New York Trip part 1

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It was a long trip just to get to NY. First we drove to Layton Utah and spent the night with a family whose son-in-law I taught on my mission named Chris Carty. It was wonderful to go up to that familiar old door and have brother Winager answer with a "It's my adopted daughter!"
We really wished we could have stayed longer with them, especially since Chris and his wife Mallory were getting sealed in the temple the next day,but our plane left at 7 the next morning and we had to be on it!

This is a picture of us up in there air. We were too excited to try and sleep our way there! These are my favorite sunglasses - and there were only $4!

I'm a little obsessed with taking pictures of the clouds. I just this angle of the world that we don't see that often.

After a 3 hour car trip, a 6 hour plane ride, and another 2 hour car trip (I've got to stop being cheap and buy plane tickets closer to our destinations!) we made it to Greene New York. This is the house that Ben grew up in and its pack full of stories. They've added on so many different rooms that it reminded me of the Weasly home from Harry Potter.

It was a blast to have a detailed tour of the home and see places he's talked about before. Perhaps the best part was ALLLL those baby / growing up pictures that I'd never seen before of Ben - we are going to have GORGEOUS kids. haha
We'd only been in Greene for a couple minutes when we were greeted by two familiar faces bounding towards us - Ben's nieces (who are more like sisters) Mara and Kiana. Their mom Laurie brought them over along with Mara's boyfriend Logan. If you've ever seen Modern Family they are very similar to those sisters. They are a hoot.

To truly make Ben feel at home they gathered up the sticks from the near by forest (most of which had blown into Nancy's yard by now) and start a bonfire. Everyone got at least one smore until a thunderstorm set in, which eventually knocked out the power to the house!
Please note: no one in this picture is wearing shoes! Ben kicked his off right with the girls got there. New Yorkers must have hobbit feet - my shoes stayed on.
The next day we spent time seeing, and documenting with picture, everything Greene had to offer. We wanted to get a record of everything Ben remembered while it still looked the same. This is the creek down by his house. NY creeks are NE's rivers!

Greene is such a picture-esc town tucked into the rolling hills of upstate NY. Almost all the homes in the inside of the town are all built in the colonial and Victorian styles. I was in real estate heaven. Here is the house that used to be the church house for the Branch. They now have a standard building just how Blair's used to look. Their boundaries hold the historical sites of where Joseph Smith and Emma were married and where the first congregation was assembled!

We had to stop at a local candy store - fantastic chocolates!

The next day we went to visit Ben's dad, Doug. Doug now lives in an Old Folks home were he can me monitored because he has alsthmrys and dementia. Both Ben and Doug started to cry when they saw each other and even though Doug hasn't really spoken for over a month we got a lot of words out of him that day! We felt so blessed that this visit was so positive. Ben was able to show pictures of our life together, but he didn't really understand. He knows Ben, but sees him still as a young boy. We asked doug how old he (doug) is and he replied, "I'm 35". It was really fun to see that Ben and his dad still had some of the same mannerisms. Doug is still in there, he just gets lost every now and then. We even got Doug to laugh. I said that I had eaten all of Nancy's cookies and he really smiled then. He asked when we'd be back to see him and we said as soon as possible.
I feel so blessed knowing the plan of salvation and knowing that someday Doug will be completely of all this and we'll have eternity to get to know one another. That all of our families with be together forever. With out that knowledge how do people carry on?