Here comes the ox cart, oh how slow, it's pulled by and ox of course you know.....

Katie standing by our slow and steady oxen and our guide.

Katie REALLY loved these smelly beast! But then again we were smelling pretty ripe ourselves after our handcart trek "f.a.i.l." that morning!

A picture of these strong and steady animals, hard to believe their ancestors pulled people across the country to Utah isn't it?! Aren't you glad we have things that go "vroom, vroom" now with four wheels and nice air conditioning!

How many relatives can one ox cart hold?! Nine in this load and then a friend of the family, so ten people all together on this ride and there was not a seat left anywhere!

Shall we play in the creek or scrub the handcart?

Oh, yeah these are the real handcart pictures for sure!! RIGHT?

"Great, another rut in the trail! Madison pull your weight and stop running me into the freaking bushes over here!"

"Mom stop taking pictures please!"

Almost there! YES!

One last hill, then we can wash this thing off and get rid of it! Lower it down backwards nice and slow now!

Handcart pictures....the staged and the real, can you tell which is which?

Sybil and Melissah behind the bar of the handcart, real or staged? You be the judge!

Terry and Hannah, real or staged?

Brenda and Gabby, is pulling a handcart really this fun or is the shot staged?

The cousins at the helm of the cart in a grassy field, looks like their legs are moving an it appears that Hannah is in the back pushing to help keep them going uphill....hmm but they look really happy here!! Staged or real?

Abigail playing with her whirly gig that she made. I think these toys are by far the favorite for all three of our girls out of all the stuff the made while in Nauvoo.
Katie with one of the statues at the Nauvoo visitors center, I say one of them because she had to take a picture with each statue in the garden!

Yes, this really is Madison and she really is making a doll, in fact she made two!!

Taking a break, trying and failing to find some shade before we head to our next stop.

Or, should I say handcart F.A.I.L.

My three beautiful girls taking a chance to rest before we pick up the handcart for the trip back to the beginning!
Good old fashioned stick pulling! Katie vs Hannah, I bet you can guess who is who!
Reading a sign post somewhere along the trail and taking a breather.
After barely navigating the gate and then the tree leaning over the trail, this group of six women and five girls decided to park the handcart and leave a note on it saying we were walking the trail and would pick the cart up on the way back! Lessons learned: 1. If you are going to do a handcart trek in the middle of the worst heat wave to hit Nauvoo in many a year, do it on day ONE and not day seven of your stay! 2. It would be a really good idea to take at least one male along on the trek!!

Handcart trek anyone?

Reading a sign post along the way.
Getting the cart through our first (and last) major obstacle, how fun!
Starting down the trail with the young ones pulling the cart.
This was early on in the morning when pulling the cart was still "fun", I mean we had not even left yet so everyone was all revved up to go!

Nauvoo, good old Nauvoo continued....

Cousins making a rope together in the Family Living Center. The lesson learned was, just like the rope has many strands that bind it together so should our family be bound together in love and unity.
Abigial made her own version of the Nauvoo Temple out of blocks in the Family living center.
Lunchtime! Taking a break to picnic at the visitors center for lunch.
Breaktime!

Nauvoo again, this time with my sisters and my nieces.

The wagon ride we got up at the crack of dawn to go on! Yeah, I still can't believe I got up for this one! Due to the extreme heat wave the week we were in Nauvoo, the only way to do the wagon rides was first thing (as in 7am) in the morning and we were staying 20 minutes outside of Nauvoo so, yeah we had to get up really early to get our group of 13 on this ride!


Girls and guns! Lots and lots of guns!

More of Nauvoo summer 2011

Jeremy and the girls in front of the Mansion House.
Jeremy and the girls down by the Misssissippi river in front of a statue of Joseph an Hyrum Smith.
Scharlotte and the girls in the meeting room above the Red Brick Store, where the Relief Society was first organized.
The whole gang, in the Hall of the Seventies.

More summer 2011 pictures

Madison trying to master a Pioneer game before the Nauvoo Pagent.
All three girls getting ready to toss bean bags through the "Red Brick Store".
Katie and Abigail making dolls out of fabric scraps, cotton balls, twine and scrap ribbons.
Waiting for the Nauvoo Pagent to begin. July 2011.

Summertime Fun

Here we are in Nauvoo in July about to walk the Trail of Hope. And yes it was hot!! Only 120 or so that day!
Pioneer games before the Nauvoo Pagent. Beanbag toss through the red brick store.
This is at a splash pad here in Streamwood, IL.
Brookfield Zoo splash pad area.

This is on Lake Michigan, near Navy Pier. It was June 7, 2011 and yes it was still cold here!