Nauvoo Part I

Several years ago when we found out we were coming to Iowa for graduate school, my parents always planned on visiting us in Iowa for two reasons: #1 for Nathan's graduation, and #2 to visit church history sites.  While my parents were visiting we all spent 2 days in Nauvoo, and then they went down to Independence, MO by themselves and visited some church history sites down there while Nathan, Hannah and I stayed here to play some catch up.

Hannah loved playing with my Dad.  She really enjoyed being tickled and teased.  She eventually got comfortable enough with him to sit on his lap.

One of the first things we did in Nauvoo was to get some information from the Lands and Records office. My Mom and I have done a lot of work in researching our ancestors that lived in Nauvoo, and we have seen the plots of land where they lived during those pioneer times.  But we wanted to give my Dad and Nathan and opportunity to do a little bit of research on their ancestors who lived in Nauvoo.  After mapping out where some of the ancestors lived, we drove to those locations.  (I realized that for many of our viewers this first part may be boring, but I know that Nathan's family will appreciate this which is why I am blogging about it).

One of my Dad's ancestors, Robert Harris, lived on this plot of land.

We think Abraham O. Smoot lived here on this corner lot.  I love how he had a view of the temple from his home.

A.O. Smoot also owned where this field is today.

This is the third plot of land that they have record of A. O. Smoot owning.  There wasn't a road to it, but it would have been around the area or just to the right of the silos that Nathan is pointing to.

Horace Eldredge owned this land where these water drums now are.

Horace Eldredge also owned (and we think lived) on this corner lot where the George C. Riser Boot shop now stands.

We learned of one more ancestor of Nathan's, Stephen Shelton owned some land in Nauvoo as well, but there are no longer roads to the area that would have been his property - alas, no picture.

After eating some lunch we decided to take the Community of Christ's tour so that my parents could see where Joseph Smith lived (by the way, you can't take pictures inside those homes), and also tour the Red Brick Store where the Relief Society was organized.

I love this 3 generation shot--2 current members of the Relief Society, and one future member in about 17 years.

We also visited the Seventies Hall and the old Nauvoo burial grounds where many of our ancestors are buried.

I love this stone arch bridge.  I think it's so pretty.

After checking into our vacation condo we ate a hearty dinner, and then Nathan and I headed to the temple while my parents watched Hannah.

Last Day in California

The first part of our day was spent getting me a replacement i-phone for me because my old one got submerged under water.  Ugh!  It was awful.  But at least we got to go to the mall and look around so it wasn't a total loss.  When we got back Hannah took a nap, Nathan and I packed our suitcases, got a few things ready for our trip back home, and then spent the rest of the day with family (David and Jennifer--I am so sorry I don't have any photos from the time we spent together on our last day.  I honestly thought I took some when Hannah was playing on the couch while we watched Josh's movie of his school play).

One thing that Hannah LOVED to do was be chased/tickled by my dad.  I hope Grandpa had as much fun with Hannah as she did with him.  Just look at her excited, yet skeptical faces she makes as he is chasing her.

Petting Da-Fuzz and a trip to the Newport Beach Temple

Hannah LOVES animals--especially cats and dogs.  She is intrigued by them and wants to interact with them very much.  My parents have a cat that we call "Da-Fuzz."  She is a really sweet cat and tolerates being pet by children, which is not the norm.  Of course Hannah was in heaven and enjoyed Da-Fuzz, though I don't think Da-Fuzz enjoyed Hannah as much.

One of the things that I wanted to do while we were visiting California was to go to the Newport Beach Temple, and I wanted to go on May 1st.  The main reason why I really wanted to go on May 1st is because that marked the anniversary of Nathan proposing to me (we got engaged on the temple grounds that were then under construction).  We had planned on going to the temple that night while my parents watched Hannah, but unfortunately I got the stomach flu that day (yuck) and was in no condition to go.  So, we ended up going a few days later with Hannah and having a Cafe Rio picnic lunch (yum) on the temple grounds.

This is what the temple looked liked when we got engaged 8 years ago.

And this is what it looks like now!  We think this is roughly the spot where the proposal happened.

