Family Vacation 2011. Nauvoo trip Part 3

On our second day in Nauvoo we had a tour scheduled early in the morning with the couple who hosted us for a BBQ the night before. They are tour guides for the sites owned by the ----- (formerly RLDS church). We toured the Joseph and Emma's Homestead, Joseph and Emma's Mansion house, and the grave site where Joseph, Emma and Hyrum are buried. The sites owned by this church do not allow pictures so I left my camera in the car, but I should have brought it at least to get pictures of the outside of the buildings.

Joseph and Emma's Homestead was a small house originally but had been added onto later when his son lived there. They told of the history of the house and showed us which parts were original and which were added. Some of the artifacts were ones actually owned by Joseph and Emma when they lived there.

Joseph and Emma's Mansion house was built because all too often Emma found herself hostess to members of the church who needed a place to stay. It was used as a hotel with a portion of it used for the family's private residence. It was a beautiful building anyone would love to live in. The Mansion house (as well as the Homestead) had several places that were built solely to hide Joseph from those who intended harm to him.

The burial grounds have been moved from where they were placed originally. Emma had kept the burial place of her beloved and his brother a secret from everyone (aside from a very select few) in order to protect it. When she died, her family buried her close by. Years later when the shore line of the Mississippi River began to change it became necessary to move the family graveyard. A nice memorial has been built by the ----church as a marker for their grave.

After the tour we went on a carriage ride. This ride took us through some of the wooded areas of Nauvoo.
And told of experiences those who first inhabited Nauvoo had in the area. Could you imagine having to clear these kinds of wooded areas to be able to build a house and have some farming land? Not to mention the fact they had to divert water out of the area to be able to farm it. When they arrived it was nothing more than a marsh.
I had to get a picture of our tour guide
These are some of the original homes that were in Nauvoo. I'm sure they have had a lot of work done since they are still lived in today.
The Mighty Mississippi as seen on our carriage ride.
Following the carriage ride we went to the Temple grounds to get some photos for our Temple Tour.


I thought it was appropriate to post some pictures of the memorial for Joseph and Hyrum that is in from=n of the Temple
There happened to be someone else there who was willing to trade taking family pictures in front of the temple for us.We headed into town to visit some more sites. The kids has fun trying on the "running water" yolk. A boy's job, as soon as he was tall enough (Harrisen is not quite there) was to carry one of these down to the river fill the buckets and carry them back to the temple site This was quite a distance and up hill towards the temple.
The other kids wanted to give it a try. Madison...And Bailee....We had tickets to another show "Just Anna Amanda" so we took a break from the heat to go see the show. Another great performance by the "Young Preforming Missionaries".

We decided to head to Carthage when we stopped for lunch that way we could eat in the car on the way and have more time.
Carthage was AmAzInG! We had to wait a little while to go in because there was an EFY group in front of us (How fun would that be? EFY in Nauvoo) when we did go in it was really nice because there was not a group behind us that was waiting to come in. The missionary giving our tour took her time telling us all about the building and the events that took place there. When we got to the room where Joseph and Hyrum were Martyred we were actually able to close the door and sit in the room and talk as a family about the feeling you feel in that room. It was amazing! The missionary said never before since she had been thee had this happened. So awesome!This little room was the room that the prison keeper and their family would live in. the prison and another bedroom (where the martyrdom took place) were upstairs. This was definitely one of the highlights of the vacation!

Following Carthage we returned to Nauvoo to visit the places we still had yet to see We went to the print shop, the post office, the Seventies hall, the black smith shop (where we all got prairie diamonds), and the brick yard (where our family was given a Nauvoo brick) before going to see some of the homes. The Lucy Mack Smith Home and the Woodruff home were my favorites. By the time we finished the homes everything else was closed up for the evening so we drove to the end of Parley street, the same way the saints did as they left their beautiful city Nauvoo to head west. Then we headed back to Burlington. Leaving Nauvoo for the last time on this trip. What a great experience for our family. Tomorrow we'll have a bit of a drive, stopping to see some more sites on the way.

