camping, pageant,family

We took a spur of the moment vacation this last weekend. With the weather being so stinkin' HOT it's hard to get excited about being outside. But we felt the need to get out and leave town for a few days. We have on our "summer list" to go see the Hill Cumorah Pageant in Palmyra. We had the weekend open so we said, what the heck lets go! {just like that too} A few years back when we went to Niagara Falls we camped at Allgehany State Park in New York and stinkin' loved it! So we decided to camp there again...the only thing, it was 2 hours away from Palmyra. But that was okay we liked it so much that it was worth it and we had wished we could of stayed longer. It is very beautiful with it's rolling hills full of trees. We arrived while it was getting dark so by the time dinner was done, you couldn't really see your food. No one cared though because according to Ellie.."this is the best dinner EVER!" she was starving.

Like everyone else I'm sure, watching the fire is always the best part. For some reason, you can't stop staring and then you realize 10 minutes have past and you haven't blinked your eyes.

who doesn't love cheetos while you're waiting for your foil dinner??

staring the night away.

We arrived in Palmyra around 1. Right when it was getting nice and HOT!  When we first got there we picnicked on the visitors center's lawn and ate our lunch. Then we stopped inside the air conditioned visitor's center and walked around and saw the costume displays that they had there. It was neat to see how they have changed the styles through the years.  After being inside {along with 5 million other hot people} we decided to walk up to Hill Cumorah.  It was a good steep walk up there!

{ ps. Dad. I lied to you. It is still called Hill Cumorah Pageant. I hope you'll forgive me. }

View from up top. Pretty sad how dead the grass is. The boys look pretty hot.

statue of Moroni

picture of a pretty girl

Picture of Sadie girl who didn't stop for one second the whole day. she was having too much fun.

After the hill we drove a few miles over to the Sacred Grove. It was very pretty there and we enjoyed talking to our kids about how special this place was.

AND while we were at the Sacred Grove we got word that Beck and her family had arrived YAY!! We had so much fun with them and we are so glad they came! The kids had a blast running around together, playing hide and go seek, tickling each other, playing super heroes...it was nice that they entertained each other considering we still had 8 hours until the pageant started!

Sadie,  Ellie,  Amarisa, Jacob, Garrett and Evan

How cute are they?!

Do a silly face!

We decided to order pizza and have it delivered to the visitors center {thanks for that idea Kevin!} We sat down at our seats, ate our pizza and had um....2 and half hours to go! ha ha.. It was all worth it though. I loved the pageant and felt glad that we had brought our families together to see it.  When Jesus came down from {what looked like the sky} Ellie came over to me and asked "mom, is that the real Jesus?"  What a great weekend!