clearwater beach 2

Here are some videos of our day at Clearwater

Beach in Florida. It was a fun day, especially when

the thunder and lightening forced everyone out

of the water.

One last video of Vermont

Trapp Family Lodger 9/19/11

It was such a beautiful day. Here is the Lodge where we are staying. When I served my mission in New England, I always felt cheated because I was never transfered to Vermont. So here I am finally getting to see this beautiful state.

Dad got this picture of this church in the background.

This was a quaint little winery along the road.

Another covered bridge that was closed. 1887!

We actually crossed this covered bridge the one and only one!

Welcome to Canada!! We were just so close that we had to cross the border.

This is a home in Canada thaat we thought was beautiful.

A beautiful falls in enosfalls, vermont.

Our Trip to Vermont

Well, here we are for our First Visit to Vermont, staying at the Von Trapp Family Lodge (which is run by the Von Trapp Family of Sound of Music fame). Beautiful rolling hills here, heavily wooded and reminiscent of Oregon - except that we are surrounded by these old towns, many of which date back several hundred years.


It seems everywhere you go, you see a white church steeple ahead of you with this gorgeous backdrop of trees.


Sunday morning, we went to Church in Montpelier (about 30 minutes drive from Stowe) - a nice little ward.

On the drive down to Sharon (Joseph Smith's birthplace, we saw a lot of damage from the storm Irene -- a number of rivers overflowing their banks and causing a lot of flooding and debris.

/Visit to Joseph Smith Birthplace in Sharon, VT

After attending Church in Mountpelier, we went an hour South to Sharon, Vermont to visit the birthplace of Joseph Smith. They are a very nice visitors center there sitting on an 800 acre farm, where the family originally started (actually, it was the Mack's farm).


This obelisk is a single piece of granite, which from its base measures 38.5 feet (the age of Joseph Smith when he was killed. It is quite the construction feat, since it was installed in 1905 - 80 tons of rock, hauled by wagon from a quarry in Berre, Vermont which is 25 miles to the North.


The grounds around the monument are beautiful and sited on the farm is a ward building for the local congregation.

Woodstock, Vermont- Sunday Sept. 18th 2011

After visiting the Joseph Smith Memorial in Sharon, we traveled South to Woodstock, a beautiful old historic city, voted the most beautiful city in the United States (presumably by someone other than the people of Woodstock). However, it was very old and quaint -- everywhere you go in Vermont, you see these lovely little cities, many with covered bridges. Hurricane Irene did some real damage in Vermont, destroying a number of these old covered bridges (which you can see above) and inundating the towns with flood waters. Most of the aftermath of the storm has been cleaned up, but a number of bridges are badly damaged.

We loved this bridge in Woodstock -- took this late in the day after the sun had set. Above is the backend of the bridge, with Mom (below) sitting at the bridge's entrance.

One of the many beautiful churches that we saw today -- apparently, Vermont is now a pretty liberal, agnostic state, but surely 200 years ago, it must have been quite the religious community - there is a church on nearly every corner.

Fors visit

We had a fun visit Saturday with the Fors. They loved our place. Dennis wants to buy there.

ZION