And here are a few more shots I took of the temple that day.  The weather in the early part of the day was chilly so I had Hannah wear a sweater, but that afternoon it got really hot and I had to take off her sweater.

Construction photo of the Newport Beach Temple courtesy of caltriplecrown.com

Playing with cousins

I don't know why, or how this happened, but I only took two shots of Hannah playing with her cousins.  GRRRR!!!  I swear I thought I took more.  I may have took some on my phone, which means that I lost them when I had to get my phone replaced. Oh well, at least I got two pictures instead of zero.

Here is Hannah playing with her cousins.  Josh and Sarah were so excited to play with Hannah, and they kept her thoroughly entertained (for which I was grateful).  It was fun to watch them interact.  I just wish that we lived closer together so that we could have play dates more often.

Sunday dinner, beauty pirates, and Itsy Bitsy Spider

On Sunday, we had a big dinner with some of my family members at my aunt and uncle's house.  It was really nice to visit with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends that we haven't seen in a long time.

Hannah enjoyed the new toys, as long as Nathan and I were around to watch her.  She was too nervous with all of the new faces.

Of course, we had to take a family shot with my grandparents.  They are just the best!

The true entertainment was to watch Turbo, a caique bird, play with on favorite toy--the vacuum.  He LOVES the vacuum and it is so fun to watch him cling to it with glee.

And we got to do "beauty pirates."  This phrase goes way back from when I was a little girl.  We used to take my Grandma's play jewelry and get all dolled up when we were kids.  But these days it is very different.  When my Aunt Nancy purchases make up throughout the year, she will occasionally get the free gifts with it.  She takes out the make up that she wants/uses, and then sets aside the make up that she doesn't want for her nieces.  Then, once a year she lets the girls take turns and choose the make up supplies they want.

I love beauty pirates because this is how I get stocked up on my mascara!  Over the past 6 years I have missed out on so much of it.  So when I get to participate I love it all the more.

After the family dinner, we headed home and got Hannah ready for bed.  She enjoyed playing hide-n-seek, and singing one of her favorite songs "Itsy Bitsy Spider."

San Diego

One of the main reasons we went down to California was so that Nathan could present at a conference in San Diego.  We figured that with the University reimbursing for some of the expenses, and with my parents living about 1.5 hours north of San Diego, we would take advantage of that and turn it into a family vacation.


Hannah and I could not attend the conference and watch Nathan present.  The last thing the officials want is a toddler running around during a presentation pushing all of the buttons on electronic devices.  So while Nathan was at his conference, Hannah and I walked around downtown San Diego for about an hour and enjoyed the sites.

We went to the harbor and saw a few aircraft carriers (from a distance), we gave a few dollars to a homeless person whose shoes were in bad repair, and then we headed back up to the hotel so that she and I could take a nap (which we both desperately needed).

When the conference was over, my mom came and picked us up in San Diego and then we met my sister Katherine for lunch at California Pizza Kitchen.  The restaurant is right across the street from the San Diego Temple so we couldn't help but take some pictures.  I also took some pictures on my i-phone of us eating lunch together, but I unfortunately lost all of those photos when my i-phone got submerged in water during our trip (it's a long story).  This picture however, we took on our camera.  I love this temple.  It is so pretty. I love San Diego and I hope that one day we could live there.

The update

We have been back from our trip for 5 days and it has been a busy week.  I was finally able to sit down at my computer for about 4 hours tonight and catch up on our finances, pictures, emails, etc.

As it is getting late I don't have much time and brain energy to blog about our trip, so I thought I would post our latest news.

We have accepted an offer from Penn State and will be moving sometime this summer (our starting date is still up in the air).  Penn State is in Pennsylvania (obviously) and it is right smack in the middle of the state.

I know what some of you may be thinking and yes I am planning visiting the Hershey Chocolate Factory in Pennsylvania as it would be about 2 hours away from where will live. I imagine that we will also visit Gettysburg, and Philadelphia as well as those places have a lot to do with America History, which we love.

That is the current and exciting news in our family.

Penn State picture courtesy of Google images