The Past in Plainfield

Conal loves family history.

He reads out of a thick green book about his mother's side of the family nearly every Sunday.

He seems to find relatives everywhere we go.

In El Paso, he figured out that he was related to a friend of ours in the ward. Ok really, he's distantly related to a lot of people in that ward but this one we didn't know about. Here in Illinois, he's figured out that he is related to our Stake president.

Since we've moved here, Conal has found (in that thick green book) that his great great grandfather used to live here in Plainfield. I posted about this around Thanksgiving time. Pretty interesting since we had never heard of Plainfield until we got our orders to move out here. Conal was interested to know more so he started to inquire how he could get another book about this side of the family. We call this book, the big black book. We didn't have any luck getting a copy of it.

However, Conal had borrowed a copy of the big black book from Ellen, our friend/Conal's relative in El Paso and wondered if she could get a hold of a copy. I don't know if I have all of the details correct, but sure enough, Ellen's parents got a hold of a copy that some distant relative found in Grand Cayman. We now have that book in our possession.

I can't tell you how bad I feel that people went to that much trouble to get us a copy of the book. However, we are so grateful and Conal has been like a kid in a candy store.

Since receiving the book, we found out that not only did Conal's great great grandfather live here, but his great great great grandfather was actually one of the founders of Plainfield. Here we are living in a city that Conal's great great great grandfather helped settle and we didn't even know it!

We are trying to find exactly where his farm was but this area is our closest guess for now.

Conal's GGG grandfather was also baptized right here in Plainfield in the Dupage river.

On April 12, 2010 we had our Family Home Evening on the banks of the Dupage river 175 years to the day that Timothy Baldwin Clark was baptized in that very river.

Easter Sunday

General Conference Sunday and Easter on the same day............it's like Christmas!!! er Easter. Whatever.

Anyway, what is better that listening to General Conference, staying in your p.j.'s all day, and spending the whole day together as a family?

Ya gotta start off with an Easter egg hunt. We told the kids to find a certain color of egg and it worked rather well. I was surprised. No one cried or took anyone out. That a good sign for sure.

You've got to color Easter Eggs. It sure seemed to go more smoothly this year than last. Maybe because our kids are getting older and no one was walking on the counter while we were coloring the eggs. Just a thought.

The girls got some card games in their Easter baskets. One of those games was "Old Maid" which is a Burton family favorite, or maybe unfavorite depending on who ends up with the old maid. I about fell of my chair laughing when I saw who the old maid was:

I better not explain why I think this is so funny, unless I want to burn in you-know-where.

In hopes of keeping the beautiful 80 degree weather around, the kids each got a pair of sunglasses. I sure hope we aren't tempting mother nature.

The kids had a blast making Easter basket cupcakes.

I'd offer you one but there was an awful lot of extra-curricular knife licking going on.

Oh yeah, and since we stayed in our pj's ALL DAY ( I know you are shocked. That is SO atypical for me!) we wore our spring dresses this week.

New York Trip part 2

You can't drive clear out to Palymra, and not go to Niagara Falls. However, we were pretty lucky that we were able to go as we had been up the whole night prior with puking kids. Seriously, it was like someone set an alarm because they (Garrison, Hailey and Jackson) would throw up every 15 minutes like clock-work. Sorry, I know that's too much information, but I've gotta keep it real. It's gotta be written down for posterity! LOL!

It was a chilly day, but not too chilly to walk around and look at the falls.

I'm glad that we got the chance to go and that the kids felt well enough.

Our next stop was Fort Niagara. This military fort has been controlled by Canada, France and the U.S. at different times. It's was built back in the early 1800's. I would love to spend more time there.

We also saw Lake Ontario. This is the 3rd of the 5 great lakes that we have seen since we moved here.

It was a clear day and we could see Toronto, Canada off in the distance.

While we were in the area, we decided to check out a little family history. Conal has some ancestors that are buried in the city of Eden. We weren't certain where the cemetary was but we were able to find it and visit some graves.

The moral of this story is: You can't let a little projectile vomitting (OK fine. A LOT) get in your way.

The third time is a charm?????

PLEASE let the third time do the trick.

On April 2nd, Alexia had to go in for her third surgery on her nose. This time he just had to take the whole darn infected area out. We are still trying to keep the area infection free. Keep praying for us. We need all the help we can get. 9 months is along time to fight an infection.

