Pittsburgh

About mid-September Justin found out he'd won a trip at work!! He was a little unsure of the details at first, but knew that they designed it as a trip to an away football game or a concert or something. There weren't really any away games that we wanted to go to necessarily though and we're not really concert people so we started thinking of what else we could do. Since we met (and I found out Justin is a Steelers fan) he's talked about how fun it would be to go to Pittsburgh for a Steelers game and a Penguins game. The trick is finding a time when both teams are playing home games a few days apart. I looked at their schedules and found that this year there was a Thursday night home Steelers game (what?!) and then a home Penguins game a couple days later on Saturday night. I told Justin and it was pretty much settled. To Pittsburgh!!

To continue on the subject of timing...how awesome is it that when we have the chance to take this trip we also have parents that now live in Utah and are willing to take two adorable children off of our hands to make the trip even more awesome? ☺ (We love you Nolan and Branson, and we'll miss you, but...peace out!) 

Thank you Gm and Gp Bailey for taking care of the boys while we were gone!! ♥ 

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So excited!! Flying on top of the clouds, then descending through the clouds into Pittsburgh!

We missed the boys pretty much immediately after leaving them, but luckily we got some cute pics from Jeanni (and a face time!) to hold us over ♥

We arrived in Pittsburgh and took an incredibly long Lyft ride to our hotel (1 1/2 hrs! Thank you rush hour traffic + game day traffic). We stayed at a Marriott on Waterfront Dr. right along the Monongahela River (I didn't know what it was called until I google-mapped it though). We dropped off our bags and changed into our warmest clothes for the game. We walked over to The Waterfront shopping center for a quick dinner and then caught another Lyft to the game.

The Steelers game

Justin was SO happy to be at the game! It made me happy just watching him. I don't think anything could have dampened his mood, not even the ridiculous amount of time we had to wait in a line, smashed together like sardines with a hundred other people, to get through two metal detectors in order to get into the stadium. Oey. I might have complained, but Justin was just happily taking it all in. Well, maybe not happily taking in the smoke from some of the people next to us. Yuck. But the rest was awesome! I'd heard the game day atmosphere in Pittsburgh is second to none, and it did not disappoint!

We probably should have bought Justin some sort of Steelers outer wear before the trip because his warmest coat is a bright blue and he stuck out like a sore thumb haha. He did wear his Steelers t-shirt and socks, but of course no one could see those with all the other layers he was wearing. Oh well, again, he was just happy to be there! ♥ him and his go-with-the-flow attitude!

In his element!

Not bad seats either!

The Terrible Towel I got him a few years ago came out several times during the game.

Getting some pics closer to the field after the game.

We both liked this ad 

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The next morning we got up, rented a car, and headed north west toward Ohio to see some church history sites. Our trip was definitely towards the end of the fall season, but I'm glad we still got to get a small taste of what is I'm sure an incredibly beautiful and colorful fall. I also loved all the big rivers. I'm not used to that growing up in Las Vegas and living in Utah!

The John and Elsa Johnson Farm (Hiram, Ohio)

When I worked as an intern for the Church History Dept in 2008-2009 I spent most of the year working on the historic site guide intended for use at the John Johnson Farm. So it was really fun to finally get to see it in person after spending so much time researching it.

This is Sister Sorenson, our missionary tour guide. She was amazing! Not only did she know the history like the back of her hand (which I so appreciated), but she spoke at a quick enough pace to get it all in. Sounds funny to say that, but as we experienced in Kirtland, not every missionary has this skill ☺

When she first sat down with us I told her that I had worked on the guide so she brought it out and let me show her the things I had contributed. I formatted most of it and wrote many of the small boxes of text found within it. It was great too because several times during the tour she would undo a rope meant to keep people out of certain rooms and say, "Well, you wrote the book, so I'll give you the full tour!" haha. It was also helpful that we were the only ones there ☺

Apparently Elsa Johnson and her family had worked hard to gain some wealth and enjoyed showing it off. The bright colors and beautifully painted wood were evidences of her personality and her intention to demonstrate that wealth.

When they restored the home they left small portions of it untouched to show what the original looked like and how much the current home reflects what it would have looked like almost 200 years ago. For instance, this is an original, unrestored cabinet door so you can see the beautiful, but old, painting on the wood and then below how they restored it.

Again the stain on the doors.

The pantry and a small room presumably used for women who were giving birth.

Joseph and Emma Smith lived in this home from September 1831 to September 1832. This is one of two original door handles. So Justin is touching a door knob that Joseph Smith touched! (and a thousands of other people, but we're not thinking about that ;))

She took us down in the cellar which was pretty cool.

Room where Joseph Smith would have studied and worked.

