The St. Louis/Nauvoo Trip

Well, I am exhausted from posting all these pictures. Okay, so new school on a traditional schedule + fall break = a trip to St. Louis, baby!!!! Here I am about three or four hours into the trip. Thank you, Hollie for this great photo. (I'm not crazy!) We left at 6:00pm Denver time and got to St. Louis about 7:30am STL time. By the end of the trip, I made Hollie drive because I was huddled up in a ball in the passenger's seat trying to not toss my cookies. Sorry, too much information? Hollie and I are realizing that we are not as young as we used to be.

The kids were wide awake about 11:00pm. Yay!!

When we got to St. Louis, Hollie and I went to sleep and the kids played and played. This is Lucy with cousin Lily. They were born exactly one month apart. When they were babies, people would say, "Oh, how cute, are they twins?" We would say, "no." Then they would ask, "What are their names'?" and one of us would say, "Lucy and Lily." Funny.

The next day we had a big family dinner. This is Randy, Hollie (whoop, where did you go, Hollie? Did you lose something?) Then next is me and then Lindsay.

Oh there you are, Hollie and you brought GG!
On Monday of that week, we took a ginormous group of people to Nauvoo. Isabel was so excited she wore Lindsay's old dress that Lindsay wore in the Nauvoo Pageant. Emma wore my old dress. They ran around Nauvoo and had a great time.


See?

Here are most of the Fortner cousins at the Nauvoo temple. This is the first time I had ever seen the Nauvoo temple. It was very exciting. When I was growing up, my Grandma Johnson (Hicks) took the Hollie, Lindsay and I up to Nauvoo to be in the City of Joseph Pageant. Being in that show was probably one of the BEST experiences of my life and I thank my grandma for doing that with us.

The templet is beautiful.
Grandma and I.
We had a picnic lunch right outside the Nauvoo visitor's center. It was freezing cold, very kaotic and very fun to watch, if you know what I mean.

Hollie is looking up at the stage and thinking, "uhhmmm." Is that what you are thinking, Hollie? Hi, Taylor! You are cute!!

Grandma Fortner and the grandkids.
This would be me, Chris, Lindsay and Hollie. I think we LOVE tan.

After pretty much everyone headed back to St. Louis, we went on some old historic Nauvoo touring with Chris and the kids. We stopped at the school house and was able to have an old fashion lesson. That was fun and the teacher was the cutest lady I have ever met. I am not even kidding.

They kids loved it. I think they secretly missed school.

Here we are after we got our Nauvoo brick. We were lucky to run into Sarah Johnson and her kids.

So, we took them all with us to the blacksmith's shop. Good times. Really, these tours never get old. I pictured Gary right there playing with the fire and making a horse shoe when we are about what? 65 or something. That would be so awesome.

We tried to get to the Carthage Jail, but we missed it by that much. So, we just walked around and took pictures. After that we said, "Goodbye" to Chris and the kids.

Hollie and I were not done looking at all the cool Nauvoo things and feeling all nostalgic and what not, so we headed to the Nauvoo hotel. It was a pretty cool hotel and I am pretty sure we will go back there someday soon. We had nothing. They gave us complimentary toothbrushes and they even had swimsuits we could borrow, gross I know, but we were living in the moment. I think, in this picture, we are all looking at the alarm I set off and wondering if anyone was going to turn it off. Apparently, all you had to do was pull the button out to turn it off. Really, how was I supposed to know that?

The next day we took the kids to the stage and showed them the dance. Which, by the way, has been a huge hit. Isabel even taught it to her friends at school.

Lucy and I took off by ourselves and ran to the Lucy Mack Smith house before it closed. Lucy wanted to see that house so bad. It was so cute. Everyone was so nice to her and let her see everything first. They would say, "Here, Lucy, come see this." or "Lucy, let me help you down the steps." So much attention, she was in heaven!

Right before we left we checked out the gravestones of Joseph Smith's parents and three babies that died very early in life. If you would like to read more on Nauvoo, click here.

Then we headed to Carthage, but first, some Dairy Queen. Yum! Yum!

When we got to Carthage Jail, the guide took us to the holding cell where Joseph, Hyrum and about six or eight other men were. When they were in the cell the men decided to sing hymns so that the guards outside the door could hear. The tour guide then had the kids sing "I am a Child of God." It was so awesome. The spirit was strong and I think the kids will remember that for a long time.

This is the door to the holding cell.

This is the room that Joseph and Hyrum died in. We sat there and the kids listened to the reenactment tape and were as quite as mice. It really was probably the most memorable time of the trip.

This is the door to the room. The bullet hole in the middle of the door is the one that took Hyrum. If you would like to know more about this place click here.


This is the cell that Willard Richards hid John Taylor under a mattress and saved his life.

Jack was doing some crazy poses in all the pictures, so John wanted to take a photo of his own. Very nice.

See what I mean about Jack?
When we got back to St. Louis, we did a lot of visiting with G.G. and Paul. They made us an awesome dinner one night. Paul is the best GrandPaul that I have ever had.

We had a great time. Lucy, who cried and cried and did not want to leave the house, had the best time ever. Good times!! We are glad we went. The only thing that would have made it perfect is if Gary could have come with us. We missed him, didn't we kids?