Thanksgiving in Kirtland

Rachel and cute Daphne
Our friends Dave and Rachel have family that live in Kirtland, Ohio and invited us to spend Thanksgiving with their family there. We had never been there before and so we decided that would be a fun trip. We drove up after work on Wednesday and arrived at Rachel’s parents’ house around 2 or 3 in the morning. Dave and Rachel have the most adorable baby girl, Daphne, that we have fallen in love with, and she was a perfect angel the entire drive there. We also had a ton of fun during the car ride. We headed to bed since it was so late and the next morning the fun began.
We helped Rachel’s parents with the Thanksgiving dinner. The guys were all outside frying the turkey while the girls were inside playing with Daphne and making the rest of the meal. Rachel’s mom served a mission to Italy so it was fun to talk about Italy with her (Diana lived there as a child). A few families from her parent’s ward joined us for dinner also and we had a fun time visiting and meeting new people. In addition Jason was able to watch football and Diana took a couple of naps.

The men hard at work cooking
The next day we hit some after Thanksgiving day sales and just took it easy. That evening we went over to the church visitor’s center for their Christmas tree lighting event and to look at their crèche displays. The nativity creche’s that they had on display were pretty cool – there were so many and they were so gorgeous.
On Saturday we made it a day to visit a lot of church history sites. We went to the Kirtland Temple which was so special. You could feel such an amazing spirit there. It was neat to be in a place so sacred. Although our church doesn’t own the property and it’s not an active temple you can still feel the spirit so strongly. It was also amazing to be in a place that the Savior appeared – to know you are sitting in the same room that the Savior stood. That was really neat.

The Kirtland Temple
Then we went to the Newell K. Whitney store. Again – another place that the Savior appeared. Kirtland is really special – the Lord appeared 4 times there – 4!!! It was a very sacred place and not many people go there. Again you can feel the spirit so strongly in the Newell K Whitney store. IN addition while we were in the store they had a book there that shows all the purchases made by saints in the area back then. While looking in the book we found Jason’s ancestor Edmund Durfee and his family purchases. That was awesome. IT was pretty neat to know your ancestors where there and experiencing all these things we were learning about first hand. Wow! It made me want to learn more about them. We also went to the Whitney home and a few other places right there on the grounds.
Later that day we went to the Isaac Morley farm – where there was another visitation of the Lord to the righteous. It had a special calming feel to it –much like the sacred grove. Then we went to the Quarry where they pulled the stones for the temple. That was really special. You can still see the marks were they got the stones. They are everywhere in the quarry. There was a neat feeling there also. I was so impressed by how wonderful the spirit was in all those areas that we went to. I really loved it there.

Jason and cute little Daphne
We also had a great time visiting with Rachel’s family and had a great time with Dave and Rachel. We went to church the next morning with her family and I was sad to leave. They were so welcoming to us and they have such a beautiful home. In addition, Daphne was so darn cute and Jason and I got to cuddle with her a lot. We had a fun drive home and a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. I can’t wait to go back.