Thanksgiving in Nauvoo

My family planned a reunion in Nauvoo this last Thanksgiving.  I was excited to go to Nauvoo and be with my family but I was also anxious and nervous about the 18 hour drive and weather.  I looked up lots of ideas of how to keep the kids entertained in the car.  I made neck pillows which they were excited about at first but they didn't use them much after that.  I had a bucket of toys, a bucket of books, a bucket of gifts, a bucket of snacks and a case of DVD's.  We drove and decided to stop for lunch in Wall, South Dakota.  While we traveled I tried to contact a few of my siblings to see where they were on their drive.  I hadn't heard back from them.  While we were in Wall Drug we ran into my sister's family.  I could not believe it! It was pretty amazing.  We had lunch with them and followed them through the badlands.  We drove all the way to Omaha, Nebraska (getting there around midnight) because we wanted to go to the zoo the next day.  

We went to the Omaha Zoo with my sister's family and my brother and his wife came as well.  It was a fun mini reunion and the zoo was incredible.  It was pretty cold but there was a lot to see indoors.  We loved it. 

 

After we spent a while at the zoo we headed for Nauvoo.  We got there around 9:30.  

We stayed at the Hyrum Smith house with the rest of the family (minus one sibling and her family who couldn't make it).

The first day we checked out old Nauvoo and the Visitor's center.  It was really neat but I was worn out and Weston was all over the place.  I took him back to the house for a nap.

We celebrated three birthdays that week.  My dad turned 60! 

 On Thanksgiving we played games outside.  It was a lot of fun.  After we played a lot of games with the older kids we played duck duck goose with the little kids.  We had a thanksgiving dinner in the afternoon.

 The next morning Dane got a stomach bug so I went to carthage with the rest of the family while he stayed in bed.  I was feeling a little sick too.  When we got back from carthage we visited a foundation where one of our ancentors home once was.  We also stopped to take a picture of the temple.

That afternoon Dane said he was feeling well enough to go to the temple with the rest of the adults.  We went to do sealings for our family members. It was an incredible experience.  Unfortunately Dane and I started feeling lightheaded and sick again and had to leave early.  When we got back to the house the kids had locked themselves out of the house so we were glad we had to go back to the house so we could help the kids get inside.

It was so wonderful to be with family and visit Nauvoo and learn about our ancestors and the history of the church.  We had some wonderful conversations and moments together.

I was a little stressed about the drive home because Dane wasn't feeling well at all the night before we left.  I was so grateful when he felt better the next day.  We didn't even stop on the drive home and we were thrilled to be home even though we didn't get home until 2 in the morning.