a very nice sister missionary take us around, it was her 23rd birthday. She was one of the best we have encountered on all our Mormon history stops. We got to wander out the Sacred Grove on our own. It is a peaceful, calming, beautiful place. I could of sat there all day. We enjoyed the calm of the grove in contrast with the stress of driving the truck amid semis wind and cars.

We then headed over to the E.B. Grandin Print shop where the BoM was first printed. One cannot appreciate the sacrifice and the expense that Martin Harris made to finance the BoM until you see the work that went into printing each copy. Wow is it hard, labor intensive work. It is no wonder that a copy sold for $1.25 (two full days wages at the time). The printing of 5,000 copies of one book with that process was crazy, but the right people were there at that right time. It took nearly 2 years to fulfill the order for 5,000 copies. We ate lunch at a nice little cafe that overlooked the Erie Canal, it was very nice.

We finally made it and are in Holyoke tonight and will finish the last few miles in the morning and begin the next painful process moving in tomorrow, during which we are forcasted to suffer through thunderstorms, so pray for us. :)

Picture one is the Sacred Grove and the second is in the upstairs of the log home where the angel Moroni appeared to Joseph to tell him about the Book of Mormon. Enjoy the pictures.

Kirtland to Niagara

Today was a nice easy 200 miles.

We got to sleep in until a little after 8 as we knew that today would be a short day of driving. As we wandered over to our complimentary breakfast we saw a missionary and his parents eating. They were from Spain if I heard correctly and they were touring the Church history sites before they went back to Spain. I think that the hotel we were staying in was probably a popular one with LDS peoples since it is so close to the Kirtland sites.

We drove down the road a mere mile and were at the Church's visitors center were we toured the Newel K Whitney home and store on a tour with a family of 10 and the sister missionary. It was a nice tour, but took a bit longer than we thought that it would because of the kids.

We then headed up to the Temple site and just walked around the grounds, the Community of Christ, which runs the temple site, wants $2 for the tour and we were needing to get on the road.

It took us a little over 3 hours to make the drive up here to Buffalo, it was slow at times with construction but otherwise uneventful. We got here and were able to get off of the freeway just as traffic was really getting bad.

We checked into the hotel and headed back out to see Niagara Falls, which we were very excited about. With only moderate resistence from traffic we arrived in Niagara Falls, New York, and as we crossed one of the bridges we could already see the mist rising up from the Falls.

Deciding to go on the Maid of the Mist boat tour we headed down to the dock were we received out blue poncho and boarded the boat. In my experience ponchos are less than effective so I wondered how much good it would do as we neared the great falls especially with the wind. But somehow they held up much better than I thought and kept us dry with the exception of the exposed legs.

Niagara Falls is quite the impressive site. Amazing, beautiful, powerful, awe inspiring, the list could go on and on. I guess that now that I have been there I can check another thing off my list of things to do before I die. We are very happy with the choice to go on the boat tour, it was spectacular and you get to see an amazing up close view and experience with both sections of the Falls. I took video so that the sounds and wind could be fully appreciated, but for now I do not know how to post that to the site. I will make attempts at learning how, and if I fail I will email the video to all who would like me to do so. I hope that you can enjoy the pictures though they fail to capture the beauty and wonder of the place.

Day 4: The Longest Day

640 miles in 12 1/2 hours. We left a little later than we normally have been, so that we could miss rush hour in Chicago and Cleveland. We thought it should be a pretty easy drive, and going through Chicago and Cleveland were very eay. Unfortunately, we ran into bad construction east of South Bend, IN, that took us 30-45 minutes to get through the maybe 5 or 6 miles. See pictures of us stuck and bored in traffic.

Then a few miles later, we ran into another traffic jam that took us another 30 minutes or so to get through, and it turned out to be a nasty wreck, where a semitrailer tipped over and it looked pretty nasty. It was a good reminder to drive safe and be careful.

We slept really good when we finally got to the hotel.

We also finsihed Harry Potter, and we liked it a lot.

Today has been the longest day yet. We are very tired and had a lot of trouble with traffic. We will post more tomorrow morning.

The City of Joseph: Nauvoo

Today was a very nice and special day. We began at Church a few blocks away from the temple, and it was packed with several hundred people. They have a sacrement meeting just for visitors and for the missionaries in Nauvoo. After Church we went for a walk down Parley Street, which leads down to the river, it is the street that all the Saints came down as they left the city, it was a nice walk, and one can only imagine the emotions that they had as they walked away from their homes.

