Jensen's Bad Day

This is hilarious. Make sure your sound is on. It may take a while to download but it is so worth it.

Madison's Last Night

Kitchen Update

Day 2 in Nauvoo

On Tuesday, we went to all of the shows. All of the actors were peppy and perky. By the end of the week, we felt like they were our friends because we had seen them so much. When they weren't doing the shows, they were working in the houses around town. Among the shows we saw were; Just Plain Anna-Amanda, Highhopes and Riverboats and Rendevous in Old Nauvoo. When we were coming out of the Anna-Amanda show we were blessed by the presence of the Nauvoo Brass Band. All of the trombone players were girls, so we know where we are sending Jensen in a few summers. In between shows, we visited a few of the houses. The midwife's house. Glad I didn't have to birth my babies there.

Jensen helped make the string at the Family Living Center.

This rocking horse belonged to John Taylor's son. You will have to ask Roxanne Ingalls to tell you the story about it because I would mess it up.
This is in front of John Taylor's House. You might think that Parker took the picture because he is not in it. Not so, he was sitting in the car because he couldn't stand to look at one more house. It was a random act of kindness by a stranger that made this picture possible. I'm not sure what Madison and Jensen are doing. Madison porbably had to use the bathroom and Jensen is doing her impersenation of Michael Flately.

We also visited the Brickyard, Browning Home & Gunsmith Shop, Print Shop, Scovil Bakery, Webb Brothers' Blacksmith Shop and the Apothecary.

First Night in Nauvoo

Tired little children after three days on the road.

We took Janet with us on many of our adventures.

This is the well that Marty built. Some local businessmen commissioned

him to build a replica of the well that is in front of the Joseph Smith House.

He's not quite finished but I think it looks terrific.

The Nauvoo Temple at Night

The Joseph and Hyrum statue in front of the temple. This depicts their last ride out of Nauvoo.

We finally arrived in Nauvoo on Monday night about 8:30pm. We had just enough time to stroll downtown and take a gander at the temple. What an absolutely beautiful sight. I hope the people who live here do not start "not seeing" the temple because they see it so often. It was a wonderful sight to see first thing in the morning and the last thing at night. It is right smack dab in the middle of downtown.

Do The Hustle

Hannegan's








We stopped in St. Louis and had lunch at Hannegan’s Restaurant and Pub. They have delicious sandwiches. I felt like everyone knew our name. “Hannegan's is named for one of Missouri's leading New Deal politicians, St. Louis' "big boss" Robert E. Hannegan. Each table or booth displays a plaque inscribed with the name of a senator who voted to repeal Prohibition.”

We walked across the street to visit the arch. I tried to talk the kids into going up in it but had no takers. When we were leaving, Jensen said she would go but by then we didn’t want to spend the time or money. On the way out of the park, Lew and the kids were walking ahead taking pictures. Then I saw him…the hustler. He started running towards Lew. I thought, “Oh No!, we’re all going to die”. He told Lew that down by the lake there was a beautiful spot with the arch in the background that makes the perfect picture. He told Lew to follow him and he would show him. We followed the nice gentleman like sheep to a slaughter. He offered to take a picture of all of us. My next thought, of course, was there goes our camera. Madison said her battery was dead. Lew thought to give him a less expensive camera that we had with us. He took our picture and then asked for a couple of bucks. We obliged. My next thought was, “Thank you for not killing us.” I forgot to add that about a hundred feet from the picture spot was another shady character. My thought was, “Oh, no, there is his partner that is gonna help dispose of the bodies.” All in all he was a very nice hustler. I’ll have to get the pictures off of the other camera.

Things that make you go hmmm...

We would see miles and miles of corn fields and right in the middle would be a McDonalds sign. This was one of them.



This is a picuture that we found of Lew. We didn't realize he had a second job. He never vacuums our car.

It’s so hard to get caught up on blogging after getting behind on while on vacation. I’ll try to hit all of the highlights.

We left at 6:00pm on Saturday, July 12. We only made it as far as Tifton, Georgia. We laugh at ourselves because we just aren’t very good travelers. We have to make several pit stops because of irritable bowels and overactive bladders. I know that is probably more than you want to know about us, but hey, we’re all friends, right? I won’t tell you who has what, keep you guessing about some things.

The second night we made it to Clarksville, TN. We took, “The Last Train to Clarksville”, (The Monkees, 1966) after a stop at a book store to buy an atlas. Mapquest was driving us crazy, they don’t give enough details.