Touring Kirtland

On Saturday we toured some of the LDS historical sites in Kirtland. The church we attend is right across the street from the temple, but we hadn't had the chance to see any of the sites yet. Our morning started with tours of the Newel K. Whitney store, the Whitney house, the sawmill, and the ashery.

After touring those buildings, we went across the street to see the Kirtland Temple. The temple is ah-ma-zing. It's so much larger inside than I thought it would be and absolutely gorgeous. One of the things that fascinated me was the detail that went into the initial construction of the temple, as well as the process that went in to restoring it. One of the things they did was scrape off each layer of paint that was on the huge front door until they reached the original olive green paint. It was obviously a necessity that Olive had her picture taken in front of those beautiful doors painted in her name.

It's a little hard to focus on everything while dealing with wiggling, hungry children who just want to play. They did really well considering we were touring for 3.5 hours and encroaching on nap time. Thankfully, my mom is coming to visit in July so we will be going on the tours again.

After a quick nap in the car and getting some food in our bellies, we stopped by the Kirtland Strawberry Festival. The name was completely false advertising. It was essentially a carnival with sketchy rides, various food booths, and business displays. There was exactly ONE booth that was serving strawberry desserts. Luckily, the deluxe strawberry shortcake we got to share was delicious so I will forgive the false advertising.