Family Vacation 2013

When Eric took me to the Taylor Swift concert, he had to skip his board reviews. YES, they were the same night!! So the next best option was heading over to St. Louis at the end of August so he could get his review at the chiropractic school there. I thought it would be a perfect time to take a family vacation and hit up a few states with Kinsey. 

Our first stop was Nauvoo, Illinois to check out the church history sites. I've wanted to do this ever since we moved here because we're so close (closer than Utah anyway)! We made a pitstop at an Amish store because I have this weird thing about seeing Amish people in real life, and yes, it was so worth it just to see them driving on wagons instead of in cars. And those beards!! LOVE IT. 

We dedicated Tuesday for driving and then arrived at the Nauvoo Visitors' Center on Wednesday morning. 

I love that Kinsey is looking up at Jesus!

We passed up the hour long wagon ride and chose to go on a 5 minute oxen ride. Man, am I glad we made that decision!! It was almost 100 degrees the entire week. 

 Also, Kinsey was really freaked out by the oxen and especially did not like how BUMPY the ride was. I was excited to see my first ox :) I can only imagine how an hour long carriage ride would have faired with this little one. 

Scared baby needed her mama for comfort.

Next up was the Nauvoo Family Living Center to learn how the pioneers survived back in the day. The missionaries LOVED being able to talk to us. Just imagine how dull their days are after the busy summer season ends and few people come to see the sites. 

She was a little scared at first, but much happier since the sheep was fake.

Learning how to make candles. 

 My favorite part of all of Nauvoo (we didn't see everything due to it being extremely hot and us only having one day) was making rope. I just liked being able to do something with my hands.

Twisting the rope.

Daddy's little helper.

Cutting off the finished product for us to take home.

 The missionary told us an analogy of the rope and our family. He mentioned the two ends were the parents and the three loops the rope made were each of our children. I thought it was funny because I was literally carrying our three kids at the time, but then I got home and noticed there were actually FOUR loops. I guess one more is in our future...

We went to the Scovil Bakery next. It's just a tiny little building but my friends told me they give out free cookies. Of course I'm not passing that up!!

 Eric's favorite part of Nauvoo was the Jonathon Browning Home and Gun Shop. No, I think it's safe to say I wasn't aware Browning was a brand of gun, nor did I know THE Browning was LDS. But Eric got a kick out of it!

Look at those guns!

 The Browning guns were engraved with "Holiness to the Lord our Preservation."

 This was a very cool site in the Browning home backyard. They lost and buried their child in the little fenced area to the right and you can also see the Nauvoo temple in the same view. It's awesome because through temples families can be sealed together forever!

Luckily almost all the buildings were air conditioned. Yet, walking in the sun wore us out! Can you tell?

 Kinsey woke up at the Blacksmith Shop (not air conditioned might I add) to us getting our "prairie diamond" rings!

Inside the shop ready to jump in a pool of ice.

At this point we were just too hot to continue on. We plan on taking our kids back one day so we'll eventually see the rest of the sites. We drove off without taking pics of the temple, so we turned around and ventured back into the heat for a few more minutes. 

Nauvoo LDS Temple

After resting up for the evening, we drove to Carthage, Illinois on Thursday morning to see the Carthage Jail. This may have been my very favorite stop of the trip. I loved learning about Joseph Smith and all he went through in the jail. It really puts things into perspective. I'm grateful I was not born in that lifetime!

In front of Carthage Jail.

 That is an original bullet hole from the day of the martyr.

The top window is where Joseph Smith climbed out toward the mob to try to save the rest of the men inside. And of course our cute Kinsey :)

 She was such a trooper!! Having people to smile at didn't hurt either!

After Carthage we headed south to St. Louis for Eric to attend board reviews. On Friday before heading home, we went to the St. Louis Zoo.

Our first stop at the zoo was the sea lion show. Kinsey was pretty impressed for about 5 seconds...

And then she thought, "Let's go walking, Daddy!" This was about the time she perfected her walking (6 days after her birthday).

 I wouldn't recommend paying to see this show if you're at the St. Louis Zoo. It was kind of lame.

With Kinsey she can only see the animals that are close because she doesn't understand if you say, "There is a monkey on a branch way over there." Luckily, this guy was on board.

She loves monkeys...and gorillas...or is it a chimp!?

Baby and Daddy

 Although the bird building was a little stinky, Kinsey was able to see lots of birds!

And did I mention it was about 100 degrees out? Yeah, we didn't do much more than that at the zoo because we were HOOOOOTTTTT!! But we had a good vacation and loved being together as a family every second of every day.