4th of July weekend and Anniversary

We know you wish you were with us to celebrate our anniversary and the 4^th of July, but since none of you were, here is the rundown of all the fun:

            -No rest areas in Minnesota because of the government shut down

            -Ben’s awesome soundtrack for our trip

            -Frank Lloyd Wright house Cedar Rock

            -Small midwest towns and cornfields galore

            -Endowment session, sealings, and private tour of Nauvoo temple

            -Sunset on the Mississippi

            -Hot and steamy weather

            -Cheap hotel neither of us felt safe in

            -Refund and a nicer hotel J

            -Carriage and Wagon rides of Nauvoo and the country side

-Nauvoo sites: the Monument to Women garden (or whatever it’s called), the visitor’s center, Seventies Hall, Family Living Center, Scovil Bakery, Browning Gun Shop, The Joseph Smith home, grave, and Mansion House, Parley Street and Trail of Hope, the blacksmith’s shop, Sarah Granger Kimball Home

-Dinner at Hotel Nauvoo and the Fudge Factory

-Vocal Point Concert

-Church with a whole bunch of other visitors!

-A walk around the Nauvoo temple

-Carthage Jail Tour

-Anniversary dinner (in the hotel because it was Sunday, but it was still yummy) and presents

            -Pioneer wagons

            -Our Story Goes On show by the main characters of the Nauvoo Pageant

-Silvia turning 70,000 miles! She still has at least 100,000 to catch Jimmy so she better keep on going and going and going

           -SPAM MUSEUM! We saw the great wall of Spam, what is in Spam, history of Spam, we practiced 

           canning spam (I did 6 in the time the factory can make 530 cans), all the varieties of Spam, a whole 

           store of Hormel products

Luckily Emily and Preston let us come over and spend the evening of the 4^th with them and my parents and Janet.  We enjoyed a Capitol 4^th (a Scoresby tradition) and a few fireworks from their balcony.

It was a great trip!  I loved being back in the mid-midwest states where there are not pine trees everywhere and cornfields for miles on end.  It had been about 10 years since I had last been in Nauvoo and been to the historic sites and some things had changed, but the feeling and spirit there will never leave.  I’m always reminded of how much of a sacrifice the saints made and their faith and courage in leaving their homes they had worked so hard to build.

Ben said that it all felt much more real seeing Nauvoo in person and being where the early church members had been.  He loved the Seventies Hall!  Being able to experience Nauvoo with Ben was such a good experience because he was so excited about all the things we would see and couldn’t wait to see more or learn more. 

Going through the Nauvoo temple was such a treat!  It is beautiful and knowing that the saints had to sacrifice so much makes it an even more special place.  After our sealing session the sealer took time to talk to us about our own sealing and what it means (he claimed we probably don’t remember much of our own and he was mostly right), but then he took us upstairs to see some more of the temple.  He told us about the way it was built and what was finished when the saints left.  It was a really neat experience!

On a side note, we measured the corn and it was definitely knee high by the 4^th of July.  We measured here about a week before and it was even knee high on Ben’s knees then.  Further south it was even higher, and there were places where it was probably about as tall as Ben!  So I guess the corn is right on track for a good harvest.

  

Since it was our anniversary while we were gone, we broke into the top layer of our cake after we came home and  we got it from my parents who graciously stored it in their freezer for the past year.  It tastes like it’s a year old, but it was still good enough for us each to eat a piece Tuesday night!  Glad we could get her to fly from New Mexico just to make us a wedding cake! Thanks Aunt Emily!

Our garden is just about ready to give us some good produce.  We have 6 zucchini and lots of tomatoes growing their little hearts out.

And, now we have settled (kind of) back into our normal routines.  I’m filling in for someone in the downtown office so I get the 7:30-4:30 shift for two weeks.  Ben is doing school stuff and looking for jobs, and there is hope that he’ll be able to get a decent job when he graduates!

*sorry about the funky formatting up top. word doesn't mesh well with blogger :)