First things first: getting reacquainted after a year and a half,
And meeting Rix for the first time.
Visiting the Mission home for Dennis' East Central States Mission:
His mission head quarters were in Louisville, KY and he remembers traveling here for a mission conference. The same building is now the office for the Louisville, KY mission.
The next day for visited the Slugger Museum:
On the production tour we saw the bats being made for A-Rod:
Dennis was really excited about holding his idol, Mickey Mantel's bat.
But we think he has better form than Mickey.
For lunch, we enjoyed the original Kentucky hot brown sandwich at the Brown hotel.
It's a rich open-faced turkey sandwich with bacon and gravy. Quite the treat. Ella's favorite part was the little ketchup bottle and pretending to be our waitress.
We also visited Churchill Downs and the Derby Museum the next day.
Visiting a retired race horse stabled on the grounds.
Sweet hugs at the track.
Picture Perfect. We all know how Granny likes her horse racing, especially the Kentucky Derby. This was a fun moment to see her at the rails.
And this was a fun moment to see Dennis and Jed race against each other, even if it wasn't real.
Papa won by 2 lengths.
Another site was the Louisville Temple:
It's one of the small temples.
We also did a fair amount of relaxing at playing at home.
Getting a hair cut, learning about the wild strawberries (aka weeds growing in our front yard), playing on the swing.
Getting underdogs from both daddy and papa:
Like father, like son.
And here's Ella giving underdogs for Rix's turn on the swing.
He has mixed emotions about his first time.
Our last venture was a picnic at Bernheim Forest.
Out on the canopy tree walk. It's like half of a bridge that stands you over the open forest.
My favorite picture of Dennis and Glenda from the visit:
We also fed a goose family and some turtles in one of the ponds. Who knew that turtles would come clamoring like ducks for old, crusty bread.
Ella named one of the turtles Agga, and another Gagga.
We actually had to stop the car and move a turtle to the side of the road as it was crossing so slowly. It hissed at Cyndi.
Other funny memories:
Ella yelling "You wiggle" at Granny.
Visiting Brusters twice, Dennis loved the Key Lime Pie ice cream.
Rix talking in the morning to Papa.
Time to say good-bye.
Two monumental goals were reached by the end of the visit. Ella climbed on papa's knee and learned to "give rock."
There was also another big moment when Glenda actually looked at the camera and smiled. No really, the best was having granny to rock little Rix on her lap.
We can't wait to see out family again.
