Trip to Nauvoo

Last week when Dad was here we took a road trip 270 miles down to Nauvoo. Nauvoo is south of here right on the Mississippi River. It has a lot of church history and a beautiful temple. Here are some pictures from our little trip:

This is a picture of the Temple from the balcony of our hotel room. It was so pretty to stand there and look out at the temple and then see the river in the background.

Here is one at night of it all lit up.



Here are the boys enjoying their complimetary breakfast and a picture of the two of them sleeping. I checked on them and it was so sweet that Jacob was holding Nathan I had to get a picture. Now if only they were like that during the day and not beating eachother up:)










The original temple was destroyed by people who ran the Saints out of Nauvoo back in the 1840s. The church was able to purchase the property and reconstruct the temple just a few years ago. They have also purchased a lot of the land surrounding the temple and reconstructed homes of the saints that lived there in the 1840s as well as shops and other places such as an old bakery, the blacksmith, Jonathon Browning's home (famous gunsmith who was mormon and lived in Nauvoo). There is also a Family Living History Center where they show how barels, candles, rope, bread and weaving were done. This is all hands on and the kids LOVED it. I think one of all of our favorites though was the wagon ride. It was freezing cold, about 28, starting to sleet but we all wanted to go. It is just a short ride that takes about 10 minutes. All of the "workers" there are missionaries, mainly couples who are elderly. The kids loved talking to all the grandmas and grandpas. While we did freeze sitting in the wagon we cold not help but think about the saints and how it was a February morning in the 1840s so cold the river was frozen solid that they began the exodous to what would end up being Salt Lake City. It is amazing to me that these people had enough faith to leave behind close to all their wordly posessions and stay true to the gospel they believed in even though they were being persecuted.

Jacob especially LOVED the oxen. He kept telling me that the oxen was in love with him. It was pretty funny.

Another fun time was the blacksmith's. We were shown how they made wheels and then we got to see them make a tiny horseshoe. I was the lucky one with a birthday in November so I got to keep the little horseshoe. The picture of me holding it is another Jacob picture. We also all got prairie "diamond" rings. The cute story we were told was that there was a young lady with a lot of suiters and the father said that no one could marry his daughter unless they got her a diamond ring. Well, diamonds were not easy to find then. And this one young man was really trying to figure out a way to get one and told his friend a blacksmith. Well, the blacksmith said he thought he could help. The shoeing nails (not sure what they are actually called) were by a brand called diamond, and the tip kinda looked like a diamond so they made a ring and the young man went to the father and said here is the diamond ring and the father gave his daughter's hand to him and of course they lived happily ever after (well not sure of that but I like to think so) so there is a "hand" shot of me and Jacob goofing around.








The hilarious pictures of my dad and the boys sticking their heads through the slats is the place where the ox would be shoed. They explained to us that when you lift an oxen's leg it makes him sleepy and he would sit. So, to help them they would stick the oxen's head through the slats and had a band that would hold its belly up so they could shoe them. Of course my dad had to start pretending to be an oxen and Jacob and Nathan followed in suit. Needless to say we all had a good laugh. And the picture of Ian below is of him talking to one of two wonderfully sweet horses that were nearby. They were so friendly and the boys loved being able to rub them and get nuzzled by them.










The pictures above are of us enjoying our car trip. Owen did SO good. He was a trooper. Poor kid was stuffed in that car seat for hours and had very few melt downs.

And Ian will probably kill me for this picture, but its totally typical. The man has the hardest time waking up. I have flashbacks to his dad trying to wake him up for just about anything and now realize his frustration! I even moved the alarm across our bedroom so that he has to get OUT of bed to turn it off. Does he do that? Nope he hits snooze and gets back into bed! Anyhow this is of him "awake" as he likes to tell me he is awake and he is supposed to be feeding Owen but um as you can tell Owen is less than thrilled with his way of doing things. Ian did not even know I took a picture...but of course he was "awake". I love him, I really do!