Kirtland

*I'm home now and you would not believe how much I have wanted to play catch up with our blog. It is sort of nice to blog about something other than traumatic life experiences :). I'll go back to June...

June is just an awful month in one respect. June is the month when everyone moves away. It is always the transition time in the world of post-graduate education. I have never been in a ward (a congregation at our church) that didn't experience some level of exodus in June with new arrivals sprinkling in over the rest of the summer. Some years, we are the ones that have moved on. Other years, we get left behind and must say goodbye to people that, we are positive, will be irreplaceable.

After we found out that we matched at Michigan (which was the same week Cam was born), we took a little road trip to Ann Arbor to check out our future town. I remember feeling uneasy about the whole thing since I absolutely hate Midwest winters and we were venturing even farther north (I remember there was a huge snowstorm that weekend...the place definitely didn't make a good first impression). But I mostly kept my fears to myself. You can imagine, however, how happy I was when I ran into an old friend at church from San Jose. I had no idea that he and his family lived in Ann Arbor and it was sort of a tender mercy see a fellow Californian who was surviving just fine in the icy tundra. It has been fun to hang out with them this past year and see how a good friend from my teenage days has morphed into a great husband and father. It's a small world.

We were so happy that we got to spend the weekend with the Smiths in Kirtland before they moved. Since Andrew grew up in that area, he is always happy to show people around. (fyi, Kirtland, Ohio has many important historical sites in LDS history...just in case you didn't know).

In front of the John Johnson home

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We also went "to see the Amish" which is always sort of an awkward thing to do in my opinion. I always feel like I'm spying on them and trying to take concealed pictures through the window of a car. They are typically very private and I never want to feel like I'm being invasive or disrespectful of their lifestyle. However, Cameron and Brittny made this experience the best "Amish watching" experience yet. They had no problem pulling over the car and politely asking people questions. We got to go inside a few Amish woodworking workshops (which are really just barns next to their homes) and we had some interesting conversations. The Amish people we spoke with didn't mind answering questions about their lives although they didn't seem comfortable talking about religion or their worship services...which is fine. Seeing some of the wood items they create and the tools they use to do the job was really cool. But I didn't take any pictures. That would have been a little awkward.

Kirtland Temple

We will really miss the Smiths!