Sunday Aug 3

We started the day off with sacrament meeting. US and all the Mormons in Nauvoo. The place was packed. the chapel was filled and the cultural hall and the relief society and primary rooms all had the meeting piped in too. It was a well oiled machine!

 After church and lunch at the house we headed back down to Old Nauvoo. We went to the bakery, the drug store, the post office and the cultural hall.

Waiting for our bakery tour

The 2nd floor of the cultural hall was full of quilts and artifacts

The 3rd floor of the cultural hall where it is believed Joseph Smith danced with Emma.

Water break for the boys

 

We found the Beard's from our ward at the printing press. They tried to arrange for wagon rides for all of us but there were just too many of us!

John Taylor's home.

 We all did the brick yard and a few more places and then we headed over to the Joseph Smith properties for the tour.

View of the Mississippi from the site of the original Joseph Smith cabin.

Some cute couple posing in front of Joseph Smith's mansion!

 That's the cultural hall in the background but I loved this old wagon just sitting there.

Coop & Coop

Rees

 Our kids all agreed the thing they liked the best the whole day or maybe even the whole time was the bike ride. They had an hour and raced all over every single road in Old Nauvoo. They went up and down the hill to our house to show us how much fun they were having. They did indeed have a blast.

 It was a great day. We had a yummy family dinner that night out at the pavilion.

 Dinner was a story in itself. While we were outside eating our yummy dinner of country ribs a random boy named Justin wandered over and started helping himself to dinner. He was having trouble dishing up so Nadine  helped him thinking the whole time why wasn't Ashley helping Gabe? She didn't realize until later that he wasn't Gabe at all. He just made himself at home. It was quite hilarious. His dad and the men in his family saw him but just ignored the situation. Wow. We will laugh about Justin for years now I think!

After dinner we grabbed some kids and went out to find some lightning bugs  (fireflies) for the grandkids. We didn't find many though darn it.

Love these two!

 

skippin rocks

Hayden and Megan down at the Mississippi.

Later that night back at the house we played some games and did some more visiting before everyone left. We handed out the prizes for the games we played too. Ashley's car won the scavenger hunt with Jeff & Rachel  coming in second and G&G Davy taking third. Well at least we didn't come in last!!
Ashley won the baby picture game too with Nadine and Christina right behind her.

Saturday Aug 2 continued

 We saw lots of sites in Old Nauvoo then we all headed back to the house. The kids gathered for a rambunctious game of spoons and fun.

 I had gathered a baby picture of every single person there so when we had time we could check them out and guess who everyone was. It was surprisingly hard. Beth getting a closer look at them.

Lots of picture pennants ready for the guessing game.

 After a yummy spaghetti, salad and garlic bread dinner most of us headed back down to Old Nauvoo for the pageant. They had a street fair of sorts organized by it for at least an hour before the pageant started.

Rees with Grandpa

 I think the stilts might have been the favorite thing of the night to be honest. The pageant was good but everyone loved getting some fun and games in too.

Hayden & Megan try it out.

 We had a brief scare right before the pageant Nadine realized that Carter was gone so I helped Will and her look for him. Luckily they found him an all was well.

The Nauvoo Pageant

We all fell into bed exhausted after the long day.

Saturday August 2 -The PROPOSAL!

So Megan was busy getting pictures of the kids and their rings and Hayden got one for her too. He gave her the prairie diamond and said wait he had another one for her. Pretty cute.

We got a couple of videos and lots of pictures. But you can never have too many right!

Gotta have one with Coop!

 So fun! We were all glad to have that finished I think because it was all a little stressful. I was so relived that she liked the ring because I was so stressed out about that. If not I totally don't want to know lol. I wish her family could have been there. It was really the perfect place to do it! I am pretty sure he caught her totally off guard or she is a great actress.

 SO now I have all my girls! I am so excited. They really are the best women ever! They are all beautiful, strong women and we just love each one of them. I love that they all get along so well and enjoy each other. I know each one of them will make great wives and mothers. And lets not forget the fun personalities: