thank you Neal A. Maxwell

Read this today. It's from october 2001 General conference. 

Although Elder Maxwell has passed on, his words carry such truth-especaially today.

For instance, some participants foolishly think a little lewd dancing is harmless. These individuals do “not sin ignorantly” (3 Ne. 6:18). By imitating and by underestimating the enemy, they end up compromising themselves, while confusing and disappointing their friends!

Ever wonder why the sensual scene so often features flashing but fading lights? Or why all the reinforcing glitz? Or why all the loudness masquerading as music? Because, fearful of the dawn, evil cannot stand the steady scrutiny of bright truth, nor can it endure the quiet reflections of soul-searching!

Thus the drumbeat of desensitization deadens the tastebuds of the soul by responding illegitimately to the legitimate need for belonging and for love, as predators and victims sadly become “past feeling” (1 Ne. 17:45;Eph. 4:19; Moro. 9:20).

Truth is powerful. How eloquent he put it.



as a disclaimer- i hope you dont know what i'm referring to.
i didn't see it. i've seen pics on yahoo. that's more than enough for me.
MORE than enough for anyone.

G's baptism

i haven't mentioned G's baptism yet.

it was so sweet. i kinda wanted to end our 3 weeks with the highlight (at least for me)

this little man got baptized.

i kept asking him if he wanted to pray about being baptized to know if it's what he should do.

he told me he didn't even need to pray about it because he knows it is was the right thing to do. he told me he knows the church was true.

i love his faith. i am reminded on a daily basis of why we are suppose to become like little children.

my kids are so full of faith. it never waivers. we've had some good teaching opportunities when answers to prayers don't come immediately, but came later than expected. but their faith never fails. it always seems to pull them through. i love their example.

G chose to be baptized in the susquehanna river-at the priesthood restoration sight.

it was so sweet.

the morning of his baptism, it was pouring. i kept looking out the window to see if it was 'letting up'. 

no chance.

we went ahead with it anyway. it's  a bit of  a drive. everyone was good sports to head up there with us.

it was so neat having family there to share in such a sweet experience.

we got there and the rain had subsided.

there were 2 other large groups, so we had to kind of maneuver through them.

everyone headed down to the river

 b loves his big brother

 down by the river

 we had a little program by the side of the river. we sang some songs. daddy talked on baptism and grandma talked on the holy ghost and gave us a cute book.

 j found a worm to play with

it was so sweet seeing them go into the water. seeing G's little fact squint up because the water was cold. seeing him look up to his dad. 

i loved being at this site. it is so sacred and really a tender little spirit there.

i love that G made this choice all on his own. he has a soft heart. he read his scriptures nearly every day this summer. he is such a sweet boy.

i am so pleased in his decisions.

afterward we visited a few of the sites there.

 love this of all the kids.

(notice b's pants who fell into a very large mud hole on the way back)

a little bit more....

while we had visitors, we also made  a trip down to lancaster and hershey.

this was the kids highlight of the entire 3 week traveling holiday.

ducks.

really. ducks.

at the end of the 3 weeks, i asked where they would like to go, one last time.

they all shouted, in unison, DUCKS.

J was so funny. we were in the store shopping, and this pond was out back. one of the employees took the kids out and let them feed them. she came running in about 5 minutes later, completely out of breath, and looked at me with crazy wide eyed hysteria and said, 'WE CAN BUY A DUCK! MOM!!! WE CAN BUY A DUCK!"

it was like her entire life had been sheltered to the fact that one could purchase an actual duck. she was set on bringing one home with us that very day.

sorry.

no duck.

 we ate a GIANT smorgesboard called Shady maple. imagine walmart. now stuff if with pretty tasty food. this is shady maple. the kids found all sorts of goodies to eat. 

us. we found delicious cucmbers soaked in something tasty and marinated with dill. it was soooo good.

HERSHEY.

love this ride. 

love the free chocolate afterward

 this girl loves snuggles

 we also made it to state college.

home of penn state.

we went to penns cave. 

a cool cave that you get to ride a boat through.

B kept telling me how spooky it was.

 happier once we got out of the cave

 we stopped at the creamery and got ice cream cones as big as your head.

 last night.

amusement park, of course..

not better way to end a few weeks of travelling around.

please come back.....

we miss you.

b keeps looking at kids and asking if they are our cousins.

he's slightly confused. :)

philly

in all our travels, we also made it down to philly.

i love this city.

we ate cheesesteaks from the 'original' cheesesteak place. it's called pats and has been in business since the 1930's!

we visited the liberty bell. a dutch person asked me to take a picture of him and his family, so i took his camera. then it was my family's turn for our pic, i started walking away and he got kinda panicked. really? do i look like someone who could make a quick getaway with 5 kids trailing behind me to try to steal a camera. anyway, we both got our pictures. no harm done.

 independence hall

 taking a much needed break.

g fell really hard right when we got to philly. luckily we had bandaids in our car, dad did a little patch up, and he was semi good to go. he kept needed rides in the stroller.

 look at this handsome face

 here is one of his 'much needed rides'

one thing that was really neat for the kids was trading cards that the rangers had. 

we started collecting them and the kids got quite a stack. any ranger they saw, they would stop and ask for them.

this ranger was particularly fantastic!

he quizzed the kids, was super enthusiastic and couldn't have been nicer. we even caught him on his lunch break. he had to set down his lunch to hand out the cards. he SHOULD be doing what he does. he was fabulous

 j proudly displaying her cards

 sooooo tired

 once again, the buildings and architecture are very cool.

 we finished the day off with a 20 minute carriage ride.

it was awesome. 

i love all the tid bits of info that they have re-searched. 

our drivers really tried to engage the kids. it was well worth it.

 to our good fortune, we parked right by a dairy queen. 

perfect ending to a great day in philly

if only these feet could tell the stories of the places we've been.......