my brother's family.

We were so excited to get to go to Missouri to see my brother, his wife, and their little girl.  The kids totally couldn't wait to see their little cousin, Sabine.  I think she got a pretty good mauling from Emma who is ever the protector.  She loves to mother anyone younger than herself. 

I think poor Lily, their dog, also got mauled 1/2 to death.  She was a great sport about it though.  She let the kids smother her with kisses, hugs, and love.

love. LIFE.

Nauvoo fun.

We got up the next morning in Nauvoo and went around to all of the old and restored homes in the original Nauvoo. The kids loved going to see how they made bricks over 150 years ago and then getting to pick out a brick that was made in the same process. Everyone also got a praire diamond. A praire diamond is really a horseshoe nail bent into a circle to make a ring. As young men and women became engaged but didn’t have rings on the trail from Nauvoo to Salt Lake they realized that a horseshoe nail looked a lot like a big diamond…

The Saints lived in Nauvoo for seven years turning a swamp into a beautiful city full of growth, happiness, and good. The time there ended with the people of Illinios forcing the Saints from Illinios. Similar things happened in the state of Missouri seven years earlier where the governor of the state issued an order saying that anyone who saw a Mormon could shoot them on sight. So interesting for a land that was founded on the premise of religious freedom. The Saints were persecuted endlessly and had to cross the plains during a terrible time of year leaving Nauvoo to head west. After the Saints left their beautiful city the temple that they had built with their own hands was burned to the ground by mobs.

We also visited Carthage, Illinois. Eighteen months before the Saints left Nauvoo Joseph Smith was killed by similar mobs because of his testimony of Jesus Christ.

It was so fun for the kids to see what school was like for the pionner children in Nauvoo, a candy store, a post office, a printing shop (where they printed the newspaper…ohmiheck! What a tedious job. And you better hope you don’t trip once all of that work is done!), and the beds they slept in. Emmett kept commenting on how small and steep all of the stairs were. Emma loved a lamp with crystals hanging from it, and the girls all bought bonnets so they could look like pioneer girls and Emmett got a straw hat that pionner boys used to wear.

Nauvoo is a wonderful place. We’ve had such a great trip being able to visit all of these places full of history and miracles.

fun. LIFE.

Over ½ way.

When we arrived in Nauvoo we were so glad to pull in to town and get into our vintage hotel. It meant we were over ½ way through our trip. Yay!

We quickly went to dinner and while we were there realized that Miriam wasn’t feeling well. She had a headache and a fever. She didn’t want to eat (which is definitely a tip off for us that something wasn’t right) and she was just really lethargic. We got her an advil and hoped that it would help her.

That night in Nauvoo there was a pagent about the history of Nauvoo and Joseph Smith. Before the pagent there was a field filled with pioneer activities like sawing a log, branding, quilting, dancing, ducks and geese game, and the cast walking around meeting and talking to everyone. It was really fun for the kids. The pagent has about 175 people in it…150 of them are volunteers that come for 2 week intervals through out the summer. There is a core cast that stays all summer long and Matt Dickamore and his brother, Jeff, were Joseph and his brother, Hyrum. Matt and Jeff are very gifted in so many ways but even more than that they are genuinely good people. They care about others and their faith in Christ is strong and it’s evident in the way they are so gracious and kind to people around them. If you get the chance this summer I really recommend going to Nauvoo and seeing the Nauvoo Pagent.

We got to go to the Nauvoo Temple Open House when Emmett was about 5 years old and Miriam and Emma were about 18 months. After over 150 years the Nauvoo temple was rebuilt after being burned to the ground by mobs that forced the saints from Illinois. The inside of the temple is so beautiful and there is such a sweet spirit there. Every detail was so perfect. The furniture, the mouldings, the architecture is so reminiscent of the time when the temple was originally built. It was really a gift to get to be there in Nauvoo…

sweet. LIFE.

By the seat of our pants.

**totally not sure why these pictures look pixelated...anyone know?  they look great on my computer but not when I upload them, I'm doing the exact same thing with them as usual...hmmm....**

We knew we were going to see Mount Rushmore. That was the plan. The Badlands…not in the plan. Staying at Mount Rushmore for most of the day…not in the plan. Getting out of Gillette around 11:30am…not in the plan.

So today pretty much 95% of our day did not go according to plan. We were mostly just spontaneous about the whole day. Once we realized the plan was pretty well shot we just kept doing whatever we wanted. We ate in Keystone at the DQ after being in awe over Mount Rushmore.

If you haven’t been to Mount Rushmore it will amaze you. When we saw it I was completely taken with the enormity of the project, how people carved those faces, and who it was that came up with and executed the idea. I couldn’t figure out how they knew where to start carving and creating in that mountainside. Curiosity got the better of us and we had to go to the artist’s studio that was almost 250 stairs away. We had heard that there was a presentation at 3:30 but knew that we wouldn’t be around by the time that happened; we just wanted to see the space. Well…we looked around and asked questions and looked at books about the artist and Mount Rushmore…until the presentation at 3:30. We still hadn’t eaten any lunch and we stayed.

