Summer 14 Roadtrip: Day 4

Day 4: Tuesday June 24th

Another full day in Nauvoo!

We began our day with breakfast at Grandpa John's Café. Then we took our happy bellies down to the brick yard for a tour before we saw the children's play "Just Plain Anna Amanda." On the corner by the brick yard, we caught a performance from Youth of Zion, a fantastic a capella group in period costumes.

 

Youth of Zion singing beautifully

Niles, Rich, Addie, and Heidi taking in some music.

Niles snuck away and climbed on a wagon.

At the end of "Just Plain Anna Amanda," Amanda pulled James up from the audience
to sing with her. He did GREAT!

After the show, lots of kids took pictures with the cast.

Heidi, James, Amanda, Niles, and the cast...

After the play, we drove over to Carthage to visit Carthage Jail where Joseph and Hyrum Smith were killed on June 27, 1844. We noticed on our tour that we traveled from Nauvoo to Carthage on the very same day Joseph and Hyrum made their last journey--June 24th.

Addie, Niles, Heidi, and James at the Joseph and Hyrum statue in front of the jail.

James hugging his hero

My handsome boy!

A beautiful painting of Joseph's "Farewell, Nauvoo."

Niles was pretty rowdy, so I kept him in the visitor's center while Rich took
 the big kids on a tour of the jail. Addie, James, and Heidi on the tour.

James at the window where Joseph was shot.

James by the door full of bullet holes.

James, Heidi, and Addie outside the window where Joseph was shot and fell to his death.

On the way back to Nauvoo, we ate sack lunches and talked about our visit, then we went back to the hotel. I took a nap with Niles and Ammon while Rich took the big kids souvenir shopping. Later we had dinner in Keokuk at Long John Silvers, then came back to watch "Sunset on the Mississippi" and BYU's Jazz Band concerts in Nauvoo's outdoor theater. Around 9pm we heade back to the hotel, but stopped at the temple to watch the sun set. The kids chased fireflies on the temple lawn while I held the baby and Rich took pictures. It was a beautiful night and I felt my Grandpa could see us there.

 

James and Niles loved the concerts.

The Joseph and Hyrum statues across from the temple.

James and Niles

Good night,  Beautiful Nauvoo!

Summer 14 Roadtrip: Day 3

Day 3: June 23-NAUVOO!

We ate breakfast in our cute little two-bedroom house/ hotel. We decided to look around the visitor's center first and catch the wagon ride so we could map out the rest of our day.

Here we are boarding the wagon. The family next to us (see the mom in the striped shirt on the left) was moving from Tucson (Hidden Valley Ward) to Pennsylvania.

Here we are listening to our guide. It was the last tour he would give before finishing his mission.



Addie and Niles, Me and Ammon, Heidi and James

Niles and Addie in the Statue Garden at the Nauvoo Visitor's Center

Heidi with a statue

Rich and me in front of Joseph and Emma

Heidi with Joseph and Emma

Ammon on the wagon ride

Ammon and Heidi

We decided to stop at The Family Living Center first. Our first activity there was making a "family rope." Every activity had a parable attached, I quite liked that part. For the rope, we started with single strands of sisal, then they twisted three sets of two together on this cool rope-twisting contraption (see Addie spinning the twister above).

Then the three twists were spun together to make a thick, strong rope.

The rope is cut from the contraption and the ends are finished off.

Our guide showed the kids how easy it is to break one strand of sisal twine, but when you twist six strands together, it's much stronger and can't be broken, just like we are vulnerable alone but stronger as a family. We have our little yard of rope hanging in the living room to remind us of this.

We also learned about spinning and weaving wool and flax. The boys loved the little lamb.

Niles riding the lamb.

Learning how flax grows and becomes linen or "linsey-woolsey."

The boys had fun with building blocks.

After the Family Living Center, we visited the Scovill Bakery where we learned about wood-fired over baking and got gingerbread cookies.

Daddy with his posse taking a break.

We had a wonderful lunch at the Nauvoo Mill & Bakery near our hotel. Every thing was so fresh and delicious. Rich & Addie had yummy gyros, Heidi and I had amazing burgers, and the boys had hot dogs on fresh buns.

 We also got some pastries for dessert and they were heavenly (blueberry Danish? yes, please!)

James and Niles learning about making wagon wheels and barrels.

James, Niles, and Heidi listening to the Blacksmith.

James and Heidi with their Prairie Diamonds
(horseshoe nails curved into rings)

Cute Heidi with her "diamond" ring.

Silly kids on the Ox Shoeing corral

James loved visiting the gunsmith

I think this is one of the first machine guns (?)--ask James, he knows everything.

We loved driving past the temple and thee statues every night heading back to our hotel.

We had dinner at our hotel, then walked down the street for frozen custard (SO GOOD!), then bathed the kids, and enjoyed a nice quiet night "in."

Summer 14 Roadtrip: Days 1-2

Day 1: Drive from Home to Sioux Falls, South Dakota with lunch at Wall Drug Store

We left home at 4:30 am and drove all day in what we slept in. We stopped for some breakfast and gas in Hardin, MT around 7:30 then drove through South Dakota to Wall Drug for lunch around 1pm. The kids had a blast at Wall Drug!

Here's daddy ordering lunch at the Wall Drug cafeteria.

YUM!

Made sure to get our free ice water!

Niles, Heidi, Addie, Ammon, and James at Wall's "Backyard"

Heidi on a Jackalope

Addie and Niles on a Jackalope

James, Heidi, and Niles with the Wall Drug T-Rex

James, Addie, and Heidi at the shooting gallery

Cutie Ad

Niles and me hamming it up at the shooting gallery

Wall Drug had a fun toy store and arcade where the kids got their wiggles out, and we headed back on the road after about 90 minutes. It was a scorching hot day, and we drove all the way to Sioux Falls with a big black rainstorm right behind us. We checked in to our hotel and had Panda Express for dinner around 8pm. The girls ran across the street to the mall and bought Dr. Who paraphernalia at Hot Topic. We had a great sleep and took off around 9 the next morning.

 

Day 2: Driving from Sioux Falls across Iowa to Nauvoo, Illinois

Sunday was a driving day with no fun stuff planned, just "car church". We had to drive the northern route through Minnesota because the highway down to Vermillion and across Iowa was washed out by the previous week's storms. So we drove over near Albert Lea, MN, then turned right into Iowa (our GPS got us lost looking for our chosen lunch spot, so we never actually made it to Albert Lea. When we got back into civilization, we were at this Iowa welcome center and we ate at the Burger King there. Stupid GPS!)

Niles and Ammon at the Welcome Center where we ate lunch.

We stopped in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa for some groceries in a huge rain storm. We drove on through Ft. Madison to Nauvoo and checked in to our hotel around 8:30pm. We were SO GLAD to be out of the car for a few days! Our hotel was actually a little house that was once the home of the manager of the Motel Nauvoo, adjoining the motel. It had two nice bedrooms and a bathroom, plus a kitchen, dining area, and Living Room with pull-out sofa, so everyone had a bed and space to stretch out and relax. We loved it, especially for the price of a regular hotel room.