Snow Visit and Nauvoo Trip

Matt's parents came to visit us in Chicago to see his graduation. It was a glorious reunion for Josh and his Grandpa, who hadn't seen each other in six whole months. 

Murray finally got to meet little Jude! They got comfortable together pretty quickly.

And Cheri was in Grandma Heaven again right away.

The day after graduation, we headed down to Nauvoo, IL to see some church history sites. When we got to the hotel, Grandma broke out a brand new deck of Go Fish cards and taught Josh how to play. She always finds the right toys to keep him entertained for hours!

Jude is getting so big!

So here's a little history for those of you who have never heard of Nauvo:

Nauvoo is a city by the Mississippi River where the early Mormons settled to escape religious persecution in Missouri in1839. They drained the swampland there and developed a city that, by 1844, had grown large enough to rival the size of Chicago at the time. It was led by the prophet Joseph Smith, who had translated the Book of Mormon from its original plates and restored the fullness of Christ's gospel to the earth. He was the head of the Church and also the Mayor of Nauvoo. The Mormons eventually left Nauvoo due to upset locals who were threatened by their growing political power, theocratic government, and religious differences, but not before they built a beautiful city and experienced six years of prosperity.

One of our first stops in Nauvoo was the brick yard, where we learned how they used to make bricks. They gave us two to take home as souvenirs, and Josh did not let those babies out of his hands for the rest of the trip.

At the blacksmith shop they gave us all "prarie diamonds", which are rings made out of bent nails, and they made Josh a mini horseshoe. He was loving all the little treasures he got at each stop!

We were able to do a session in the recently rebuilt Nauvoo temple. (The original building was burned down in the late 1800s.) It was so beautiful inside and out! It was such a neat experience to be doing the same thing in the same spot as our ancestors did so many generations ago!

The Smith Family Cemetery was a really cool part of the town for me. Just seeing all the places that the Smith family lived and worked made the history of the church seem so much more real. It gave me new appreciation for their enormous sacrifices.

We drove over to Carthage the next day, where Joseph and Hyrum Smith were killed at the jail. This was my favorite place to visit. The Spirit feels so strong there. Again, it just made all the stories I've heard about the prophet and his family really come to life. That window to the left is the one Joseph tried to escape from when the mob came, and the one he was shot down from. 

The door to the room still has bullet holes from when Hyrum was shot in the head through the door.

Here's the top window from the outside of the jail. The building was obviously built to be very strong, so it still has the original stone, floors, and even some of the same windows.

It was a great testimony building trip. If anyone has the chance to go, definitely take it! 

Moving on with the Snow parents' visit...

After seeing the church history sites, we drove over to Springfield to see the Abraham Lincoln Museum and some of his historic stomping grounds. It was really cool to learn more about his life. Matt's dad is an expert on everything about LDS history and Abraham Lincoln, so we had our own personal tour guide everywhere we went. He actually informed the real tour guides of details they didn't know about and expanded on their little rehearsed shpeals. It was a wonderful trip spent learning about some great men who had a huge influence in making America what it is today.

This scene was on display at the museum, showing how the selling of slaves would split up families. It was a very emotional piece for me. 

And here is Josh building with "Lincoln Logs" in the kids area.

When we got back to Chicago, we had a few days to finish showing Matt's parents the beautiful city we live in. We took them on and architectural boat tour along the Chicago river, which was the coolest thing I've done in that city! I can't believe we waited until our last week there to do it! We learned all kinds of things about Chicago that would've been nice to share with all our visitors over the last two years.

After the tour we headed over the Chicago Tribune building, which has pieces of a bunch of famous historic buildings from all over the world in its exterior walls (like the Berlin Wall, the White House, The Great Pyramid). Then we walked over the "The Bean" and Crown Fountain so Josh could play in the water with some friends.

Here's Carina in action, taking some of her amazing photos which you've seen in at least half of my posts over the last two years.

It was a very lovely week -- one of those busy vacations where you need another whole vacation just to rest from the last one! And that's exactly what we did the next two weeks. More on that later!