The past two weeks I've been on THE most incredible trip of my entire life with the best people that I know. It was a tour of all our historical church sites and in addition to that we stopped in a few big cities along the way. Throughout those 2 weeks I took more pictures than I think I have in my entire life in that amount of time so you can try to imagine how much of a challenge it was to go through and pick out some of the best. I managed to get it down to about 64 (so if you're not fond of loooong blog posts stocked with pictures and quotes of my journal entries I suggest clicking out of it right now because this is possibly the longest blog post of all time)
July 7:
"On one of our first days we went to Adam-Ondi-Ahman where the 12,000 priesthood holders from each tribe will meet by invitation when more priesthood keys are restored. Sister Ewell, our guide, talked a lot about and emphasized to the young men to be worthy enough to attend this meeting and to the young women to marry and live worthy of a man who would be invited to this meeting. It was so cool to go because I really didn't know much about this amazing place before this trip. I think I just like it so much because it has to do with the future. Everywhere that we are going on this trip has a lot to do with the past which is fascinating but seeing a place that still has history yet to come seems so great and full of hope."
in Nauvoo there were little places where we could dress up like pioneers and I will say it was one of the most hilarious things of the entire trip.
July 8:
"Today we spent the entire day in Nauvoo. It was so cool to be in the exact places where so many influential people stood. And what made it even better was that the entire town was full of little old couples on their missions all dressed up in 1800's clothes. I live in a place that is so nice and new which I love but it's not so rich with history like the east coast and places that I'm visiting right now. It's like almost everywhere you go somebody who contributed to the shaping of America or the church stood and that's such a contrast to where I live. We explored Nauvoo for a little while and took a few tours of the houses and shops. It was so cold and wet and rainy and my hair was a curly mess but I still loved exploring this beautiful city. One of the hilights one the day was watching the Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration movie in the visitor's center. It was the one that we've all seen a million times but yet somehow always still impacts all of us. The feeling of the spirit was so strong during the part at the end when an instrumental of 'Praise To The Man' is playing in the background over Joseph and Hyrum saying goodbye to their wives and riding their horses to Carthage Jail. It gets me personally every time. The funniest thing that happened today was hands down Hannah selling her soul for fudge… she spent $51 at the Nauvoo fudge factory."
for Eliza's birthday we woke up before her and decorated the hotel room with balloons and streamers
July 9:
"We started this morning by going to Carthage Jail where the prophet Joseph Smith was killed. Just like all the other places on this trip, it was so amazing to be in the exact place where such noble people stood and such eternity altering events occurred. It's one thing when you just hear stories about it but it's another completely different spirit when you are actually standing in the place that it all happened. While we were in the room there was a recording of 'A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief' and the sound of gun shots and it practically felt like we had gone back in time. Even some of the boys had tears in their eyes while we stood in that room."
The Kansas City temple was so gorgeous. One of my favorite things about this trip was being able to see more temples than I've seen in my life combined just in that short two weeks.
July 11:
"we went to the Washington DC temple. Honestly it was one of the prettiest temples I've ever seen. As we were driving up to it I couldn't help but feel the sprit even then. It was like pulling up to Heaven or something. Of all the temples I've ever even to in my life, none even come close to comparing to the DC temple."
The bike man saved us from the sorest feet ever. While we were in DC the four of us walked 5 blocks to get to a cafe that was closed. We were so starving and tired that we ended up just eating at McDonalds because it was the closest thing that we could find. By then we were all pretty mad about our life situation but the bike man came just in time to take us to some delicious gelato after that little incident.
One of my favorite parts about DC was the butterfly garden in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Last time I was in DC a couple years ago I wanted to go see the butterflies so bad but for some reason we didn't and I was SO happy when all my friends were on board with going to it.
taking a picture with a penny at the Lincoln Memorial is basic so instead I took one with a dime
kind of not fair because I brought my camera on this trip and ended up taking almost every group picture rather than being in them but I PROMISE I HAVE FRIENDS IT JUST MIGHT NOT LOOK LIKE IT
we stopped in Philadelphia for a day and tried philly cheese steaks (pretty good but not my favorite) at the cutest little open market. I will admit that at the time I was not to happy to be there because it was hot and humid and crowded and there was so. much. walking. but looking back on it, it was a great memory and actually a SUPER cool place.
ROCKY STEPS & VIEWS OF THE CITY
July 14:
"we spent the day in New York City and it was so amazing. It still feels like it was unreal to actually have been in the city that I have spent what feels like my whole life wanting to go to."
We started off the day going on the ferry to the Statue of Liberty. We didn't have a chance to get off and walk around but we had an amazing view of it as we rode.
xoxo, gossip girl (aka Sadie)
Central Park was for sure one of my favorite stops on this trip.
Supposedly the Canada side of Niagara is ten times better so thats what we did.
AND LOOK WHO SURPRISED US ALL ON THE PLANE RIDE HOME!!
Thanks for getting all of us home safely, Dad. Hands down coolest homecoming surprise ever.
I couldn't have asked for better travel buddies than Eliza, Hannah, and Savannah. They made every day an adventure and every hotel room night full of pee-your-pants-laughter. Somebody once said that you are the average of the people you spend the most time with and if that is the truth then I must be set for life because these girls are incredible.
*this little hilight video is now up & can be seen HERE
for more information on what we were doing in all these places:
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