Nauvoo

We took a family trip to Nauvoo this past week. My brother Michael is there for the summer being a preforming missionary. It was really fun to go there and spend so much time there. Not like when we've gone there for a day or two before. We spent 4 days there and there was still more to see that we didn't get to. We were spending a lot of time watching all the plays and everything that Michael was involved in because that was one of our main reasons for going. But he is still a missionary so we couldn't spend all of our time with him. He is loving it though! He is learning all the history and everything that is out there. I didn't even know there were missions like this out there. He will be home on Aug. 17 I think.

The "trip" its self was actually better then I thought it would be. We only had on throw up incident which happened about 2 hours into the trip. So we got some drugs for that and didn't have any more. We did have one problem with our car but it all worked out ok. We had just left Adam-ondi-ahmen, and if you have ever been there you know it's in the middle of nowhere. So we were following my parents and the plan was to go to Far West then to Liberty, then to Independence. But my parents were trying to get to Independence before a certain time because they wanted to meet with Caleb's mission president before it got too late. So they decided to bypass Far West and just go straight to Independence and then come back to Liberty. So Curtis and I were talking and we decided that we didn't need to go to meet with the mission president so we were going to go to Far West. Well, just after I got off the phone with my mom, of course we have a child that has to go potty!! So we hit the first gas station we passed. Which was pretty close but it was literally the middle of nowhere. So Curtis took Livi in to go potty, and he came out and he was pointing at the tire. When he got in he said-"Well I guess it's a good thing we stopped, because we have a flat tire" So luckily they had a place for air for the tires, and Curtis went in a bought some sort of a kit the patches tires. you shove things in to the holes I guess. So I was watching him try and get the things in, and I can hear the air blowing out. And as he's putting this thing in they are just shredding because it was so hot. So that wasn't working.I looked at the front tire, and it was flat too. Luckily there was this girl at the gas station that knew this guy that lived like 2 blocks away that did tires. So she showed us where he lived. He took off the back tire and patched it, then when he was filling it up with air the side walls just bubbled out. The front tire wasn't as bad. So he filled it up with air and then he showed us to the nearest Walmart was so we could get it fixed. Thank goodness for kind people who helped us out. While we were sitting in the car figuring this all out I decided to call our roadside assistance that we got with our warranty from the dealer. They were not helpful AT ALL!!! First of all they couldn't find us. But as he's looking for us, he was asking me some questions. I told him we had a couple flat tires. The first question he asked me was, "how many spare tires do you have?" Are you KIDDING me!!! Do you think I'm an IDIOT! How many spare tires do people have? So he then tells me that the only thing they do for flat tires is come out and change them and then they take the flat one, fix it and get it back to you. So unless you have 2 spares they can't really do anything. But-a flat tire doesn't qualify you for a tow. I guess there's no rule for 2 flat tires. If we wanted to pay out of pocket they would tow it and then we could battle it out with the roadside assistance company to see if they would reimburse us. I'm so glad we didn't have to do that. I'm also glad that I know that about our roadside assistance if I ever get 2 flat tires again. So needless to say we got fixed up at Walmart and then we bypassed Far West and went straight to Liberty and met my parent there just in time. The only other issue we had was that night. We decided to drive as far as we could and just find a hotel that night. So midnight rolls around and we decide that the next town we see we should stop. So at that stop, there were no Hotel rooms available. So we drove to the next little town. Nothing. So we continue to drive hoping to find something. We were in about mid Kansas. Well, we finally got told that there was nothing available from there until the Colorado border because there was some State fair starting in the morning. So we drove until we couldn't drive anymore. We found a gas station and parked there and slept for the night. Well, about 3 or 4 hours. Drove home the next day. Anyway, it was a good trip. Thanks goodness for my mom. She took tons of pictures. I am so not good at it. I have a few that I took on my phone, but I need to get all the pictures from her, and then I'll share them. If I remember to. But here's what I have-

These were hat's from one of the plays Micheal was in. They were dressing up. It was so cute. Caden LOVED all the sister missionaries. He would always find them and hug them and talk their ears off. He was always asking me where the girls were.

This was Olivia's favorite place. I don't remember what it was called,but it had activities for the kids. She loved to dress up and just play. We walked by it the next day and she started crying because she wanted to go be a princess.