Day One in Nauvoo, Illinois

We drove to my parents house (4.5 hours), spent the night and then headed out to Nauvoo. We arrive in Nauvoo around midnight on Wenesday, July 29. (15 hours) We camped at a place called Camp Nauvoo.

Thursday morning we got up and went to the Nauvoo Visitor Center. We watched a 20 minute film on the general history of Nauvoo. We then talked to one of the sister missionaries, who gave us a map and recommended sights based on the ages of the kids.

We visited the temple grounds first.

We are in a drought where we live, so the boys played on the nice green grass that they have in Nauvoo. We don't know when we will get to see that again. The flowers on the grounds are just beautiful. I wish I could have flowers like that in my yard. The deer would eat them the first night and the armadillos would dig the roots up the next night.

Next we went to the blacksmith shop. The mssionaries who run this were so patient with the twins. I was amazed. The twin kept asking questions and making comments about what we were doing.

We learned about making horseshoes. At the end of the presentation we all got a ring made out of a horseshoe nail. I was pretty impressed with how much Matthew knew about shoeing horses.

We learned about the wagons that were made for the Saints to cross the plains. I don't know how the women were able to manage. They were allowed about 2000 lbs in their wagon. When you think about how much a barrel of water weighs and then how much the flour and corn weighed. They were really not able to take much with them. What faith these women had to be able to walk away from all of their posession and make the trek to the west.

We had a picnic lunch after this and then went on a wagon ride through historical Nauvoo. The boys slept through most of that.

Then we went back to the visitors center for the boys to finish their naps. We finished seeing all of the exhibits at the visitor's center while they were napping.

I lost my camara somewhere in this time frame.

We saw a show called "High Hopes and River Boats". It was good. They had all the people with kids sit on one side of the theater and then all the other people on the other side. It makes sence but I wish I could have sat on the side without kids. It would have been quieter. I ended up taking Richard out once during the show.

A missionary came up to our family and asked if the camara he had was ours. He had looked at the pictures and then as people came out of the show he tried to find the twins. I am so thankful he made the effort to find us instead of just putting the camara in the lost and found.

Then we went back to the campsite for me to make dinner. I forgot a lighter for the propane stove so I went around and asked other campers if they had a lighter. (We did go buy one the next day). Mark took the kids to play on the playground while I made dinner and cleaned up the camp.

After dinner, we went to the pre-show activities and the pagent.

Matthew participating in the stick-pull. He ended up pulling a muscle in his back so he didn't get to play much more. The video file of Matthew is too big to put on here. It would be difficult for anyone to play it also. The file was 95 MB.

Mark played stick-pull quite a bit. The missionary in charge kept grabbing more and more men to go against Mark. People started crowding around..

Matthew pulled the boys in a handcart

The little boys were trying to saw throught a piece of wood. They couldn't get it started so Mark and Rebecca helped out a little.

Rebecca and I went to participate in square dancing. We were standing on the sidelines watching. A young man came up and asked Rebecca to dance. Hmm..


The pagent started soon after the square dancing stopped. We really enjoyed the pagent. The mosquitos were out and we were cold. We are used to Texas weather. I think it only got down into the 60's but we were cold. (Mark was not cold). We brought blanket sleepers for the boys and their little blankets. I am so glad we were at least a little bit prepared.

Then on the way back to the car, Richard asked Matthew to carry him on his shoulders. Matthew went to lift Richard up and Richard's head hit Matthew's nose. Then at the same time, Matthew tripped and fell. Richard kissed the asphault. A family who was behind us stopped to help. They had water and tissues to help stop the bleeding. Richard did not cry that much. After I stood up with Richard, one of the young ladies that had stopped with her family introduced herself to Matthew. I think my big kids are growing up. Richard mouth swelled during the night. He looked so sad. I can't find the picture I took.