Family Vacation 2011. Nauvoo trip Part 2

Since I have SO many pictures (and believe me I could have taken more) I decided to post Nauvoo into 2 posts, after all we were there 2 days so it should be easy right? But first I had to throw this one shot in...ha ha this is what typically could be seen when you looked back anytime we were driving. (nearly 4,000 miles in 10 days really is a lot of driving but it was fun)

As I mentioned here we stayed in Burlington Iowa which is about a 30-40 min drive to Nauvoo. We chose here first of all because hotels are MUCH cheaper here than they are in Nauvoo but we also thought the drive on the way back each night would give us a chance to talk about what we saw and how we felt through the day. Which really was a good decision because this is when we did our family scripture reading and usually read something in D&C that had to do with what we saw that day.
It turned out to be really nice. On the way there the first day we saw this old run down (maybe even abandoned) barn. It was really pretty, I wish the colors in the picture did it justice.
Yea! after 2 long days of driving we finally made it!

One of the first places we toured was the assembly hall. Talk about a cool building! when you walk in on the ground level it was a theater of sorts, (sorry my bad no picture) in this room they would meet for all sorts of community events, conferences, plays and such.

On the next floor up was a room that sometimes would be used for law enforcement and sometimes as a place for people to stay (a bit like a hotel). for display purposes it had many beds with even more quilts and other artifacts from the time period. Here are a few examples.
These beds were both in the same room, and there was more beds in that room as well. this would have slept several families at the same time..
They had quite a few quilts all through out this room showing the popular styles of quilts that were made back then. There are some beautiful quilts.

on the next floor was a large room that was used by the women as they would set up quilts and visit together as they quilted but the main purpose of this room was for fun. They often held dances and other such events in this room.
There was a loft in the top just the right size to fit a small band. This room was so big and open and loud I could only imagine how fun it would be to have a live band playing and be dancing around the room. What fun! (sorry I forgot to take a picture of the loft but one of the kids got one...if I could just figure out who that is in the middle of this picture. Bailee? Alex maybe?)
Next was the bakery, right next door.The oven at the bakery....and I thought my kitchen was small.One of the more hands on places to visit was the Family living center, where they taught us how to make a rope. Everyone helped, except me because I was happy to be taking pictures of the progress.
After threading the hemp into the proper places the worker made assignments. Alex wound the wheel...I don't remember how many times but it was A LOT.Harrisen was anxious for his turnBailee spun the wheel on the other side while Kirsti moves the spacer along to keep it from getting tangled and keep it tight.
Keep going all the way to the end.
Harrisen's turn to turn the big wheel a little more.
once they reach the end you can't just cut it you have to tie the ends off. That was the job for Mike...once they showed him what to do.
he did great.
Once the rope was done they gave it to Harrisen. He is so proud of his rope.

They also had demonstrations on making candles, making yarn, pottery, and other skills the early saints needed to have to survive and build up the community.
Next we made a quick tour of the Browning gun shop before going to see a play by the Young Performing Missionaries. It was a great play and now all my kids want to audition when they are old enough.

When we were done we had a BBQ with some really nice people that my sister hooked us up with that she met on her recent trip to Nauvoo. It was a nice way to end our first day in Nauvoo.

Family Vacation 2011. Nauvoo trip Part 1

For our family vacation this year we decided (since the kids just finished D&C in seminary) it was good timing to make a trip to Nauvoo and stop and see other church history sites while we were in the general direction. In addition to visiting church history sites we wanted to visit some family and friends we had been missing.

Our time was limited, and there would be a lot of driving, so we decided to leave on a Sunday. Normally we would not travel on Sunday be this time we felt we needed the extra day in Nauvoo. So Sunday after church we loaded into the car and headed off. Driving straight through to Sydney Nebraska that first day.

While there we stopped into Cabala's, which was much smaller than I remembered, especially after having visited the one closest to us just a few months prior. One funny note I have to say was that in driving towards Cabala's we drove through town. All of us thought it was extremely funny that the local health clinic and the mortuary shared the same parking lot.....I tried to get a picture but it just wasn't possible to get the words on both buildings to show in one picture. But it was HILARIOUS. We joked about it for a while.

Next stop was Winter Quarters Nebraska. We thought this would be a quick jaunt off the freeway but NO it was a lot harder to find than we thought. we looked for quite a while, grabbed some dinner (note to self, fried chicken is not good eating in the car food) and an atlas and eventually found Winter Quarters at about dusk. It was worth it! The Temple was beautiful and the visitors center was really neat.
They had some life size replicas of the way the pioneers traveled and some cool hands on things for kids to see what it would have been like to be a pioneer.
They played with the hand cart and all took turns with the smaller set that they got to load things into and try to make it all fit.
The statue in the front was cool we liked that it had kids about the same size as our family and showed everyone helping.The Temple.... It was really cool to be able to walk around the grounds and see it from all angles. there are some beautiful stained glass windows that were hard to see in the pictures since it was later in the day. It was cool to see the fireflies just starting to light up as we walked around. Sorry the picture is on it's side, one day there will be a way to change it without loading it onto my computer and using photo shop.

