Spring Break!!!! Ohio here we come!!!

The title of this post is correct. We left St. George when it was 70-75 degrees and sunny and made our way to Cleveland where it was 35 degrees and snowing the day we landed.  We never claimed to be the smartest people, but we still had a good time during our trip.

Kari served her mission in the Ohio Cleveland Mission and spent some time at the Kirtland Historic Sites.  She has been wanting to get back there to show me off for quite a while so we decided to go over spring break this semester.  We actually went back because a couple of people she taught that joined the church are getting up there in age, they're both 90, and she wanted to see them while we knew we had the chance to do so.  The second reason was because she wanted to show off Daxton, then there were a few more reasons before I showed up on the list but I was more than happy to go along for the ride.

Daxton was very excited to see the airplanes and to "fly in the sky" but he fell asleep right before take off and slept for the first hour.  Mid-flight though he woke up suddenly and said "fly airplane in the sky."  It was really cute and fun to see how he acted on the plane.  He was really good for all of the flights we had to and from Ohio.  We flew out to Ohio on Friday and stayed at the Titera's house.  They are a family that Kari grew close to during her time out there and we were very fortunate to be able to stay there and are very grateful for their hospitality.  Saturday we got the chance to see George, one of the converts Kari taught.  He is an incredibly neat guy and a great addition to the church.  Then we made our way over to Kirtland and stayed the night near there.  We deemed Sunday as our spiritual day and went to the Kirtland Ward and Kari got to see some members she worked with while she was in that area.  Then Karin Stewart, who is from Enterprise, took us on tour of the visitors center and the open sites.  It was a great tour and fun for Kari to be back in that area to see everything.  Sister Stewart and her companion would often ask Kari to share what she remembered about certain sites and to share her testimony of it.  That aspect of the trip was really neat for me and I only wish Dax would have been older and better behaved so that he too could have had a more powerful experience of seeing his mom beam at the memories she made and the testimony she gained of different principles while at Kirtland.  That area truly is a remarkable place and the spirit is felt very strong there.

After leaving the visitors center we crossed the street and went to see the Kirtland Temple.  The building itself is remarkable and the spirit is definitely there as well.  We got there about the same time as a Community of Christ tour bus and so the tour we had was quite different than most tours they give to LDS members.  Kari went on tour there many times as a missionary and said the one we went on this year was vastly different.  The tour guide talked a lot about their doctrine and stuff more than normal because of the tour group that we were with.

We weren't able to go to Johnson Farm because we got there like 10 minutes after it closed, which was disappointing because that was one of Kari's favorite places and when I went to Kirtland 8 years ago it's the place I best remembered also.  After that failed attempt we made our way to Canton so that we could go to the Football Hall of Fame.  That night though we went swimming at our hotel and Dax's ears were no bueno after that.  We think the flight bothered his ears some and then swimming definitely didn't help.  But we got a hold of our Dr's office in St. George and they called in an antibiotic prescription to a 24-hour pharmacy for us.

The next day we went to the HOF and had fun seeing all of the artifacts there and getting pics of Dax playing football.  Then we made our way through Amish country and Dax loved that too.  He loved saying "horse and buggy" and seeing them.  That night the Titera's planned a get together for a bunch of ward members that Kari knew so it was fun to meet the people Kari always talks about and for her to interact and reminisce with them.  The next day we took Dax to a nature center so he could see some animals and fish.  He loved seeing all of them and we also went to Lake Erie and took a picture of the frozen lake.  We also saw James, the other convert that is 90 years old.  It was good for him and Kari to see each other.  We also did a couple of things to help him out.

We came home from Ohio on Wednesday.  We went and saw George one more time that morning and met his daughter, who Kari has always wanted to meet.  Then we went to lunch with Sister Titera and her daughter Linda before jumping on a plane and flying home.  Dax loved Linda by the way.  She is incredibly musically inclined and talented and works as a music therapist.  Dax loved all of the instruments she had and playing with her.

Overall it was a fun trip and it was good for Kari to go back and show us off and see everybody, despite the unfortunate adventure that we had about midway through that I will write about another day.