This is possibly the room where Joseph was sleeping the night he was dragged from the home and tarred and feathered in March 1832. I teared up a bit when Sister Sorenson mentioned that Joseph and Emma's twins were 10 months old, about the same age as our sweet Branson, when this terrible thing was done to Joseph Smith. Their baby son, Joseph, died from sickness and exposure 5 days later. 

The corner behind the bed shows the original floors and yes, it was that bright and colorful!

 4 more beds in the attic.

This house was huge for the time!

Spinning wheel

The other of the two original door handles. This one is in the back of a room normally closed off to visitors so I'm a little closer to touching a handle Joseph Smith touched than Justin ☺

The upstairs room where Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon received The Vision of the three degrees of glory (section 76 of the Doctrine and Covenants). As many as 16 revelations that are now part of the D&C were received in this home. And Joseph continued his work on the inspired translation of the Bible here.

Outside the front door.

You can see the barns in the background. The church used this land as a welfare farm for several decades before restoring the home.

Our awesome tour guide, Sister Sorenson, from Washington.

Next door was a cute store called Monroe's Orchard. We went in to look around and get some fresh apple cider. 

I took this picture for Granky. He always sung the song, "I love you a bushel and a peck," but I never actually knew what a 'peck' was! I guess it's a form of measurement. Learn something new every day ☺

Also down the street is a small cemetery where Simonds Ryder is buried. He's the man who is famous in church history for leaving the church simply because his name was misspelled on a mission call. In reality I'm sure it was a tad more complicated, but that seemed to be the last straw and it seems pretty ridiculous to us now. I take that back, people leave the church for silly reasons now too IMO. Rant over, haha.

First, I just couldn't stop taking pictures. It was such a beautiful setting!

So the funny thing is that on Simonds Ryder's headstone they misspelled the word disciple as "deciple" hehehe. Karma?

After Hiram we drove another 45 min or so to Kirtland.

Kirtland, Ohio

First view of the temple.

Walking up from the visitor's center. The Community of Christ owns the Kirtland Temple and their last tour started about 25 min before we got there and the doors to the visitor's center were locked (it was only 4pm!). Luckily they were nice and let us in and walked us over to the temple to join the in-progress tour. It would have been so sad, especially for Justin since he'd never seen it, to go all that way and not be able to go inside!!

A room on the third floor where they learned languages, etc.

I love these windows!

After taking all of these pictures (I guess I snuck them pretty well) and just after taking this one, I learned that I'm not supposed to take pictures inside of the temple. Soooo...you're welcome for the sneak peak haha.

After the temple we headed over to the other sites (owned by the LDS church). It gets dark so early this time of year (plus it was cloudy) so we rushed around and took pictures while it was still pretty light, then went back for the tour with the missionaries.

Justin thought the Johnson Inn was a really cool structure. The Egyptian mummy's and papyri that the church purchased were displayed here for a time.

The Newel K, and Ann Whitney home and store. This is where Joseph Smith pulled up in a sleigh upon arriving in Kirtland, bounded into the store, and said to the owner, "Newel K. Whitney, thou art the man!"

Joseph and Emma lived here with the Whitney's from September 1832 (when they left the Johnson home) to February 1834. Here the revelation on the Word of Wisdom was given, the School of the Prophets was organized, and the First Presidency received the keys. Joseph Smith III was also born here.

This store received the President's Historic Preservation Award from President Ronald Reagan for the incredible quality of the restoration. Pretty cool.

Checker pieces made from corn cobs!

Room where Joseph and others would have worked and made plans for the temple.

The room in which the elders met for the School of the Prophets, and partly in consequence of their tobacco smoking and spitting, D&C 89 was received.

Elder's passing through, such as Orson Pratt, might have stayed in this room.

Justin, always the gentleman ♥ helping the sister missionary on the walk to the Whitney's home.

Summer kitchen

The Chagrin River

The tannery

The sawmill

The ashery. We learned this is the only restored ashery in North America!

Paintings and displays in the Johnson Inn. I was a little disappointed that they hadn't restored the inside of this home (I'll have to look into why). I always prefer that over visitors center type buildings. But that's ok ☺

This painting is of Joseph seeing his brother Alvin in heaven and asking how that could be as he had died without being baptized. He then received what would be section 137 of the D&C.

Heading out of Kirtland. After the tour we realized we hadn't eaten practically the whole day since we were rushing to get to each tour before it closed or got dark so we were starving. We ate at this little pizza place called Biga Wood-fired Pizza probably 200 yards down the road from the temple and right across the street from Kirtland High School (I don't know why, but the idea of a Kirtland High School is so strange!). Anyway, it was good and a nice little date night in a historic place. My kind of night!

The Pittsburgh skyline. We learned that the day we left for Kirtland there was a big event happening called Light Up Night. On a certain night and time each year everyone turned on their lights. It's kind of fun, and it probably would have been fun to see, but I was glad to have missed all the traffic. It actually worked out perfectly that we weren't there.