April Foolin' 2010

The joke is on us. That is, the joke is on me Garrison and Hailey. Not because Conal pulled a good one over on us, but rather because he thwarted us, unwittingly, on every prank.

First, we decided to soak him with water on his way in the door when he got home from work. Unfortunately for us, Conal has cat-like reflexes

and most of the water ended up here:

instead of on Con.

Secondly, we tried to trick him by putting Chili powder on his french toast underneath the cinnamon.

Yeah, I promise that looked more appetizing in real life.

I put a ton of chili powder on that and he ate the whole thing. When he got to the last bite I started laughing and said "I can't believe you are eating that!" Apparently, he had a stuffy nose and didn't know anything was wrong with it until the second to the last bite. Even then, he didn't say a word. He just thought to himself "wow, this french toast has kind of a Southwestern flair."

Con, for future reference, french toast should NOT have a "southwestern flair". Thanks for eating it without complaining though. You really are the easiest person to cook for.

In case you were wondering, which I'm sure you weren't because it is only interesting to me, I did get my 13th April Fools Day call to see if I need a ride to the pharmacy. Still don't need a ride to the pharmacy...........but I could use a ride to my Obstetrician.

We have news!

Mandi said I should just put a big arrow like this

to point over to my baby ticker over there. (oh and by the way, I look EXACTLY like that pregnant barbie doll over there. NOT. I wish. She is so cute!)

Anyhow, if you need more proof since its April fools day:

If you look really close you can see the date (2/19/10) up to the right.

It's a girl! Due at the beginning of July!

The kids are as excited as can be. Conal and I are very happy and very grateful.

Hailey is already making lists of things we need to do before the baby comes. I'm kind of glad that we didn't tell them until I was about 20 weeks along. Otherwise we'd have to answer 30 weeks worth of questions instead of just 18 or 19 weeks.

Hailey did inform me that she is going to have more kids than me. She said that she is going to have 9. I really hope that she doesn't change her mind. Nothing would make me happier. Here's to hoping that she doesn't have to have c-sections like me!

Palmyra and Niagara Falls NY

What can I say. It's only 10 hours away. We've never lived with in driving distance before so we had to go. Right?

Along the way, we couldn't resist a quick trip off the highway to get another glimpse of the Kirtland Temple.

I really had a hard time not stopping to visit these places again



but we had other places we needed to be.

Our first stop in Palmyra was the Smith Family farm.

This is where Joseph Smith lived when he read this scripture:
and decided to do what it said.

Also, in his bedroom in this home,


the Angel Moroni came to visit him as depicted in this picture. This is the original and is hanging in the Hill Cumorah visitors' center.

We were also able to go inside the frame house where the Smiths moved a couple of years later. This is were they lived when Joseph received the plates.

He had several hiding places for the plates to keep them from falling into the wrong hands. One is here, under the brick by the fire place:
and another was in the loft in a tool box such as this:

The Sacred Grove was our next stop. Conal and I have been here before. It looked SO different because it was summer, and it was dusk. As a matter of fact, I saw my first firefly in the Sacred Grove. This time however, the leaves were gone from the trees and it was daylight.

Since we don't know exactly when in the spring of 1820 Joseph Smith had the first vision, I suppose it could have looked similar to this as it is technically spring. I have proof. ha ha!

Had I been there without 5 kids under the age of 9, I would have spent a long time right here:

But I'm glad my kids got to experience this with us.
The view of the Palmyra temple from the grove is amazing, as I'm sure is the view of the grove from the temple. Our next stop was the Book of Mormon print shop. How amazing it was in that day and age that they were able to get 5,000 copies of the Book of Mormon printed here.


The kids were very interested in the printing process and even got to help a little bit.
Here is one of those 5,000.

We drove by the Martin Harris Farm. The original builing no longer exists and the land is not owned by the church but this is what it looks like now.

Off to Hill Cumorah. Glad we went to the Sacred Grove first because it started pooring rain.

Garrison and Hailey were very disappointed that they couldn't snoop around the hill because they were SURE that they could find where the golden plates were hidden. They weren't as disappointed when I told them that their Grandma Burton had the same idea when she visited Hill Cumorah at their age-----and she didn't find anything either.

The visitors center was of course beautiful and a welcome break for the kids.

Stay tuned for Niagara Falls and "just keeping it real", Cause its all fun and games until somebody gets their eye poked out.........or starts projectile vomitting. Which ever comes first. More to come soon.