.Nuevo Nauvoo

Do you see us in there?

We made it down to Utah with the Potters in four pieces; but that was good since we happen to be four people. Did I mention it was about 3am too? eek!

My nephew Nate’s baptism and my nephew Alex’s baby blessing were the next morning and we barely made it there running on no sleep.

As soon as we got home from the baptism celebration we packed up my parents car and hit the road…. AGAIN!

I was probably the most delusionally tired I’ve ever been in my life. I had a couple of dazed and confused moments that morning.

You know what got me through this drive?

Some riveting Sudoku competitions. My Mom and I are both addicts. Oh, and I won most of the time. Just sayin’.

Here we are at a pit stop in Nebraska:

And our hotel in Sydney, Nebraska:

And then we saw some stuff in Iowa…

going across the Mississippi River

And we knew we were getting close when we saw this sign:

And then we were happy:

We got to Nauvoo around 8pm on August 1st. We picked up pizza and went to bed.

The next day we toured. We toured and tourismed until all of my internal tourist was just about tourn out! But I loved every minute.

After a day and a half in Nauvoo, we drove down to the Carthage jail.

Our time in Nauvoo with my parents was heavenly. It really meant a lot for me to be there with my parents and Elisa and to be able to spend so much time with them again. I never see them anymore.

Being in Nauvoo was a very spiritually uplifting experience. I was very much in need of a spiritual lift. This year in seminary Air and I are teaching Doctrine & Covenants. I think this was the perfect prep course for us to see and experience before going into the school year. I have a renewed appreciation for the early saints of the church and especially for the Prophet, Joseph Smith. I know that we can do anything if we have faith. The Lord is on our side. I can even make it through another year of seminary with the Lord on my side. I know it.

Next up! Hello Chicago!

.The Potters Come to Canada

Dear Blog,

Today I’m starting to regain my energy that was lost from so much excitement in the last few weeks… in reality, we’ve already been home from vacation for four days. I’ve been working this week you see? And as a general rule--life’s pretty hectic in the summer. In a good way!

My best Nichole and her hub Joel came up to visit us for the last week in July. They drove like 19 hours to get here! (they took the long route) Their car even broke down a couple of times in the middle of no-where! We had to pick them up in Ponoka in the middle of the night!

Our friends are soooooo..... The Best! I hope the rest of their trip made it all worthwhile.

We literally had every day they were here packed full of fun stuff to do.

You wanna know what we did?

West Edmonton Mall:

the boys were all tuckered out from shopping at Anthropologie

we got cooked by the fire breathing dragon

Visiting family & finding baby mice:

Touring the city:

Chillin’ at home:

Picnic at Rundle Park:

our boy scout husbands came in pretty handy when we needed to make a fire out of nothing

Fort Edmonton:

The Temple:

We fed them weird Canadian foods:

New York Fries poutine. It’s French!

perogies (this picture is freakishly bad--they’re good, I promise)

Tim Hortons donuts are GOOD

Peters’ Drive-in shakes in Calgary. Mmmm...

Free night at the art gallery:

Taste of Edmonton:

And here we are driving down to Utah together at the end of the week. So much fun!

Oh, and we almost lost a tire in the middle of Montana… YIKES!

Whoa, I don't know how we managed to have enough energy to make it to Illinois with my family after all of that!

Thanks for coming up and having fun NiJoel! Wish you could be here always!

I bet you're all wishing you could see more pictures of the baby mice, huh?

Next up! We're making noise in Illinois!