Go Steelers!

 At the end of March we went on our family vacation.  The original reason was for Kenji's baptism but we figured we couldn't go all the way to Michigan and not see whatever else we could.

We flew into Pittsburgh, stayed in Homestead a suburb of the city which is famous in steel mill history.  The area is now a retail area called the Waterfront.  The next morning we went over to Heinz Field, home of the Pittsburgh Steelers.  Of course it isn't football season but the gates allow you to see into the field.  We walked around the Three Rivers area a bit.  The only area in Pittsburgh we had been told to visit was the Strip District.  After some small detours we found it but decided it wasn't really the type of activity that would be too easy for us to manage - it was a couple blocks of trendy shops and markets.  Perhaps for a date night or something.

Then we traveled northeast up to Cleveland, Ohio and spent the night at another Hampton Inn with dinner at the nearby Bob Evans Restaurant (kind of like Village Inn).  The kids were able to swim again which they liked.  Then Friday morning we drove about 20 minutes to Kirtland to see the historic church sites.  We took an abbreviated tour with two sister missionaries and saw where Joseph Smith and Emma lived; where the school of Prophets was.  We also drove a little ways farther and saw the Kirtland Temple.  It is owned by the Community of Christ so we didn't go through it.

I think seeing the sites and the tour as well as the video in the visitors' center gave us a pretty good idea of why Kirtland was/is important in church history.  Then it was on to Ann Arbor.

We met the family at the Olive Garden for dinner.  It was Danessa and her family, Darby and her kids, Chris and Steve, Devin and his family, and Laura's parents.

The rest of the trip will be in the next post!