After Winter Quarters we loaded back into the car for the long drive to Burlington Iowa where we would be staying for the next few days while we visited the sites in Nauvoo.

At this point we have driven from Utah through Wyoming, Nebraska and Iowa.

We'll save Nauvoo for the next post.

I'm thankful for hand me downs and good neighbors

It's not exactly what I was looking for but this......
is much better that this was....
we made do with what we had, which was a couple of old end tables and a video stand. I tried to ignore the web of wires and plugs visible under the table and took pictures that wouldn't show the mess....but now it's a meat and organized thanks to our neighbors who were throwing away a fairly nice TV stand. one day I'll make or buy one that's a little longer and has more workable space for DVDs and Wii games but for now I'm happy to not see the web of wires. And have a nice place for some room decor. Thanks guys!

Halloween 2010

I've been working early vote sites most of the month so getting costumes ready was on the back burner and didn't get done. Madison and her friends Lynzee and Rylee got together one day after school to come up with matching costumes. Here's what they came up with. I was impressed.
They were all Fairies....though I forgot to take my camera to the trunk or treat so I didn't get a picture of them all together. Madison felt beautiful in her costume!
Have you ever had to try to come up with a costume that fit with a full leg cast? Not an easy task I must say.
I thought it would be cute to have him be Tiny Tim. He would have nothing to do with it. Weather it was because I said I thought it would be "cute" or because he didn't have a clue who I was talking about I don't know but he was not going for that idea.
So the night before the trunk or treat I was still straining to figure something out and thinking maybe we wouldn't be able to play in the cast bit after all when I thought of this.....
A road construction worker who had been hit by a car. Perfect! He was thrilled and it was easy to make. I cut tire tread stencils out of some newspaper and went to work.
Mike had the idea to do a little play on the WCF (workers compensation Fund) commercials that are currently playing by having him wear this sign. Everyone thought it was hilarious.
Bailee has been talking all month about what she wanted to do. she wanted to dress up as a scarecrow, put her carved pumpkin on her head and scare the bigger kids as they were trick or treating. It was funny to watch them grab for the candy in the pot on her lap and jump when she said "boo"
Alex and Kirsti were not planning on dressing up but at the last minute they decided to go as french DJ's (Kirsti took her beret off before we got the picture.
It was a fun Halloween...and I liked the fact that I didn't have to do much to get costumes ready.

Harrisen's accident

WARNING GRAPHIC PICTURES IN THIS POST
As I called the kids into dinner one evening (Sept 27,2010) Harrisen decided to jump on the fish tank Bailee had been cleaning out for me. He found out just how bad that choice was really fast as he cut both knees to the bone. Thanks to the help of our nurse neighbor Jan, we were able to get him fixed up enough to get him to the ER. the girls and I all saw how deep the cuts were and we were all pretty scared. I was worried with how much blood he was loosing. He was a trooper! although he was scared he didn't cry too much...until the tried to numb it.

Here he is laying in the ER bed
this is the least graphic picture of his cuts, the swelling closed the cuts so you could not see how deep it really was by this point.
The right leg was cut a little lower and thus received less damage since it hit his tibula (shin) the Left leg was cut in the fleshy spot between the kneecap and the shin. He cut 50% of the tendon and just scraped the artery.
This is how he left the ER, with the instructions not to bend or put weight on his left knee and to see a orthopedic specialist either Friday or monday.
They did a really good job of stitching it up. This is the right leg, the one that had the least damage.
This is the left leg, the one with the most damage.
after carrying him around for a day....we borrowed some crutches.
It took a few days to get the hang of it but now he can really fly.
His first cast was only on for a week, then they had to cut it off to take the stitches out. here they are cutting it off.
He now has his second cast (he chose blue this time) and will have that one for the next 4 weeks. (which is 2 weeks less than we were told at the first visit. Depending on how well he heals, this may be the last cast, then physical therapy. Let's hope for the best.
We are glad you are OK buddy.