Storm Chasers

We had a pretty major thunderstorm last night, it held off long enough for the kids to get through 2/3 of their swim lesson and what a swim lesson it was! Silly did a real back float all by himself and held it for at least 10 seconds. Cakes did her first real jump dives! Mr. Tyler, her teacher, was very proud of her. She was way at the other end of the pool and I couldn't quite tell if she was about to cry or just adjusting her goggles a lot. After class she wasn't feeling too hot, I think the fear of what she'd done finally hit her. Too bad I brought my camera Tuesday instead of Thursday!

This was last week at their outdoor, morning lessons.

She couldn't practice dives last session because we were outside, which is shallow. She made up for it yesterday! She said she'd tried it one more time since Scott missed it.

After swim lessons we came home for dinner then went cruising around some nearby neighborhoods in the storm. Cakes asked me what makes thunder and lightning, Silly answered, "Jesus!" Guess I'll have to tell his Sunbeam teacher about that one.

Bedtime Stories

Night before last Cakes walked to her room with a water bottled while Silly followed behind her saying he was thirsty. I told him Cakes had the water bottle and she would share with him. He whined, "No she won't! She will hear me and then she'll wake up and snatch it from me!" Apparently he's had a few experiences with that.

Last night all three of the kids were in various places on the trundle bed. I closed the blinds and the curtains, turned the night light on and the ceiling light off. As soon as the light went off Bubba started to sing! He knows I sing songs when the lights go off. When I started singing to him he was sooo happy. What a cute little guy.

On a sad note, he's only nursing once a day, first thing in the morning and then he doesn't care anymore. Even then he's not all that interested. It had to end some time.

Other Nauvoo Highlights

Attempts to get the kids to act like statues:

  

Maybe they'll be more cooperative next time?

Silly saw this seal and said, "Why's that girl petting that lion and that sheep?"

He really liked the stove in the Red Brick Store too...

I'm sure I don't want to know how, but their rock candy kept reappearing throughout our trip.

Fittingly, I have a picture of Cakes in the bakery. The round box on the table is a spice box that belonged to my ancestor, Simeon Adams Dunn.

Scott likes to make things a little more authentic.

Philip at Carthage Jail looking scared.

We had fun, and learned quite a bit from the teamsters, on our little ox-pulled wagon ride.

The Temple!

I had been to Nauvoo a few times before, but not since the temple was rebuilt so I was really excited to see the real thing, not the scale model in the middle of an otherwise empty site. We took some large group shots at the temple, and as soon as my dad sends posts or emails them I'll share. A small group; my parents, aunts, uncles, sister, her husband and a few cousins with their spouses, were able to go into the temple. It was awesome. I told Scott that was on the list of things I wanted to do. He thought I meant just on our trip, but I meant my "things I want to do sometime in my life" list. (Am I too young for a bucket list?)

Apparently the temple had some impact on Cakes, because this is what she drew during church:

She drew this one, then decided she wanted to give one to Papop, so she drew another one. She showed it to everyone at our family talent show that night. I think it's pretty cool!

After church we stopped by the temple again for some individual family pictures. Be warned if you ever go there: it seems to always be painfully sunny in front of this temple, at least it was during our visit.

And I guess Scott must've really like the temple too, because he wandered off on his own one night and took some really nice pictures like this:

Pioneer Pastimes and the Family Living Center

The kids' favorite part about Nauvoo was Pioneer Pastimes. We went there our first afternoon and they begged to go back over and over. They have a little log cabin and school house with lots of dress up clothes for boys and girls and plenty of play things.

Cakes and Silly liked the house.

Bubba liked the schoolhouse.

He got on this horse and started bouncing up and down like he was riding. We have no idea how he knew that's what happens when you ride a horse.

We even had some fun ourselves and played some games while the kids were playing. This picture makes it look like I could actually use those things.

We also had some fun in the Family Living Center. The kids were dying to make their own piece of rope. Silly was determined to turn this wheel all by himself.

Cakes was spinning on the other end to twist the three smaller ropes together, then we all helped cut it and kept the piece of rope we made.

We also learned about making candles and sampled some bread fresh from the brick oven.

Bubbs had some fun too.

Silly practiced setting the table.

