Strong family reunion

This years Strong reunion was less stressful for me than normal cause we were able to stay at home. My family stayed with us at our house in the basement. During the day we all met up in Lehi at a cabin we had up there that belonged to Ilene's brother. We of course spent some quality time playing games every day all day. The two biggest hits were games called Renegade and Bang. Garrett and I opted to just watched the basketball.

On Friday Garrett took the day off and hung around with us at Trafalga. We played mini golf and I was surprised at how much fun we had. Garrett won mini golf of course.


I chickened out of participating in bumper boats cause everyone was getting drenched. Garrett seemed to enjoy it though.

This little roller coaster was made for small children but it was surprisingly  fun.
On Saturday we went and hiked Timpanogos cave. We somehow didn't end up with enough tickets and Garrett had just gone last week so he didn't go. It was fun to see everything up close, and I thought it was a little more interesting than the Minnetonka caves at Bear Lake. 

We became junior rangers by filling out these little quiz books and got awesome plastic badges.

The best part of the reunion was that Grant and Carly had their baby!  After spending a few fun hours at Seven Peaks we went and bombarded the hospital and met Emmett for the first time. He's a charming one. Grant and Carly make cute parents.

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Washington DC

   On our day in WA DC we neglected to take a lot of pictures. I think I didn't because I already have a lot of them from the last time I went there. We had a pretty chill day because we were getting a little tired of walking all day, and it was the last stop of our trip. Mindy especially was not too excited about walking around. We did the Jefferson memorial out on the little island in the Potomac, 

the National Aeorspace museum for the boys, and then went to the National Art Museum, which I was surprised to find had a lot of European pieces. I guess it's not just for American history. I guess we don't have that much really old history to show off. After that I talked everyone into running down the street to try and get into the Ford theater before it closed. They didn't think we could make it but I got in just in time to get the last tickets of the night. We saw the place where Lincoln was shot, all with it's original decorations. 

After that we went into the little brick house across the street where they took him after and he died. The room was very small and humble. They broke out the wall into the neighboring house and made a little exit through the gift shop with a museum for Lincolns story. It was all pretty neat.

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Philly

Philadelphia was kind of a short stop but that was ok. We got in later in the day after driving from NY. We did the important things like the liberty bell and Independence hall tour before they closed, and then walked around the city and saw some other neat things like the Betsy Ross house and Ben Franklins grave.

Liberty Bell

During the tour we realized that we were visiting the room that the Declaration of Independence was signed on the anniversary of the signing on Aug, 2nd 1776. We sent a short video of us singing happy birthday to Chelsea and the Declaration to Chelsea. The constitutional convention also happened here. 

Independence hall

Benjamin Franklin's grave

    We also tried some real Philly cheese steaks and they were pretty good. 

Elfreth street is "the oldest residential street in America" and I was totally in love with the secret gardens behind the gates. I want a secret garden!!

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New York day 3

"I can see why shootings happen in big cities now. If I had a gun I'd totally do the same thing." -Mindy. Mindy isn't too thrilled about the people trying to trample us on every side in Chinatown. I don't think she's ever felt anxiety in her life till this moment. Turns out Kenny and Mindy aren't urban souls. We have discovered this on this trip. I love the excitement of seeing new places and ledgends in real life, and I can tolerate the rush and crowds, but today is testing even me. The heat is so unbearable and mom picks all the most overcrowded street corners to stop and look at things. I found a little place famous for dumplings and we got a meal for the whole family for pretty cheap, and it was good. After eating we tried to do the shopping there but we only got 1.5 blocks in before it was time to head back. We're so slow it makes me crazy sometimes. Oh well I guess if you've seen one shop there you've pretty much seen them all. After we shopped in Times Square for hours and decided to skip the night tour cause the line was too long. I'm exhausted and ready to slow it down tomorrow.

    We've seen a ton on this trip. The ferry out to the Statue of Liberty was fun and kind of reminded me or the Alcatraz ferry. We all kept getting split up cause the crowds were so thick that I just gave up and went off on my own. We also did Ellis island but everyone was so pooped that we basically walked through the building and that was it. Most of our time in the city has been spent on the top of the big red buses, which seems to me to be the best way to see a lot and hear the relevant info. 

   On Sunday we went to church inside the Manhattan temple.  I guess the chapel is just sandwiched between the baptistery and the other temple floors.  The outside of the building is super unassuming and blends right in with all the other high rise buildings around it except it has an angel Moroni on top. We saw it on the bus downtown tour too. After sacrament we went down to Central Park and wandered around but we didn't have time to find St Paul's Chapel cause we had to go drop off dad at the Brooklyn airport and head to Philly.

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