Trip around the World

First of all before I get to my worldwind (haha) adventures I want to clear up the previous post. I SWEAR that I didn't write it to get sympathy comments, it was just a sad/funny thing that happened that I wanted to document. So to all those who wrote the sweet comments...thank you they made my week!!! And I swear I wasn't fishing for compliments.

So now onto our trip around the world. Cannon surprised me with a road trip around the world! I was so excited as I have never been around the world before. So to start it off we loaded up the kids and my kid sister and headed out in our sweet ruby red rental.

We had some fun times...

and some sick times too.

I don't know if any of you realize just how many amazing destinations are just a few hours drive away. But I must have really been zonked because I don't really recall the ferry ride across the ocean, I seem to remember feeling a little carsick, but that could have been all the truck stop food we were eating. Who knew they had Popeye's in Europe!

So our first stop was Macedon. Hmm...I'm glad that Cannon has the internet on his phone because when we got there it was a pretty small and rundown town. But google confirmed our suspicions. Macedon was an ancient Greek city which would explain it's general lack of livliness.

Moving right along...next stop Amsterdam. I was really excited to see windmills, but I'm pretty sure they are a myth because all we saw were a bunch of cell phone towers. When we went into the center of town I was a little nervous for the kids to see the "ladies of the night" but was relieved because when we got there it was noon time.

Then we took a short drive to Rome which sort of confused me because I thought that Rome and Greece were closer together than Greece and Amsterdam...but then again I wasn't the navigator extroidinaire...love you Can! Rome was definitely nothing to write home about. The only Italian food we could find all along main street was a Pizza Hut...and let me tell you...it tastes EXACTLY the same there as it does here. Those Italians aren't so great.

Since we were in Rome we figured we'd head to Naples. Wine country...only one problem, we don't drink wine. Drats.

After our beautiful European tour (I don't see what all the fuss is about...everything is so Americanized and not at all expensive) we headed to the Middle East. It wasn't as far as I thought it would be. But when we got there I was a little confused as I looked around. Instead of seeing beautiful people with dark skin and exotic clothes all I saw were a bunch of white people carrying aroung big gulps....where the !@#$ were we?

"Can, where are we?"

"We're in Lebanon"

"Thats what I thought but I don't see a single Lebanese restaurant"

"Why on earth would there be a Lebanese restaurant in PA?"

Pennsylvania? What happened to my worldwind tour? Sigh...a girl can dream can't she? (PS all of these places are really towns in PA and NY)

After all the dissapointment we still had a blast on our trip to upstate NY and PA. We drove up to the Palmyra area and stayed in a cute lake town called Canandaigua where I saw the house of my DREAMS. (much like my trip around the world.)





They have a gorgeous lake and we stayed at a cute little B&B. Well OK it wasn't so much a B&B as it was a dumpy motel with a diner attached to it.

We spent the day in Palmyra seeing all of the church sites. It was so sweet to be in the sacred grove with my little family...and my preteen sister (raging hormones, mega attitude...you get the picture. LOVE you Lil!!) The highlight of the sacred grove was blackberry picking. It was SOOO gorgeous and serene. There was nobody but us and the berries. It made us wonder if Joseph and his siblings ever did the same thing.

Lil and I. Elyse was supposed to get Joseph AND Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ

This is what it looks like.


Nature at its finest. I love the woods and miss them soooo much.

We also stopped in Niagra Falls for the day. Unfortunately we didn't make it to the Canadian side which I remember being WAY better, but I wasn't sure of all of the passport rules but lets face it...why pay more for the same stuff.

Elyse loves finds wildlife wherever we go!



Since Cannon is a doting father he paid $5 !@#$ bucks to let Elyse "feed" the seals at the Niagra aquarium. I wish they would have told us that by feed they really meant toss sardines at blind and gimpy seals...no offense to any of you PETA members but its the truth.

I think if you ask the kids they will tell you that the highlight of their trip was right after Levi was car sick and we stopped at a reptile zoo. (PS when you stop at a grocery store in the middle of nowhere you just have to expect that they won't have any decent natural remedies. I found a homeopathic remedy that soothes upset tummies so I snatched it up without looking at the ingredients. It was too late when I read that it has my top two favorite ingredients methyl and propyl paraben! That stuff is in shampoo's! I will be calling the company to very politely ask why they are putting this junk in a homeopathic remedy, which is for children) (It wouldn't be a post of mine without some kind of rant now would it?)

So in order to get some fresh air we paid the exorbitant price of 10 buks a pop for a teeny tiny reptile zoo. But it turned out to be the MOST fun!

Thats what i thought it looked like too.

Poor little Levi didn't enjoy this too much.

The most fun were the Emu's (isn't this a reptile zoo??)Elyse and Lillian are a little nervous with all of the Emu's weird noises.

Strange looking things. That area to the left of its beak (the black with the white spot in the middle) isn't its eye...its the ear!

You could feed the Emu's for a quarter...what they didn't tell you was that they BITE!! I wish I knew how to post video...poor little Levi got his little sick hand nibbled. Anyway, everyone was shrieking and carrying on. SO.....

Elyse decided that the only thing to do was to shake her bootie at them...you show them Elyse!


We did lots of other stuff including eating "real homecooked" Amish food which was more like real outta the can and slapped on a plate food....but if I mentioned all that then this post would just be way too long ; )