Great start to September!

September has been a fantastic month so far for our family! We found out just before Labor Day that Brad actually got it off!! ("Wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles . . .") So he/we pushed pretty hard through the weekend (with one small zoo excursion exception), so that we could have a true vacation on Monday. It was delightful.

On Monday morning we ventured out to the lesser known Church history sites around us. A friend in our ward gave us this list of all these sites of lesser known Church history sites (some Church-owned and some not). Amazingly, these are even closer to us than Palmyra. There was a contingency of Saints in the Mendon area that distanced themselves a little from the Palmyra saints to avoid persecution. Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball were among this group. We saw John Young's (Brigham's father's) farm house that he and Brigham built. We saw where Brigham Young was baptized (LOVED that), and a cemetery where his first wife was buried, as well as Heber Kimball's father. It was great! The whole time we were at the sites it was killing me that we just found out about this. Both of my parents would have thoroughly enjoyed this little adventure. My dad adores exploring new/lesser known areas, and I think my mom would have loved it for the family history aspect. On my Winder side we are direct descendants of John and Brigham Young. I've never thought too much about this (clearly, since Brad didn't know until we pulled up to John Young's home and I started telling Annie that it was her sixth great-grandfather's home) because Brigham Young has a HUGE posterity, but while we were at the house and particularly at the baptismal site, I felt a strong connection. I feel grateful that he joined the Church and stayed faithful, not just for what he did for the Church, but because it was a means of bringing me and my little family the Gospel.

After searching in vain for one of the other sites (I guess we have a great reason to go back now), we stopped at Shark's ice cream parlor. Apparently we lucked out - normally it's not open on Mondays, but because of Labor day, it was. Phew! That would have been very disappointing. The ice cream was great and the portions were huge, so what more could you ask for?

 We came back for naps and quiet time and then we headed out around dinner time for Dansville to see the hot air balloon festival. We'd heard about it last year and really wanted to go, so we were super excited for it this year. As we were heading to the car, I thought, "We should probably double check the website to make sure this is going on." We didn't check. Oops. We had a very pleasant drive to Dansville and then a very good laugh at ourselves when a resident of the host city looked at us like we were crazy and informed us that there was a balloon launch there - that morning. :) At least it gave me a good example of not heeding a prompting to share in my talk this Sunday about personal revelation. Haha! Overall it was such a great weekend - I felt totally refreshed and spoiled after getting a whole day with Brad!