A fun visit with Peggy and Rhea

We had so much fun visiting with Peggy and Rhea when they came to stay with us.

One highlight was the night Molly and I got to babysit Rhea while Peggy took Paula to see "A Christmas Carol."

We gave her a bath when she got a little sad, missing her mom, but, as you can probably tell by her wide-eyed looks and solemn face, I think she was a little weirded out by the conspicuous substitution of Molly and I for her Mom in this daily ritual. :P

There were lots of other fun things about Peggy's visit...you can read about some of them if you have access to her blog. :)

The Rest of Our Nauvoo/Chicago Story....

We had a few days left before our return flight to SLC so this is what we did:

Friday we hit a water park. It was just the right thing to beat the heat!! BR wanted to invite his new-found friend/cousin: Spencer but they weren't able to make it. We had lots of fun anyway!! :)

On Saturday we tried to take the train into Chicago but alas it was going to eat up our whole day just waiting/riding/walking/returning from the train. We opted for driving and that helped but there were still drawbacks: traffic/propaganda/fog (so we couldn't see the great views of Chicago, ie the Sears Tower). Overall it worked for our good because we were able to go see the Museum of Science and Industry. That place was so cool and so huge that we all want to go back to Chicago just to go see it again!!! We wished we'd had about 2 days to spend there!! (Besides the rest of things to do/see in Chicago!)

The view we missed

*Photograph by J Crocker

Some of the highlights were:

• A scale model of the city of Chicago
• A live glass blowing/making exhibit
• A real German U-boat captured by the U.S. during WWII (Much to the disappointment of all, we didn't get to go inside because the tickets were sold out for the day!!!) :/
• A periscope from a real sub that we could look out of and see what was going on above us (outside the building)
• A submarine driving simulator that MC and BR got to take a turn driving. It was quite amusing to watch them and unfortunately their "mission failed" (they crashed). So that's another reason to go back. They want to try again. :)
• The kid's zone (which we had to race through because it was time to leave). :/

That evening we enjoyed dinner and socializing at the home of another of GM's cousins and her husband. We had a great evening there and the kids were quite dejected when it was time to leave.

Sunday morning we caught our airplane home and all were glad to be home.

*None quite so glad as BR because his grandparents had surprised him by moving out of his room the night before.

Nauvoo Family Reunion Last Day

(last day of the reunion that is)

On Thursday morning everybody who was going to see Carthage Jail had a rendezvous in the parking lot before heading out. On our way GM and I decided to stop at the temple one last time for some pictures.

In Carthage we had the tour with everybody,

posed for a group picture, had lunch and talked and played with cousins for a bit.

*Thanks Julie for the pics!!

After Carthage GM and I had a hankering for Ice Cream, it might have been due to the fact that there was a DQ just across the street. We couldn't help but stop.

With our treats in hand it was time to hit the road and head to Chicago for part 2 of our vacation. It was another long drive back, but thankfully this time it was not in the middle of the night. We stopped at a rest stop about halfway there...some of us were ready for more than a pit stop.

After playing for a while we saw a familiar car stop. It was Uncle Gary and Aunt Tina!! What are the odds?!?! :) They gave us directions to their house but once again we let Tiggy lead us astray and we took the long way. :P

That evening we spent with Uncle Gary, Aunt Tina, Amy and her kids, and Jason. It was a fun relaxing evening and we actually got time to spend talking, reminiscing and getting to know each other better. :P

Nauvoo Day 2

On Wednesday morning Uncle Gary had a tour guide arranged to tell us some great stories and history of Nauvoo and the people who first lived there. The kids colored and played a bit while the adults all listened to the stories. After that some people went to see the Joseph Smith movie but we decided to go explore Nauvoo. The kids had gone on a carriage ride with Ruth the day before and seen some things they wanted to go back and check out.

First stop was the Jonathan Browning Gunsmith home/shop

The kids' choice? Nope. (Can you tell by BR's expression?) :)

However, it was an obvious must see for GM. ;)

Checkin' out the guns

MC and her Daddy pretending to make a rifle barrel

After the Gunsmith we went to a few more little homes (We got to see a few of the homes with and PAWS and her honey). Then, at last, we made it to the place that the kids were dying to see: The Nauvoo children's game workshop. They had all sorts of games and toys that were used by the children of Nauvoo.

