Nauvoo

Perhaps a better title for this post would be "When in Nauvoo, Take Pictures....Lots of Them." :) But who can help it? On our way home from visiting family in Iowa we stopped by the beautiful city of Nauvoo, IL. This is a city once populated by Mormon pioneers before their trek out West. It was supposed to be a quick stop but we ended up staying 2 days. There was so much to see and do.
Of course the beautiful temple was the focal point:




We took a carriage ride, a buggy ride, and saw several shows (all of them great). Here Kierstyn participated in the pre-show kiddie parade.

We even found Grandpa John's (my dad) Cafe!
We visited several historical sites





This was a room in Brigham Young's home that the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles used to meet in.
We also toured the Gunsmith shop, the Brickyard, the Family Living Center, the Bakery, the Seventies Hall, and the Blacksmith shop.

The kids enjoyed lots of pioneer games like stilts,
wooden games/toys,
ring pushing,

stick pulling,sack races, and log sawing
The reason we stayed so long? We didn't want to miss Opening night of the Nauvoo Pageant.
...and all too soon it was time to head home.



I musn't neglect to mention that we stopped and crashed at our friends', the Palmers, house in St. Louis on the way home. They had been gone on vacation for 3 weeks and just driven home themselves after 3 days in the car arriving at 11:30pm. We showed up at their doorstep about 1:00am and they were gracious enough to let us fall into beds at that crazy hour. Good friends, indeed. :)