It was already very hot and humid by 10:30 am when most of the shops/homes opened. We went through many and enjoyed the tours. We really liked the brickyard, baker, and the Browning Gunsmith shop were particularly cool.

Later we went to Carthage, which was a very special place. It was interesting to walk through the jail and the grounds where he spent the last days of his life.

We finished the day at a casual fireside meeting with Vocal Point, the a capella group from BYU. They were good, the concert was really nice and we enjoyed the time there. Nauvoo is a really cool city to visit and we definately recommend visiting for anyone who has not been here yet.

The picture of Casey is at the John Browning Place, and the one of Suzy is at the Mansion House (owned by Joseph Smith).

Day 2: If you Build It They WIll Come

Only 650 miles and 11 hours today, so not as bad as yesterday.

Today Suzy got her first taste of driving the truck and she did not like it much. The wind was blowing hard across the freeway and the roads in Iowa are not the greatest. It takes a lot of concentration and work to fight the winds of the plains of Nebraska and Iowa. Luckily though we have not hit any bad weather, just hot and humid. But other than the winds and road conditions the truck has been pretty easy to drive. We have been able to average about 60 mph, and it is getting much better gas mileage than we thought that it would (about 10.5mpg).

We listened to Harry Potter for much of the day and are still liking it. We are eager to listen to it more.

We arrived in Keokuk at about 630 tonight. Our hotel is about a block or two from the Mississippi River. We went up to Nauvoo after putting all of our things in the hotel. We walked around the city for about 1 1/2 hours. We walked around the temple, town and ended the night at the visitors center right before closing. It is a really nice city and we are excited to go to church there tomorrow morning, and explore it after church.

We are including some of the pictures above that we took today. They are of Suzy driving, the Nauvoo Temple, the sunset over the Mississippi River and the endless miles of cornfields that we have seen over the past two days.

Tomorrow it will be nice to have a rest day and relax and enjoy the history, spirit and scenery of Nauvoo. It will be cool to walk the same roads and paths that Joseph Smith and my ancestors walked over 150 years ago.

Driving Day 1

Early today we began our truckin' across the USA. Total we drove 700 miles and 12 hours.

For the first two hours Suzy slept while Casey drove. But as soon as Suzy awoke, we began listening to Harry Potter book 7, in all we made it through 11 chapters. We like it a lot so far

The first picture is me as I am driving, I faked the smile. In reality I could not feel my body from the waist down. The second picture as we drove through Wyoming we saw some interesting rock formations, so we took a picture to represent what we were seeing for soooo many hours today.

Packing

Exhaustion. That is the word that best describes how we feel today. We have spent the last three days packing up all of our earthly possesions and loading them into a 16' moving truck. Today we are taking the day off to relax, recover, and prepare to move our stuff to Massachusetts, 2500 miles from here. Actually, we are already about 20 miles and 30 minutes into the journey since we are at my parents house in Orem, so 2480 miles, 6 days and too many hours to go.

We will be updating our posting each night as we pull into our hotels along the way, along with our posts we hope to put pictures and other funs things that we do and see along the way.
After we arrive in Sunderland, we will be posting approximately weekly to let you as our friends and family know how we are doing and what we are up to.

Here is our plan enroute to Sunderland, Mass and the adventures that await us out there:
-Friday, August 10-Drive from Orem, UT to North Platte, NE
-Saturday, August 11-Drive to Keokuk, IA
-Sunday, August 12-Relax and go to Church in Nauvoo, and see the Church history sites there
-Monday, August 13-Drive to Kirtland, OH where we will be able to visit some of the other Church history sites there
-Tuesday, August 14-Drive to Buffalo, NY, and go see Niagara Falls
-Wednesday, August 15-Drive to Springfield, MA
-Thursday, August 16-Drive to Sunderland, MA and move in.

Today I also got to go out and do some "research" with my dad. We went out to West Mountain above the Payson dump, and got to shoot his new Thompson sub-machine gun (even though it was only semi-auto), and I would have to say that it is the second funnest gun to shoot (next to the Browning .50 cal M2).

The other picture is of all our possessions piled up in boxes in our former dining room ready to be moved into the moving truck.