Rochester, New York

On Wednesday, we finished up our last finals of the Winter Semester and packed our bags for Rochester, New York. My sister, Alicia, and her husband, Marcus, live there with their kids Ellie, Lucas, and another baby girl (to be born in the next week or so). We arrived there late Wednesday night and spent the night with their neighbor, June. She lives two houses down in this massive, old home where she raised 14 kids.

On Thursday we went to Palmyra to check out some Church history sites. I thought that it was really interesting that when you first drive into town, the first thing you see are a couple of church steeples. At the first major intersection, there is a Baptist Church, a Presbyterian Church, an Episcopal Church, and a Methodist Church. One at every corner. It seems as though the town hasn't changed much since the time of Joseph Smith.







Our first stop was to the Hill Cumorah. They have a great display at the Visitor's Center at the bottom of the hill. They really cater to non members about the Book of Mormon and they have tons of video displays. The kids loved it. The Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit was also at the Visitor's Center. It was pretty interesting.





Next, we went to the Palmyra temple and looked around at it. Then, we went to the Smith Farm and the Sacred Grove. There was a very peaceful spirit there as we walked through the grove. On the tour of the farm, one of the sister missionaries made Mallory bear her testimony and then they forced us to give them referrals. It was kind of funny.






Our last stop for that day was the E.B. Grandin Printing Press, where the first 5,000 copies of the Book of Mormon were printed. The tour there was excellent. I learned a lot and I thought that it was very interesting.

On Friday, we went to the Peter Whitmer Farm in Fayette. It was cool to see the home where the Church was first organized.



Later, we stopped at Seneca Lake, one of the "finger lakes" and threw some rocks in the water with the kids.




On Saturday, we took Marcus to the airport in Buffalo and then traveled to Niagra Falls. They were pretty cool, but a lot of the fun tourist things there were closed until May. Therefore, we didn't get a good view of the Horseshoe Falls, unless we were on the Canada side (and we all know that wasn't going to happen).





After the falls, we stopped in Buffalo on the way home to try out the "Original Buffalo Chicken Wings" at the Anchor Bar. Apparently, this is the birthplace of the buffalo style chicken wing. I'm not really a big fan of buffalo chicken wings, but they were pretty tasty.




On Sunday, we went to the Rochester Zoo. The kids loved all the animals, and Mallory, the monkeys.





We also went to Highland Park, which is over 110 years old. It began as a nursery and since has expanded to 155 acres. It is home to the Lilac Festival every year and has thousands of flowers.








Overall, it was a very fun trip and we enjoyed seeing our niece and nephew... and Alicia and Marcus as well.