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"Harmony, Pennsylvania"

Ok here's a funny story. When we first decided to go to Pittsburgh for our trip I knew Kirtland and Hiram were nearby and close enough to get to, but tried to think about what other historic sites might be in Pennsylvania. The first one I thought of was Harmony, PA and the Priesthood Restoration Site. However, instead of looking at an actual map of Pennsylvania, I just Google-mapped it ☺ Easy. Well, hey, what do you know? Harmony, PA is only 1/2 an hour from Pittsburgh! So without a second thought we jotted it down in our planner for Saturday morning.

Saturday morning came and we headed toward Harmony, again just following Google Maps. But when we got there I was thought,"...this...doesn't look right". I didn't remember a little town or anything. And I expected signs pointing us to the sights. And there should be old (restored) log homes and a railroad. We pulled over to figure out where we went wrong and that's when we figured it out...there are two Harmony, Pennsylvania's!!

If I would have thought about it for even 5 minutes OR looked at a map to see how far the wrong Harmony we went to was from Fayette, NY OR even just Google-mapped 'Oakland' instead of Harmony (I knew they had changed the name of the correct Harmony to Oakland) we would have realized the Harmony, PA we wanted was on the other side of the state! Oops. It was all just too easy. 'Harmony' came up on Google Maps, it's in PA, and we even saw signs that said 'Oakland' on the way there so our minds just figured we had it right haha. 

So we laughed at ourselves (with a little bit of shame from me that, as someone that loves church history, I didn't think about the fact that there's no way THE Harmony could be on the western side of Pennsylvania) and then used Google Maps again to find a cute little breakfast cafe ☺

Us documenting our goof up ☺

Like Justin said, it's the times when things go wrong that you remember and we had a great little breakfast together in a cute little small town. I love just being with my Justin ♥ Even if he does make fun of me a little bit.

Shopping at The Strip District

Headed back to the 'burgh.

View of the Pirates baseball field.

All of our Lyft drivers and everything online said we needed to go to The Strip District, which is basically a street downtown that has a bunch of restaurants, shopping, and bars (if you're into that sort of thing ☺). We tried so hard to find Justin a Steelers shirt, but struck out. We did get he and I Pens shirts for the game that night, I got a super cute (and way too expensive) Penguins jersey/hoodie, and a couple things for the boys. It was really fun to just walk around!

A cool bridge dedicated to the author David McCullough. Did you know that Pittsburgh has 447 bridges?!

Lots of people told us to stop at Primanti Brothers for a sandwich.  I think their claim to fame is that they put the fries on the burger and use a vinegar based slaw instead of mayo. We might get in trouble for this, but our review of the sandwich was just, meh. It was a fun atmosphere though and the wait staff was great.

Leaving our mark on the wall of one of the shops.

A cool church near The Strip District.

They turned this old factory into apartments. I can bet it's a hip place to live ☺

Duquesne Incline

(said like 'Dukane')

Pittsburgh has two inclines, which are basically trams that go up the side of a hill. It's not an especially big hill, especially coming from the west, but it does give you a great view of the city from the top.

Justin took this awesome panorama from the top!

Penguins game

Next up we headed to PPG Paints arena for our first NHL game!! This game is what I was most excited about for the trip. I felt like I totally fit in with my new hoodie! Again it was a great environment, brand new beautiful arena, and GREAT seats!

Look at us, 8 rows up, center ice! I don't know if I'll ever have that good of seats again!!

Evgeni Malkin

Sidney Crosby

Patrick Kane

We definitely wished the boys were with us when we saw this cute little 'ice' rink.

Unfortunately the Pens lost 2-1, but it was still a great game! And they had a second goal taken away so technically we got to celebrate two goals instead of just one ☺ Seriously though, our seats were so awesome I didn't want the game to ever end!

Justin had to get his picture taken next to a statue of the 'Immaculate Reception' at the airport☺

And I made him take this pic for Nolan. We texted it to Gm and Gp and they said Nolan responded, "It's Snoopy and daddy!"

Speaking of Nolan (and Branson), we sure got some cute pics while we were away! It looks like those boys had a great time with Gm and Gp and weren't spoiled in the least #winkwink

Nolan talked Gp into getting him some Play-doh at the grocery store (he's been wanting more for months!) Gp said it wasn't too hard for Nolan to convince him. One ask in his cute little voice with those big blue eyes and Gp was Play-doh in his hands ☺

You never know where you'll find Bran-man!

Preston and Devin happened to be in town for a wedding and were able to pick us up from the airport and take us to see our sweet boys. So happy to be together again!! ♥ 

Beckett getting in on the Play-doh action.

We had a great time and checked off a few bucket list items! Thanks again to Gm and Gp Bailey for taking the boys so we could have a little getaway!