We all really enjoyed the ride.
This is an original stone from the Nauvoo temple.
We spent a while at the Family Living Center. They had 11 stations were you could learn about life as the pioneers lead it (baking, making clothes, poetry, music, rug making ect.) At this station we all worked together to make a piece of rope. It was actually a lot of work.
The finished project!
We really enjoyed the blacksmith shop were they showed us how to make a horse shoe. It is so impressive how much time they had to spend making every single part. They were such amazingly hard workers and their average daily wage was $1!!!! Can you believe it?
They had a fun play station with dress up clothes and pioneer games. Katie and Liz really enjoyed themselves here.
We went to the post office, bank, bakery, school house, Gun Shop and a ton of other places I was to tired to document (that day it was 95 degrees and humid. We were so hot and sticky.) This is a yoke the young boys would fill with water and take up to the men working on the temple. Liz is so tiny she had to stand on her tip toes.
The brickyard is one of my favorite places because they give you a cool nauvoo brick. They show you how they would make brick, what they would do with it and how much it would cost to buy enough bricks to make houses.
When the saints were forced to move west the Prophet Joseph Smith's mother was to old to travel with them (although she really wanted to) so she stayed in Nauvoo in this house till she passed away. It was such a cute little house.
We also stopped at Brigham Young's house. It was pretty nice. They even had some of the original china plates pieced back together on the table.
They had a store like the Newl K. Whitney Store in Kirkland. It was neat to think of what "grocery" shopping would have been like for them. Just stop one place and your done!
When we went to the cobbler (shoemaker) they showed us how they would have made a pair of shoes. It just amazed me how much time and effort it would take. I'm so glad I can get any pair of shoes I want when I want them and I have 1,000's of styles to chose from not 4 :)
That night my mom and I did a session at the Nauvoo temple. It was sooo beautiful inside. I loved the set up of the temple as well. I can stay alert better when we move more often which we did in this temple verse the Manhattan temple where we just change rooms twice. It was neat to be there with my mom in such a special place.
After the temple we met up with my sisters to watch the BYU Young Ambassadors preform. They were PHONEMAIL!!
Unfortunately, as they started their selection of pieces from "Wicked" you could tell a HUGE storm was coming. I mentioned it had been hot all day, well then we felt a massive cold front move in. Mom and I just looked at each other knowing this was now the perfect conditions for a tornado. We ran to the car as he storm moved closer... just as the performer was about to hit the high note in Defying Gravity a huge crake of thunder hit and that was our sign to get out of there. My mom hates driving in storms especially when she's not 100% were she is going. Our hotel was about 20 minutes away. 85% of the way was a small road with the Mississippi River on one side and a huge muddy cliff on the other. So we were really hoping to get to the hotel before the storm. We said a quick prayer and sang hymns all the way back to the hotel. It was really pretty too. Mom and I sang alto and the girls sang soprano. No to mention since we are family and have similar genetics our voices are similar and blend perfectly. The minute we opened our door to our hotel room a MASSIVE storm hit. A sweet tender mercy to an incredibly spiritual day.
