DAY 1 (Saturday) - We left on July 1st on a rainy day in NC. It cleared up by the time we got to Virginia, but the traffic was terrible! It looked like there was a wreck, but even after we passed that area, we would start going only to stop again. And again. Highway 77 in West Virginia and Virginia was just awful and I decided we were definitely NOT driving this way home again.
We got to Dayton, OH in okay time, considering. Our hotel was super sketchy. The area looked fine, but we pulled up and knew the hotel would be ... interesting. The kids loved the room because it was a huge suite room with a separate loft upstairs that all the older kids slept in and Noah slept downstairs with us. Outside, all the wood was completely disintegrating and there were holes everywhere - not sure how this place wasn't condemned. We had a kitchen and made up some spaghetti for dinner and the kids watched lots of TV and took baths and had a great time.
DAY 2 (Sunday) - We were woken up early by a black man banging on our door over and over. We finally called the front desk who apparently called the police and we saw several police cars as we went over to breakfast. The breakfast spread was good though the food seemed a little off, but the boys loved it and said it was our best hotel ever. Of course. Otherwise, a fine drive. We made the kids watch some church movies, which they weren't thrilled about, but didn't have time to stop for church. We did stop at Aldis in Illinois and picked up enough food to last us while we were in Nauvoo because there is little food there. The roads were mostly corn fields all day with an AMAZING number of bugs. Seriously, one slammed into our windshield more than every minute. Our car looked like a bug war zone.
We got to Carthage. Noah was not very interested in sitting still and it started out with a long talk and then a movie in which he was pretty restless and loud. Then, we toured the jail which everyone enjoyed more or less. I can only enjoy it so much when I spending the whole time making sure the kids aren't running into anyone or anything or touching anything and being quiet. Noah should have probably just skipped it. There were several missionaries there that had served their young missions in Japan and so they were eager to talk to Katsu. They said that our kids behaved well, except the little one. Ha ha. While we were at Carthage, we got an offer on our house, so the rest of the evening was spent trying to negotiate that. We went to the log cabin we were staying at for the next 3 days. I thought it was super cute and just the right size - it had a big full or queen bed and then bunkbeds and then a fold out futon all in one room. We brought plenty of food to microwave, so we could make do with a little microwave and fridge. We also could walk to the city park, so we spent some time there, too.
DAY 3 (Monday) - Logan and Seth spent a lot of time outside the cabin playing a little game they made up where they would throw stones along the stones on the path. I have no idea how it worked, but it kept them occupied. Once we were all ready, we got to the visitor center when it opened to get tickets. Then, we went on a carriage ride through the more wild part of town and listened to inspirational stories. Andrew really enjoyed it and got a lot of it, Seth was somewhat ambivalent, Logan fell asleep, and Noah did a pretty good job staying quiet. Next, we drove over to see the play, "Just Plain Anna Amanda". We all enjoyed it - they had some fun jokes and things to start out, which was good because Andrew was pretty hostile to seeing plays. But it was perfect for kids and a nice way to spend time without just seeing the historical houses the whole time. Then, we had just enough time to go on the Wagon Ride around Nauvoo which we all enjoyed. Finally, time for lunch - we had lunchables and go to listen to the band perform as it drove y. We went to the bakery and enjoyed a cookie and then to the Living Center where the boys had some bread and made rope. For the most part, it wasn't too crowded and the missionaries were pretty good about making a condensed version of the story. Sometime during the day, we learned the the offer was not going to go through as the couple found out they had cancer, so that was kind of a big bummer.
Next, we went to the brickyard. Noah had a really hard time sitting still through the presentation, but we got our brick. Then, we went to go to see another play, "The Promise" at the visitors' center. Noah left to go the bathroom about halfway through and I didn't want to have to bring him back in, so he and I walked through the womens' garden and took pictures with all of the statues. We went back to the cabin to have dinner. Katsu had a migraine, so I took the kids to the park, only to rush home because somehow Seth got bug spray in his eye. Then, we left to go start watching the show "Sunset at the Mississippi" without Katsu. Almost as soon as we got there, Seth started having a horrible headache and Noah feel asleep, so I gave up and we just went back to the rental.
DAY 4 (Tuesday) - We wake up early every day so we decided to make the best of it and went and walked the trail of hope. The kids did well - we took turns reading the signs (of course, this caused occasionally arguments), but we got to see the Memorial and find some of our ancestors names and then spent a lot of time skipping rocks across the Mississippi. Seth started getting pretty good. Noah just threw rocks straight in. We walked back to where we parked and saw the Seventies Hall. The boys enjoyed playing I Spy upstairs and seeing our ancestors name on the list of the seventies. Next, we went to the blacksmith / wainwright. The boys LOVED the rings. I think we might even still have one or two of those left. Then, we went and toured Brigham Young's house. My favorite part was when we were asking what BYU stood for. Andrew said the U was for university and the Y must stand for Yale. We all had a good laugh about that one.
Noah had to go to the bathroom so I ran him over and the rest of the family sat down to watch the Youth of Zion perform. They were quite good and we stayed for the whole performance and then to listen to them sing all kind of songs after that - seriously, one from Frozen and one from Moana and one about PB and Jelly. Next,w e went to the gunsmith. We visited John Taylors house and then the printing shop and post office. By this point everyone was tired of seeing historical houses (well, except Andrew), so we went back to our cabin and made up some lunch. Noah ended up falling asleep so Katsu and Noah stayed at the cabin and we went up to rush and try the Oxen Ride before it closed for the day. It was short, but fun and informative (I didn't realize that oxen just meant any kind of cow that is trained to pull). We went and saw Lucy Mack Smith's house and the apothecary and school. The kids enjoyed the school part, but all of them didn't care too much about the other houses. We went back to the cabin and picked up Noah and Katsu.
We went to go and see the Community of Christ sites of Joseph Smith. We saw the grave. We didn't want to tour the houses because we were all toured out, but we saw the outside and then went into the red brick store. Noah threw a massive fit (who knows what about) so he and I sat outside while the boys bought candy and a postcard. We then spent a lot of time back at Pioneer Pasttimes playing with all the toys. Andrew and I went to see more houses because he wanted to see all of them. We went back to the cabin, checked out a small but intensely full museum at the log cabin rental place and then had some dinner. Then, we headed back to see the senior missionaries perform in the show "Nauvoo Rendeveaux" which was surprisingly good. The boys took lots of bathroom breaks and I was pretty embarrassed with how often we were in and out of there, but oh, well. Then, we went home and watched fireworks on TV. By then, I think I was getting a little worn out of the tight quarters and ready to move on.
We mostly took pictures on our camera, but these are the few from my phone.
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