Kent Goes Flying

**Post written by Kent**

One of the things on Kent's bucket list was to fly in an open cockpit airplane.  After he retired that goal was put near the top of my list.

He had seen the biplane rides at previous balloon stampedes and Air shows we attended in Bealton VA, not far from our house.  Normally a half hour ride is about $350. But at the air show they offer shorter rides for a smaller price, so he opted for the shorter ride.

We enjoyed the views of the balloon stampede that morning. Lots of colorful balloons were on site for the day.

After about an hour wait it was Kent's time for the bi-plane ride. 

They dressed him up with what Kent called a "Dirty Diaper" parachute.  Not that it stinks, but that it sags like a dirty diaper might.  OK, too much information.

We taxied to the grass runway

and lifted up.  It was fairly noisy, but it was NOT a bit scary to him as he thought it might be. 

Landed safely, and crossed another item off of Kent's bucket list.   He thought it was AWESOME!

Back to Houston for Savannah's Baptism

We were only home for a week before we were back on a plane to Houston to fly down for Savannah's baptism. In the photo below Savannah is wearing the dress I made for Lissa when she was baptized in 1990.

Kiera's baptism three years before was the template we followed for Savannah's baptism. The program and the refreshments were pretty much the same as they were for Kiera.

In the photo above Savannah is wearing the dress I made for Kiera to wear after she was baptized. Savannah was baptized in the first white dress and put on the second white dress afterwards to be confirmed.

I made the number 8 cake and the Amish sugar cookies frosted with white frosting. Lissa had the CTR cookies made for the baptism.

The other refreshments requested by Savannah.

Savannah holding baby Parker, and with her friends and her cousin, Sophia.

Adri with Parker, and Carson in the background having his refreshments

 The obligatory family picture shots, posed in the same place where we took Kiera's baptism photos.

 

It was a special and memorable day for Savannah!

 One of the few shots we took that wasn't at the baptism.

Since it was only a few weeks before Lissa's birthday, I made her a birthday cake while we were there. It was a quick trip but we're so glad we could be there for Savannah's special day!

Visit to Lincoln's Boyhood Home in Indiana and to Serpent Mound in Ohio

Kent and I made a couple of interesting stops as we drove home from Kansas to Virginia.

 As we were driving through Indiana we saw a sign advertising the Lincoln Boyhood Home National Historic Site.

 We decided to pull in and look around, but didn't stay too long because there wasn't much to see.

The outside of the visitor's center had some large stone panels depicting scenes from Abraham Lincoln's life. Inside there were displays and facts about his boyhood, and life on the frontier during the time period.

Part of the park had an outline of the foundation of wood cabin where the Lincolns lived.

 That night we drove in to Kentucky and spend the night in Lexington.

We saw on our map that the Serpent Mound wasn't too far out of our way, up in Ohio, so we made a detour to go to it.

 The Great Serpent Mound is a 1,348 foot long, three foot high, prehistoric efficy mound on a pleateau of the Serpent Mound crater. Not much is known about who built them or how they were built. One theory is that they were created by the Adena culture, which flourished from 800BC to 100AD.

 In the visitor's center they had some displays showing what was found inside the mound when it was excavated.

 Apparently they found bones found at various layers of the mound.

The serpent mound is unique among the mounds found throughout the heartland states because it's curved and represents an animal, a snake.

The best views would have been from about 50 feet up in the air, but here's what it looked like from ground level. 

In the picture above you can see a viewing platform. We climbed up it (it wasn't very high) and the two pictures below were taken from a higher viewpoint. It's been interesting for us to learn more about the pre-Columbus cultures that lived on the North American continent.

You can see it was a nice day and the place wasn't crowded at all. We're glad we stopped.

After that we headed for Virginia and only stopped for gas and food. It was great to be home after being away for over 7 weeks!

Visit to Lawrence, Kansas plus Nauvoo, Illinois

Kent and I arrived in Lawrence on the 24th of July to visit Garrett and Krystal's family.

As usual, we enjoyed interacting with the grandchildren.

Matthew is 14 months old and getting close to walking by himself.

Almost every evening after dinner and before bedtime Garrett wrestles with the kids. Their dog, Indie usually wants to be in the middle of it all!

We brought the Indian tepee that our kids had played with when they were little for the Carson kids to use.

Matthew is at that really adorable toddler age so I took lots of pictures of him!

Playing out on the back deck with Granddad.

The youngest three kids playing in Grandma and Granddad's bed.

While we were visiting we decided to visit Nauvoo and Carthage, since it's only about a five-hour drive from Lawrence. On the way to Illinois we stopped to see Adam-ondi-Ahmen, which is in Missouri.

We spent a whole day at Nauvoo.

The temple is so beautiful from every view!

One of the first things we did after we arrived was to have a tour in a horse-drawn wagon.

Kent and I had been to Nauvoo several years before, but we didn't visit the sites in Nauvoo owned by the Community of Christ church. We made sure to do that this trip.

We saw the burial site of Joseph and Emma and Hyrum Smith.

We also toured the Joseph and Emma's Nauvoo home. 

We saw Joseph Smith's office.....

It was on the 2nd story of the red brick general store in Nauvoo. This store is known for it's old-fashioned root beer in brown bottles, so we bought some and tried it.

The kids held up pretty well.

When they got tired of walking we hitched a ride on another horse-drawn wagon.

A couple who used to live in our ward in Stafford were serving their mission in Nauvoo. It was really fun to see the Kidbys. Here Nanette is showing Daniel how to make a rope.

In the late afternoon Garrett, Krystal and the kids left to eat dinner and to go back to the hotel to put the kids to bed at a reasonable time. Kent and I stayed in Nauvoo so we could attend the pageant that night. (Note the Nauvoo temple in the background of our picture.)

The pageant didn't start until 8pm so it could be dark for the show. We'd been warned about needing bug spray, but we'd forgotten ours at the hotel. Fortunately people sitting next to us were willing to share.

The highlight of the show was when they lifted the completed temple. The play was well done.

On our way home after the pageant we stopped to take a picture of the real Nauvoo Temple at night.

The next day was Sunday, so we found a ward to attend in the morning. Then we drove to Carthage.

We ate a picnic lunch as we waited for the Visitor's Center opened for tours of Carthage Jail.

We got some family pictures, though with five kids it was impossible to get one where everyone was looking at the camera.

In this picture we're standing under the window where Joseph Smith fell out after he was killed.

 Adam is checking out the                                                             bullet hole in the door of the room where Joseph and Hyrum were shot.

Granddad was very honored when Matthew started cuddling with him!

On the way back to Kansas on Sunday evening Kent and I stopped at Adam ondi Ahman again.

We got out and explored for a bit, which was easier without a van full of children.

The countryside was very peaceful and beautiful. I'm not sure how many acres the church owns there.

There were some trails through the woods that we followed. It was a nice ending to a short, but very informative and enjoyable church history tour. We're glad we could share it with the Kansas Carsons!