Family Vacation, Nauvoo, Part 3

Today was Fathers day! 

I am so grateful for Mike! He is the best dad, and a pretty awesome husband. We sure love him. He is the hardest worker I have ever met and the best example for my kids. I love you Mike even though your eyebrow looks crazy in this picture!

 I asked the kids some questions about Mike.  Wesley said he liked it when Mike makes vegetable people with him. Jaycee likes swimming with him.  They both knew his age. They thought his favorite things to do were swim, work, and go to Chicago with his family.
Sunday, June 21, 2015
We got up early and headed to Nauvoo. We had to stop and get gas. Jaycee was not happy with us, she didn't want to break the Sabbath. :) We had our picnic while we were at the gas station. 

The kids were so good to keep busy with their sticker books.

Our first stop was Carthage Jail.

We took the tour first.

The missionaries showed us the jail first. It was interesting, they said the jailer had given them his own bedroom to stay in because he was worried about them being on the main floor. 

After it was a jail the owners used this room as bedrooms.  When the church bought it they restored it to it's original form.

It was amazing that it still had so many original features, including the door with the bullet holes. A piece of the door was missing. A boy found it out in the outhouse!

I took a picture looking through the bullet hole. 

These kids could not keep their hands off this statue! They were hanging all over it. They just had to be touching it.  I thought that was pretty neat.

After the tour we went in and watched a video.  Bensen wasn't excited about the movie, or the tour for that matter.

Finally we were off to Nauvoo.

The first thing we did in Nauvoo was go to the temple.

The kids favorite parts were the bells that rang on the hour, the sandstones, and Angel Moroni.

Bensen liked the flowers!

I liked the stained glass windows.  It really is a beautiful temple.

Wesley needed a closer look!

Then we went to the visitors center, which has closed about 10 minutes before we got there, so we went to the Women's Garden.

The kids liked the statues and wanted to reinact all of them.

Then we went and set up our camp ground for the night.

Later we went to the Trail of Hope tour which used to be called the Trail of Tears. President Hinkley changed it. It was neat, the missionarys read stories from pioneer journals.

We also saw fireflies for the first time! They were so neat. We also saw a lot of may flies. They were not so neat as gross. They were everywhere by the river.  I'm just glad they weren't by the campground.

Family Vacation, Missouri, Part 2

Saturday, June 20, 2015
We got up pretty early and headed to Farr West.

 It was very peaceful there. No one else was around, it was just our family.

 We saw the corner stones for the temple. Then kids actually really seemed to like it here.  Mike had also mentioned that he was able to feel the spirit here. He was hoping to feel more at Adam-ondi-ahmen.

 While we were there we ran into a guy that owned a little shop down the road a ways. Wayne Galbraith was his name. He had knowledge of the Allred settlement. We went to his store, Jaycee, Wesley, and Mike all got pocket knives that the guy engraved there names into. Well Mike's says Borgstrom. We drove to the general vicinity of where the Allred Settlement was. A day later a lady was hit by lightning right where we had been! Storms chased us the whole trip. But never really caught us.

Then we went the the Farr West General Store. Jaycee bought a fan and we got Mike an oil vial for Fathers day.

Then we were off to the Historic Liberty Jail. We first had a picnic in the parking lot. 

 It was kind of hard to feel the spirit here because Bensen was being so naughty! But it was crazy to see how horrible their living conditions were.

 Then we went to Independence, Missouri to the visitors center. We watched a movie on the importance of the family. Then the kids played some games on the kiosks.

 We went downstairs to the history level. The kids liked the kids area here.  It was pretty cute.

After we left the visitors center we did a little driving tour.  We saw the temple lot.

After we drove to Overland Park in Kansas to our hotel. Me and Mike had Oklahoma Joe's BBQ. It was ok.  The kids had McDonald's.  After dinner Mike took Jaycee and Wesley down to swim. They had a blast!

Family Vacation Part 1

Thursday June18-20, 2015
Mike had to go to Chicago for work for a couple days, so we decided to make a whole vacation out of it.  I was pretty nervous to take the kids on such a long road trip. I went and bought several things to give them along the way.  Mostly dollar store goodies.  We also told them we would give them a quarter for every hour we were driving and they were good with no complaining. I also made each of them a book with coloring pages, maps, tracing pages and journal pages.  Mike mapped everything out. We left on the 18 of June around 5:00 pm.  We stopped a couple of hours later in Rock Springs Wyoming for some dinner.  Bensen was so ready to get out of the car. We made three more stops for potty and gas.  We drove through the night (about 14 hours!) and went straight to the Winter Quarters Temple in Nebraska.  

 We all got out and stretched our legs.

After the temple we went to breakfast at McDonald's.

 Then it was on to the visitors center.

 At the visitors center we watched a movie and took a tour.  The kids got to pull a handcart.

 Dress up like pioneers.

 And try out a bed that was like the ones on the ships.

 After the tour we went over to the cemetery and looked around. Then we drove to Council Bluffs. We went through the visitor center, it was right next to the Kaneville Tabernacle. That is where Brigham Young was sustained the prophet. Something I learned while there, was that it wasn't until 2 years after Joseph Smith died that they called a new Prophet. 

Jaycee was able to play the organ they had there, it was over 100 years old.  She loved it! 

After Council Bluffs we drove for a couple hours to Adam-Ondi-Ahman.

 We had a little picnic lunch when we first got there. The bugs were so loud! We hiked around a bit.

 Bensen fell down and cut his knee.

 The kids found Preacher Rock, and a bunny.

Mike saw the place where Adams alter is believed to be.  He didn't realize it until we were reading the book in the car the next day.

Then we headed to Cameron, where our hotel was. We stopped at Godfathers Pizza and had a Taco Pizza, it was delicious!

Then Mike went to bed at 7:30 and slept all night long! He deserved a good nights rest.  I let Wesley sleep with him, and me and Bensen slept with Jaycee.

It's Great To Be Eight!

It's great to be eight!

Jaycee is getting baptized on July 11th.  What makes it even more special is that she gets to share her day with one of her favorite people, Paige. 

These girls...

 They don't come much cuter!

 My sister in-law Katie has a friend that does her pictures. She thought it would be fun to do a double shoot.

 It was a lot of fun.

 She was able to take some really good pictures.  Jaycee is always so goofy when I try to take her pictures.

 Jaycee hasn't had her picture professionally taken since she was 6 months old.  So this was a fun treat.

 We even got a picture of the girls with their blessing dresses. Which Paige's grandma made for them.

We are so proud of Jaycee and her decision to get baptised.  She had her interview with the bishop a couple weeks ago, and she is very excited. She really is a blessing in our lives. I'm so glad she's mine.