The bear climb

The Stilts

The Top/Spinny Things

Some we got and some not so much,
but almost all took some figurin'. :P

As we were finishing at the Pioneer games we realized lunch had started so we ran to meet everyone for lunch but found they'd already eaten and were listening to the tour guide agian so we listened and ate and then went to the old Nauvoo Burial Grounds with everybody.
It was a very beautiful, hallowed place.

While we were there our tour guide happened to meet a lady who's a decendant of King Follate and writing a book of his history. It was about to be published so he asked her to tell us some of his stories. Then we listened to other stories by the tour guide. It was a very touching experience and GM and I left with an even greater reverence for the sacrifices of the early saints.

We all split up after this and my little family went to the Community of Christ side of Nauvoo to see the Prophet's burial site and the old brick store. It was very interesting to go to their side of things. We didn't stick around to hear any of their thoughts or testimonies though. :P

GM then took the kids swimming at the hotel while I browsed the shops in town.

We ate dinner at the park with everyone and then our kids asked to have permission to go hang out with Steve and MM's gang. We didn't want to mooch baby-sitting out of them but they assured us it was ok so we got a free date night out of it. Woohoo. :)

We went to the shops for some souveneirs, got ice cream and took pics of the temple at sunset.

Nauvoo Family Reunion (Day One and a Half)

This is another back-post from our summer.... :) So we went to a family reunion in Nauvoo, IL this past July and let me just say that we had some poor planning on my part and yet we were very blessed!!

I have no idea how I thought this was a good plan...but this was it:

Monday:
GM go to work till 2 pm
Catch our flight at 5 pm
Arrive in Chicago 9ish (accounting for time change)
Drive 4 hours to Nauvoo
Check into our hotel
Sleep (ha)
Get up and go to the temple with everybody Tuesday morning


(Well...the last three on our list weren't so well thought out) :P

We didn't get out of the airport with our rental car till around 10 and then we decided we needed some good groceries before heading to Nauvoo because we heard there wasn't a great selection there and so we finished at the Jewel-Osco around 11 pm. At this point we got on the freeway and set the GPS to take us to Nauvoo. We got stuck in a traffic jam right after entering the interstate!! What in the world?!?! How can they have a traffic jam in the middle of the night!?!? Needless to say it was a LONG night of travel, switching off driving, slapping ourselves trying to stay awake, and praying that we'd make it there alive and in good time. I must say we were definitely blessed for several reasons:

• Number one the traffic eased up after about an hour and we didn't have any more slowing after that
• Secondly we made it there without falling asleep or any harm coming to us,
• Also because there were several road closures and we heard that we'd have to find our own way to Nauvoo because of all the flooding. At the first sign we saw that indicated a road ahead being closed for flooding, we hit "detour" on the GPS and it re-routed us to a path that thankfully had no flooding or closures!!! What a blessing!!
• Finally, we made it to the hotel around 4 am and we were able to check in! (The town looked like it was asleep or deserted so we had our doubts). :P

We crashed on our beds until 10 am.

Tuesday GM and I were able to do a session and some sealings with some of his cousins while another of his cousins watched our kids!! We were very thankful for that as well. (Our kids wished they could go inside very badly, I'm excited for the temples that will be opening this next year so that we can actually take them inside a temple and show them what it's like and let them feel the amazing spirit there!!)

After the temple we had tickets for a play at the visitors' center so GM, the kids and I headed over to watch that. Then we grabbed a quick dinner and went over to the Nauvoo Pageant. The kids had fun doing the pre-show activities such as the two-man saw. They brought me a small piece of log that they sawed off together. (I was saving seats for the show). The kids really loved the Pageant!! I think it really helped bring the stories to life for them. BR's favorite part was the Scottish dancing and music. (We passed by the next day while the cast was practicing and BR was immediately spellbound....again!!) :)

These are the actors that played Hyrum and Joseph...

BR wanted to meet them as well as the "Scot" but these guys

are the only ones we could catch up with.

*Interesting note: These actors were actually brothers in real life. :)

GM in the Big Apple

GM had to go to NYC for a week in June for some software training. He had quite a wide array of experiences there in the big city...from seminars, to Broadway plays (He tried to see "In the Heights" with his co-worker but had terrible seats and instead saw "Wicked" and serendipitously got a great seat at the last minute), to exploring the city on foot, to shopping, to food poisoning and losing his lunch out of a taxi. :P