Nauvoo in July

Back in July my friend Robyn emailed us to see if we wanted to go to Nauvoo with them and watch the Nauvoo Pageant.  Paul just happened to have that weekend off so we decided to go.  The drive to Iowa City is between 1 1/2 and 2 hours.  But we stopped at the outlets on the way there to do a little school shopping for Leila.  We made it to the Larson's home just before dinner.  Robyn of course was the perfect hostess.  She had dinner all planned and ready to go and it was delicious too.  The kids had a blast together and it was so fun to just hang out and talk all evening. 

Leila, Abby, Greydon and Eliza laughed and played all through dinner.

After dinner they played in the pool and enjoyed the warm weather.

Robyn was seriously the  best, she had our room and bed all set up.  All of our kids ended up wanting to sleep in our room, which was fine except for some reason Asher did not sleep well, he was up most of the night which meant none of us got much sleep.  In the morning Robyn planned a delicious waffle breakfast and then the kids played in the basement, painted and we went on a walk to the pond near their house. 

 

After lunch we drove to Nauvoo and all the kids napped in the car on our way there.  Chris and Robyn did a quick session at the temple while we watched the kids.

 

We toured the bakery and then went to the Family Living Center where we learned how to make bread, rope and wool

 We checked out the Mississippi River and let the kids throw rocks in the water.

 Next we played at the Frontier Fair.  There were so many fun pioneer games for the entire family to enjoy.  Our entire family minus Asher raced in potato sacks, pretty sure Paul won but I wasn't far behind. 

The kids watched a puppet show and got puppets of their very own

And the men pulled us in handcarts

And finally what we came for the Pageant.   It was so good, I thoroughly enjoyed it and all the kids did really well.  Leila crashed out by the end and Greydon really wanted to fall asleep but just couldn't get comfortable in the chairs.  The drive home was long and very late,  although I don't remember much of it since I was asleep so I owe a big thanks to Paul for driving the entire thing plus letting me sleep instead of keeping him company.  It was a quick trip but totally worth it.