These two places made the whole experience exciting for the kids. Cakes asked me if we were ever going to come back to Nauvoo again. I told her we probably would. She smiled and said, "Good!" That made the whole trip worth it for me.

First Morning in Nauvoo

We started off the Hunsaker Family Reunion with a world travel game. There is a nice open field next to the Historic Nauvoo Visitors' Center and were supposed to imagine it as a map of the world. Starting with the oldest person present (my Dad) he stood on the map in the year he was born and we went through each year with people arriving on the map and then moving around to where they were each year. It was pretty fun. My sister even brought pictures of the people not there so the younger kids carried them around to the right places. Some years were pretty busy, and some people did a whole lot of traveling. one of my brothers-in-law lived in Singapore several times so he kept going back and forth. We ended with 2010 and all of us together in Illinois.

Then we broke into a few groups, some of us heading for the Sarah Granger Kimball Home.

While some of us walked to the house, others went back to get their cars and drive down so we'd make it back in time for our wagon ride. Scott took a little detour with Cakes:

Silly pondering what his job might have been back then.

About to walk down some very narrow, steep, winding steps while holding a sleeping baby; very complicated.

After Sarah's house we went on a wagon tour of Old Nauvoo.

They warned us about the mayflies down by the river; harmless, but plentiful and very easily tangled in my hair.

Two Interesting Incidents

When we checked into Nauvoo Family Inn and Suites we unloaded the car to discover that in the heat of the car top carrier the innertubes of our Phil & Ted's stroller had burst. Never thought of that possibility. We had to go to Walmart for groceries anyway, so we left the kids with Maddie and Scott went in search of replacement innertubes while I bought groceries. Amazingly, he found some that fit! One dilemma solved.

The next morning as we were heading out for our first Hunsaker Family gathering I came out to quite a commotion in my van. There was a little frog inside our car! How that happened I have no idea, but the car doors hadn't been open all that long so he really must have been in there all night. Maddie got him out of the car, but we'd drawn quite a crowd of people stopping to look at the frog.

2 Days On the Road

We were on the road at 4:01am heading for Mason, OH and some fun at Great Wolf Lodge. Poor Cakes was sick all through the mountains of Virginia and West Virginia. We stopped to fill the car and let the kids get dressed, take a potty break and stretch their legs for a bit. There was a Hardee's nearby so Scott got a biscuit for Cakes and Silly, but it didn't help Cakes's car sickness any. She had a pretty miserable day. Silly just kept himself busy all day long looking at books, coloring and watching the scenery. My sister Maddie was along for the ride and she was a great help with the kids.

After one other brief stop we arrived at GWL right at 1:00, ate some lunch in our room, then hit the water park. Amazingly, after being so sick in the car all day, Cakes went on water slide after water slide and it didn't bother her a bit. I, on the other hand, could only handle two. I don't remember which one of us had the idea, but one of us is a genius for deciding to end a day on the road like that! Silly spent most of his time up in the forts squirting and dumping water on innocent people down below. Bubba took about two hours to warm up to the experience, but after floating in the wave pool for a long time he decided to have fun. I stood him inside an innertube at the shallow end of the wave pool and he just pushed it around like he was in a walker. He also really like the hot tub. Scott of course maxed out the experience and took Cakes and Silly back to the water park and storytime in the lobby. They have this clock at GWL and it has a little production every night; one of the characters says, "There's nothing to be scared of here" so Scott kept repeating that for the next day or so.

We hit the road again in the morning with just a tiny bit of Ohio and all of Indiana and Illinois to cross. Scott let me do a few hours of driving (finally!) after our first stop of the day. We picked what we think were cherries at some Indiana rest stop (don't worry, nobody ate them). Scott sat back with the kids and Maddie and I sang along to all sorts of songs for several hours. We have very similar voices so it was like hearing myself in stereo. We got a kick out of reading the "Guns Save Lives" burma signs as we drove through Illinois. We stopped at another rest area for lunch, picnic style. After we ate the kids played in some nice dirt for a bit then we hit the road again. Bubba started to lose it about 40 minutes from our destination so I had to pull out the bubbles (the no-spill kind, of course) and that held him off until we got to Nauvoo. We were just minutes away from our hotel and Scott was searching for a song; he settled on "Welcome to the Future" by Brad Paisley. Just a little bit a humor as we step back into 1840.