Miriam got to be the helper when the park ranger talked about how they decided to start the carving. Ninety five percent of the work was done with dynamite. The other 5% was all carving and chiseling and jack hammering. The workers were suspended from the top over the face of the mountain. The amazing thing was that not one of the people that worked on the sculpture was killed. It was very inspiring to hear how the artist came up with the idea and the bravery and skill of the 400 people who worked on the project.

After getting on the road we were about to pass the Badlands…and at the last second we took the road out to the National Park. The Badlands are amazing…all of these places are! On one side the land is just rolling along and then out of nowhere and for seemingly no reason all of these hills and valleys and canyons are just there. There is grass just waving in the wind (that’s beautiful, too…the way the grass blows like it’s waves in the ocean…I love it.) and then there are these crazy Badlands. Mike and Emmett freaked all of us girls out by walking out on this precipice with a drop on three sides. I couldn’t watch. I had to walk away while Miriam yelled for them to come back. (I remember first realizing I was afraid of heights when I was pregnant with Emmett. Mike went out on this ledge at the Grand Canyon. I remember telling him, “Don’t you make me a widow with this baby on the way! Get away from that edge right now. You are totally freaking me out!”….is that a mom thing….to start worrying like that?)

The Badlands were freezing with that wind blowing. It’s the middle of July and Gracie was wrapped up in a blanket!

**The picture of Gracie laughing is because she couldn’t stop laughing after I totally biffed it on a stair and fell all over the place but kept my camera up in the air to make sure that it didn’t get hurt. I got hurt and I’ve got a couple of bruises on my bahookie (Emma’s word) to prove it. I couldn’t stop laughing either. I’m terrible about laughing when I fall or anyone else falls. It just keeps replaying in my head and it makes me laugh every time I think about it. Falling is so funny. Once I walked into a window at the college I was going to and shattered the whole thing (that’s a story for another time) …I still laugh every time I think about it.

Anyway. It was a great day of unplanned stuff.

spontaneous. LIFE.

yellowstone.

After leaving Hooper on Wednesday night we drove straight to west Yellowstone and arrived at 2:30am where we all fell into bed for five short hours of sleep after a very long and intense day.

Thursday morning we piled back into the car and headed out to see the paint pots and Old Faithful in Yellowstone. Shelby, our neighbor gave the kids travel journals When Gracie got out of the car at the paint pots she decided to write in her travel journal. She drew a picture of the fountain paint pot with it’s bubbles and wrote in her travel journal (and then asked me to translate) “Gracie loves this white place.”

The paint pots are just incredible. It’s hard to believe unless you see it. The earth just bubbles up. In some places it bubbles up mud and in some places it bubbles up and creates these gorgeous colors. The blues are my favorite. I don’t know if any one remembers Calvin and Hobbes cartoon strip by Bill Watterson but I remember loving it and looking forward to reading it every day in the paper. Now, my son, Emmett reads all of the books tht we bought back in the 90s. He loves them and laughs at Calvin’s lunacy. When we stood looking at that bubbling Fountain Paint Pot Emmet said, “This looks like a planet Calvin would dream up.” And at that very moment both Mike and I were thinking the very same thing. Funny.

We arrived at Old Faithful to find out we had just missed the geyser irrupting by about 10 mintues. The next explosion wouldn’t be for another 90 minutes or so. We decided that we were all getting a little hungry so we trailed over to the café for a bite to eat. I would NOT recommend eating there if you want something that tastes good, has good service, and has what’s on the menu actually in stock (our first choice of everything we ordered they were out of). There is another place to eat there besides the café…not sure if it’s any better or not. I did see people walking around with ice cream that looked really good, though…I would recommend filling your cooler before going through the park or planning to eat when you are in west Yellowstone. Another thing we hadn’t realized is that west Yellowstone is where all of the hotels are located. If you’re planning to stay somewhere on the east side of Yellowstone the closest place is Cody, Wyoming (and although it IS the rodeo capital of the world it didn’t look like it had a wide variety of places to stay).

We sat waiting for Old Faithful while everyone around us wondering if it really would ever go off. About 10 minutes after it predicted geysering time it exploded into the air…it really is a complete wonder the way the earth is so different in so many places of the world. How one location can have these amazing paint pots and be so hot that no one could even live near them and have a geyser that erupts every 90 minutes or so and then be surrounded by this gorgeous lake and trees and mountains and be so peaceful. In one place it seems like the earth is just rumbling and gurgling and busy. In another it’s quiet and beautiful and relaxing.

This earth and this country are so beautiful and open and wild. There are so many places that no one lives that are untamed country.

I’m not sure if Emma saw the geyser or the paint pots; she did see every flower along the way and kept asking me to take a picture of all of them. Emma is really good at being in the moment of loving whatever she is doing. When she started spinning around and singing about ‘feeling the wonderful wind’ in the middle of the trail and a bunch of people around her it was a perfect moment of who Emma is…oblivious to anything but the wonder of the moment that is right now.

Since I am Gracie’s parent of choice these days (and pretty much since the day she was born) I’m the only one that can hold her hand J . That being the case, I get a lot of cute pictures of the back of everyone else that’s in front of the two of us…

adventure. LIFE.