Thanksgiving and Nauvoo!

Okay, so I’m way late on the happy thanksgiving and the gratitude-ness, but better late than never, right? and it’s still November…so…there. :)
I also didn’t want to burden you all with the knowledge that John was really sick on thanksgiving. yes. it was so sad. THANKFULLY, it was not MRSA. But the food in his insides…well, they wanted to be on his outsides…’nuff said. So at John’s insistence, I went by myself to my aunt Michelle’s for turkey dinner. I felt really bad, but I’m glad I went, because I found out Michelle had only cooked a turkey because we were coming. Otherwise…well, she doesn’t know what they would have had for dinner. Besides, who would want to miss out on this?
(Michelle has requested that when I have my own show on the food network, she would like to guest star as “the crazy aunt”. ;) I think we have an opening…)
So I had yummy food with Michelle and Mark and my crazy cousins and we packed up a nice (LARGE) tupperware of leftovers for John to eat once he was feeling better :)
So some of you know that we were planning on going to Nauvoo with the youth at Church for this weekend after Thanksgiving. With John being sick, we weren’t quite sure what we were going to do, because John was one of only two leaders for the boys. It was already a day before departure, so asking someone else to go would be SUPER last minute. Well, John managed to find two guys in our ward who could come and give him a priesthood blessing and he felt fine Friday morning and we were able to go on the trip. So we are SO grateful for the priesthood and willing ward members who came to give him a blessing!!!
We had a great time in Nauvoo. It had been 5 or 6 years since I’d been and about 10 since John had been, so it was really fun to see everything again, and the Temple hadn’t even been finished when John was there last!! We drove down Friday morning and got there in time to meet everyone else down there so the youth could do baptisms. It. was. freezing. cold!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh, and before I forget, we stopped at a walgreens on the way and I found the COOLEST japanese erasers at the checkout line!!! … and I wanted to show you… ;)


LOVE IT!!! I think the light bulb is a favorite. But I digress. Isn’t the temple just beautiful?? He’s freezing. Can you tell? 
Do you LOVE my earmuffs?! I just got them last week!! Now my ears stay toasty warm :) 
Once we were done with baptisms, we headed over to the lodge we stayed at for those two nights. There ended up being a double booking so we stayed in the basement that first night because there was a family of 9+ on the main floor. They left the next day, so we had the whole place to ourselves the second night. It was HUGE. So that first night we played some group games and the other family got in on it and we had a GINORMOUS group for “Do you love your neighbor?”!!! So fun. We all stayed up WAY too late and finally crashed sometime after midnight.

Saturday we saw the sites. We started off with a video at the visitors center, then found out we were just in time to go on a carriage ride. Also FREEZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I tried to get other people to look at me for pictures…but it didn’t really work. I actually don’t think they could hear me over the wind… 
  After the ride we drove around and saw the blacksmith’s the seventies hall, the bakery, the gunsmith, the brick yard, the print shop, the post office, the cultural hall…and probably others…I just can’t remember now…
   John has decided he wants a collection like this…  After lunch we went and got FUDGE. Peanut Butter for me, and Rocky Road for John!
Nom nom nom…
After fudge, we had some free time and we split off into groups and went around town. We stopped at a fabric shop (my idea – some of those fabrics were SO CUTE!!!!!!!!!) and I about jumped out of my skin when I rounded a corner and saw this guy:
So John wanted a picture with him. Creepy? Yes. Why is he in an adorable fabric shop? Haven’t a clue.
That night was pretty low key, we had dinner and played some more games, but after a little while, we were all ready for bed. We got up early this morning for 8am sacrament meeting and then we all headed home. John and I stopped by Carthage Jail, but when we got there, it didn’t open for at least another hour and a half. So we just walked around and took some pictures before we left.

It was certainly a reminder to me of how grateful I am for the many, many sacrifices that Joseph Smith made so that we could have the knowledge of Jesus Christ and his atonement, of families that can be together forever, and of the love of our Heavenly Father for each one of us.

And now were are finally home!! After driving 4 1/2 hours through Nowhere, Illinois, we were pretty happy to get home :)
Happy Thanksgiving!!