Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Part 2- Navoo

Before leaving IL our little family did our own quick side trip to Navoo. Lance and I had been several years ago, but we were excited to go back with the kids and explore some.

On the way there we stopped at my Aunt and Uncle's house for a quick lunch visit. There house is on beautiful land and has tons of exciting things for the kids to explore. They loved the barn with the horses, watching the cows in the distance, and playing in all the open space full of prarie flowers. Lance and I loved learning more about the history of the area and the history of my family. We also loved all the super delicious and fresh food- think salad fresh from the garden, beef from their cows, and on and on. We had been dreaming about my Aunt's homemade applesauce ever since our last trip several years ago. YUM!!

















It was raining some when we got to Navoo, but we braved it and made our way to a few of the main sites near the Mississippi River. After checking in to our hotel and getting some dinner we headed down to the Navoo Pagent. We had been looking forward to this since we planned our trip so we were thrilled when the rain cleared up and it turned out to be a beautiful night. Before the pagent began they had all sorts of kids pioneer games and acitivities. It was a perfect age appropriate way to bring Navoo to life for our kids. We didn't make it through the whole pagent (we may have been more tired than the kids) but we had a great taste of it all.
It was a fun quick adventure and a special family memory.

















We had one last lunch with IL family before heading to the airport for the trip back to SLC. Kai was thrilled to receive his own little toy gator from my cousin Matt as a parting gift. We spent a few hours in the Dallas airport again and then finally got back to our house in SLC around midnight.

Monday, July 26, 2010

July 2010 Adventures Part 1- Illinois



July has been quite the month for our little family. Big changes and big adventures.

We spent the first 2 days of the month working on our moving packing before flying off to Illinois to visit family and celebrate Great Grandpa Michael's 85th Birthday. We met up with Grandma Whitney in the Dallas airport and then flew on with her to IL. The kids were thrilled to see her and do the second leg of the trip with her.

We had an awesome trip in Illiois. Our kids were beyond spoiled by everyone there. Being the only little kids among lots of loving and patient adults has definite advantages. They had at least 2 adults doting on them at every moment. Kai is still talking about my cousins and their wives in just about every other sentense.

We had so much fun celebrating the 4th of July, celebrating Great Grandpa, and even celebrating our kids birthdays a little early. The trip was also full of lots of Gator riding, swinging in the hammock, swimming, getting spoiled and fed by great grandma, playing with poppers and watching fireworks, tons of yummy food, sleepovers with Grandma, a parade with tons of candy, getting to ride in a semi, and getting to explore a H-U-G-E Combine and drive a real tractor, and on and on and on...

It was fun to see this place that has always been magical to me become the same way for Kai. Big thanks to everyone who made it all possible!