Nauvoo Family Vacation

We spent the 4th of July in Nauvoo! It's only an 7-8 hour drive from where we are. We left on the 2nd, and went 1/2 way, and stayed the night in St. Louis, MO. St. Louis is so fun, I wish we had had more time to do more. We just went to the Zoo, which is hugh, and FREE! It was an amazing zoo. We saw a fun sea lion show that Ethan just loved, he loved "Benny", and I would never have remembered the sea lions name if not for Ethan. In Nauvoo, we had two days to see the sights. Ethan loved seeing the beautiful temple a few times a day, and we would sing "I love to see the temple" every time we drove past. It had been about 5 years since I had been there. And it was just as great as the first time, except I didn't get to have my wonderful husband with me. Jesse had to stay home because he is in a very tough statistics class right now. We sure missed him! The first day we did the horse and carriage ride and the "wagon" ride, I wouldn't recommend doing those back to back like we did, especially with an active 11 mo. old, but we made it fun. They were both very informational, and much better than walking and trying to figure out where you are. We heard a lot of interesting stories. Dad went over to the office of Land and Records and looked up some ancestors. They are so awesome to map out the properties that they had owned, and then we drove around and saw "about" where they had lived. Ethan loved hearing about how bricks are made, and actually was able to repeat it to me, I think he sat so still because of the donut in his hand. I wish I'd figured out that trick earlier. We also hopped on down to Carthage and visited the jail. Here are some pics of the trip. The spirit in Nauvoo is so strong, and it makes me really admire those early saints for all they had to endure.