Vacation Highlights

I've been meaning to blog about our vacation since we got home about a week and a half ago. I actually started this entry about a week ago, but hadn't gotten around to finishing it. So, sorry it's so late. :)

Mark and I had a lovely vacation in Nauvoo. We were accompanied by Mark's sister Rachel, her husband John, and my sister Erin. We arrived in Nauvoo Monday evening after a full day of driving, then returned home late Saturday night. Nauvoo is beautiful. This was the second time that Mark and I have been there, and we had a great time showing Rachel, John, & Erin around.

Here's a picture of the five of us (John, Rachel, Mark, Anna, Erin) at "our table" at Grandpa John's Cafe, where we had our complimentary all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet every morning. It was delicious - biscuits & gravy, bacon, sausage, toast, eggs, pancakes, french toast, cereal, milk, juice, hash browns...SO yummy. We met Grandpa John's grandson, who now owns and runs the cafe, the Hotel Nauvoo, and the Motel Nauvoo - which is where we stayed, in their lovely new suite.

While in Nauvoo we got learn about how a lot of things were made back in the 1840s, such as candles, rope, shoes, barrels, wagons, horseshoes, and bricks. We even got to make our very own rope! The rope-making pictures all came out blurry, or I'd show you all how well our rope turned out. We were very proud of ourselves. :)

We went on a wagon ride, a carriage ride, and an ox ride. I even made friends with a very nice ox who goes by the name of Gary. His buddy, Gabe, wasn't quite as friendly and would not let me hug him (although when it came time to pull the covered wagon, Gabe was all about showing us how strong he was, while Gary was content to let him do most of the work). I couldn't believe how enormous they were! Each of the oxen weigh in at about 2500 lbs and walk 2-3 miles per hour.

We got to do two sessions in the beautiful Nauvoo temple. They were even nice enough to let us go down and see the baptistry and look into the sealings rooms while were there. During our second session, we met some nice people who were visiting from Brazil, which is where Mark served his mission! I'm going to let him tell that story in a later post. It was a really neat experience.

We spent some time being lost, (thanks a lot, TomTom!), then finally found Carthage Jail, and were able to have a tour there and learn more about the place where Joseph & Hyrum Smith were martyred.

We saw a funny play put on by the missionary couples called Rendezvous in Old Nauvoo, which was a series of vignettes about life in Old Nauvoo. It was really cute and a lot of fun to watch - and it was obvious they had a lot of fun performing for us.

There are so many more things I could share, but I don't want to bore you too much. :) If you ever have a chance to visit Nauvoo, I would recommend that you take it. There's so much history there, and lots of fun things to do. The spirit there is simply amazing. We're definitely planning to return again sometime in the future.