Nauvoo 2011, part 1

Where oh where do I begin??? Well, I guess at the beginning...So in the middle of March I was at the gym one morning riding a bike when my sister called me on my cell phone. Well, it was almost 9:00 am here, so in Utah-where Corrine was calling from, it was almost 7:00am-SUPER early for a phone call. So I answered it quickly wondering what was going on. Well, she had a proposition...a spur of the moment trip to Nauvoo! We are most likely not going to make it out to Utah this summer due to the fact that tickets are about $450 a piece so she was working tirelessly to find a way to see us. I was so excited when she told me her idea. I quit working out right then and hurried home to call Steve to see if he thought we could make it work. Well, after some very careful planning (we have a super busy April) we were able to find a window of time that would work for both families.

We only had 2 weeks to prepare, but we made it work and we had SOOO much fun! We found a 3 bedroom, 2 bath hotel room at the Nauvoo Family Inn and Suites and decided that it would be really fun to share the room so that our kids could get as much cousin time as possible. The room ended up being a bit smaller (to say the least) than we were planning, but the kids were in heaven so it didn't matter that there was no table to eat at, only a little love seat for all 11 of us, and that Steve and I got to sleep on bunk beds for the week. We only get to see our family a few days out of the year so we were going to make the most of it!

After a 2 day, 15 1/2 hour car ride we made it to Nauvoo in the early afternoon. Instead of going to check in to the hotel right away we decided to go drive by the beautiful Nauvoo Temple. We got the kids out and we had a great time running on the grass across from the temple and we even managed to snap a few pics of the kids admiring the beautiful building. I love this place! Steve and I were fortunate enough to go to the open house back in 2002 with his family and I have always wanted to go back and see it again. I was so happy when it came into view.



After the Temple we loaded the kids back up in the car(they were NOT happy about this-fortunately it was only about a 3 min ride this time) and went to the hotel. The Prestwiches were a few hours (which seemed like a few days to Abi) behind us so we hung out, got some dinner and waited for the cousins to arrive. Once they got there the fun began! Abi and Aubrey spotted each other in the hall and ran towards each other right into the others' arms. I didn't see this the first time (it made Corrine cry, must have been really sweet!) but they reenacted it many, many, many more times during our stay!

Well, stay tuned for more, I have loads of pics! :D