Ohio Trip - Part 2

Has it really been two months since I last blogged? How come no one's been after me on this? All right... well, picking up where I last left off.

On Sunday, July 4th, we went to church and after coming home we ate and packed and some of us decided to get a head start on the next leg of our journey and we left for Nauvoo, Illinois, an 8 hour drive west. We drove through a big city just as they were setting off their fireworks and so got to enjoy a mini show from the car.

We all stayed in the Gallery House on Mullholland Street. It was a lot of fun to have a whole house for our family for the few days we were there. The kids all loved the upstairs attic complete with video games. On Monday morning we drove to visit the Carthage Jail where Joseph and Hyrum Smith were martyred.

The sister missionary was definitely inspired by choosing our noisiest and most rambunctious nephew to be her "reverence example." She asked him to stand by her side in each room as we went throughout the jail and his example made such an impact on all the kids, including Joseph.

They were all folding their arms and being quite reverent and I was tickled to look up at Joseph on John's shoulders and see him folding his arms too. The last part of the tour of the jail is the jailor's bedroom upstairs where the mob forced their way in and killed Hyrum and Joseph. Usually the missionary will play a recorded reenactment of the scene as everyone sits there, but our particular guide told us she felt moved to do something different. Instead, she handed out little copies of the hymn A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief, and we talked about the meaning of the hymn and then all sang the last verse together. It was a really neat experience and I felt the Spirit very strongly.

Outside the trees were wet from a rainstorm and John was walking with Joseph on his shoulders underneath the leaves. It was so cute because every time he walked under the tree, Joseph would curl up around his head and giggle as some of the leaves got water on him.

After getting some lunch we went to Historic Nauvoo and visited some of the sites there. This was my forth time visiting Nauvoo, the third since we've been married. It is one of our favorite places to visit.

Yes, this is Joseph chewing on a stick. A simple way to keep him entertained.

Later that night, the rest of the family arrived from Ohio. The next morning we were up early to visit the temple and do a session there. The interior of that temple is so beautiful. I especially loved all of the mural paintings on the wall. They were absolutely exquisite.

Later we went around visiting more sites, stopping for the longest while at the field where they have lots of pioneer games to play. It was soooo extremely hot and humid that we all felt like we were just standing in a warm shower. It was a rainy day too.

I must pause and take a moment to display how adorable my Joseph is. No one could disagree.

He's combing his hair with a stick. He really enjoys this activity. Too bad he doesn't have more hair!

We went back to the temple later with Joseph to take a family picture there. He was not in a good mood and this was the best picture we could get of him.

You've got to see it close up because he pulls this look occasionally and it is totally priceless in my book. It just makes me laugh out loud every time I see it.

This was John's photo... a developing photographer I must say!

In the evening we went to the Nauvoo pageant. Before the pageant there are lots of different games and activities going on in the adjacent field. My favorite was the dancing, although the only person I could get to dance with me was my nephew Noah. This was the second time we had seen the Nauvoo pageant and it really is the best one I've ever seen. Joseph did amazingly well throughout it, just sitting quietly on John's lap the entire time. He fell asleep towards the end.

The next morning we packed up and began a day full of just driving west. I was really surprised at how well Joseph did on such long road trips. He ended up sleeping a lot of the time, and when he was awake, he was cheerful and pleasant. After staying in a small motel that night, we began driving the next morning again and made our way to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.

This was a really neat site to see, the first time that we've been there. Joseph was not too hot on the idea of being in his stroller (understandably so since he had been in the carseat for the past two days)

but once he was out, he was loving life!

We walked a little bit up the hill to get a closer view, but couldn't stay too long because we had to get on the road again to get to Denver.

John and I had a plane to catch in Denver to get us home that night since we had an early morning meeting the next day that we absolutely couldn't miss. We made it to the airport in good time and had time to eat dinner and then keep Joseph entertained until it was time to leave. That was accomplished by walking on the moving walkway, getting off, turning around and walking on the walkway going the other way and repeating it, oh about a hundred times. John walked with him for a while and when he was finally tired of it, we switched places and he watched our stuff. Joseph only walked on the walkway a few times with me before he was ready for a new adventure, so I followed him down the hall until we found a set of escalators that were in a rather deserted part of the airport. No one was using them but us as we went up the escalators, turned around and went down them and did that again and again. Joseph really had a blast. Once we finally got on the airplane he was not wanting to sit on our laps and it was really difficult to keep him quiet and entertained until the plane was ready to go. But once it was moving, he was just fine and quickly fell asleep.

And that wraps up our big summer adventure!