Picnik!!

When I was at girls camp one of the girls told me she uses this program to edit her pictures, so I took a look, and if you are like me it takes a couple of years after these cool things are out before I find out. This editing program is great, my camera really stinks at taking pictures, but now I feel like I can make them semi-good, so I have been experimenting.... here is what I've done....

Rodeo!

Chase did breakaway roping in the Buhl rodeo on Monday night, and he took second place that night. His time wasn't extremely fast, he was the second person to catch the calf, so he was pretty excited. His roan did pretty well considering it was her first time waiting for the barrier to break, and she even backed up after catching the calf. The next rodeo he will do team roping and breakaway.

Nauvoo!

Our ward recently went to Nauvoo for a ward trip, and it was a lot of fun. Me and Casey were on the committee to help plan the trip, and I was amazed at how well it all came together. It was a blast, and I am so glad we got to go. I only wish we could have spent a week there. 

Here is our view on the bus, we got the back seats

Here we are waiting on one of our stops

We stopped at the Kanesville Tabernacle in Omaha Nebraska, this is the place where they ordained Brigham Young a Prophet. They built this place in 2 1/2 weeks, it is amazing.

Here is the Mississippi River view from the bus, it is so big!

When we first got to Nauvoo, we walked down to the Sunset by the Mississippi show, and passed the Nauvoo temple. It is so pretty, it is amazing that they found the original plans to rebuild the temple the same way as the old one. We got to do baptisms with the kids the next day and it is beautiful inside. There is a spiral staircase that goes 4 to 5 levels up. They built the temple to look like it was built in the 1800's. It is probably the prettiest temple I have been in.

The kids loved the big leaves off the trees, it is so pretty there and the weather was perfect!

Carthage Jail!

These are the stairs that the mob rushed up to kill the prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum

The bullet holes are still on the door, the top bullet hole is the one that killed Hyrum

This is the jail cell on the upper level of the Carthage jail, it is right next to the room where Joseph and Hyrum were shot

This is the room where they were in where they were shot 

Chase got a firefly there, I have never seen one before until now. They are amazing, they really do look like sparks of fire when they fly!

This was a rare moment!

The John Taylor Home..... I loved it.

The printing office in Nauvoo

The Browning gun shop and home

The homestead, was Joseph and Emma's first home in Nauvoo, then they built the mansion house and moved into it. They built the Red brick store, and they are buried in the Smith family cemetery. The community of Christ owns these properties, and I have to say it is a different experience to take the tour with them. I don't know if I would recommend it. 

We took a wagon ride around old Nauvoo, it was a lot of fun, and a great way to see a lot of Nauvoo, that we wouldn't have had time to see.

This is the trail of hope.... the trail that the pioneers took to leave Nauvoo and cross the Mississippi river.

This is a different view of the Trail of hope, you can see the temple in the distance from this trail, I can't imagine leaving it after all the hard work they put into it.

The blacksmith shop

This is the grove, where they had a lot of their meetings at in Nauvoo

On the way home we stopped at Winter Quarters, and got to look at the cemetery by the temple. It is amazing what the pioneers went through for religious freedom. I am so thankful for their sacrifice, and I am so glad we got to go on this trip. I would love to go back and visit other places, like Adam ondi ahman, and Hauns mill and so on.