Our second day in Nauvoo was another fun one. I started the day out by going on a little run around Historic Nauvoo. I ran down Parley Street to the Mississippi River and then down the Main Street and up and around the Temple.
One thing about running in Illinois, it is definitely more humid than Utah. I was sweating like crazy.
At Nauvoo, all of the sites are free and you can do any site or show when you want. Some of the attractions do require tickets though which you can get for free at the Visitor Center. We decided to spend our second day doing the activities that required tickets so that we were sure to get them in during our stay. So our first stop of the day was the Visitor Center to get our tickets. We were able to get tickets for one of the shows as well as the wagon, carriage, and ox cart rides.
Our first stop of the day was the cute little play called, "Just Plain Anna Amanda." This play was at the Cultural Hall so while we waited for it to start, we stopped in at the Scovil Bakery:
At the Bakery, we learned about Lucius and Lury Scovil and their family bakery. This family baked all sorts of things for the community including bread, crackers, cakes, and even candies. We saw all of their baking pans and their brick oven and learned how they baked before electric or gas ovens. Before leaving we even got a cookie! The little gingerbread man cookies were really good and I really need to find the recipe.
As we walked out of the Bakery, we saw the Nauvoo Brass Band playing outside the Cultural Hall.
The band was so good! We were having a good time listening to them and then a few of the cast members of "Anna Amanda" came out and started dancing with us. This made the Brass Band concert even more fun. The kids had a great time dancing with the performing missionaries and the missionaries were so friendly and nice to all of us. By the end of our trip, they knew all of the kids names and would say hi to them whenever they saw us.
Finally it was time to head inside the Cultural Hall for the play.
This play was a cute little story of a pioneer girl named, Anna Amanda. She felt really plain and unimportant so she tried to borrow something cool from everyone else so that she would be cool and important too. By the end she had someone else's boots, hat, apron, basket and other things. With all of these things on, no one recognized her. When she took off the things though, everyone was happy to have just plain Anna Amanda back. It was then that she realized she was important just being who she was. At the end, Anna selected a kid from the audience to come up on stage and do a pinkie promise with her. Emily got to be the lucky girl!
The promise was to always remember that you are important and special just the way you are. Emily was so excited to be on stage and part of the play. This was probably Emily's favorite part of Nauvoo.
After "Anna Amanda," we headed over to the Wagon ride.
This was another fun activity. The kids loved petting the horses that pulled our wagon. The horses' names were Ned and Herb and they really took care of us on the ride.
While on the ride, we rode all around Historic Nauvoo and listened to the missionaries as they talked about the different places we were passing.
The missionaries were great tour guides and we loved seeing everything in Nauvoo in one ride. We passed the Apostles houses and even rode down into the lower part to see Joseph Smith home and the Red Brick Store. Everywhere we went, we had a great view of the Temple.
The wagon ride was really fun. When we got off, we ran into our campsite neighbors, the Williams. The Williams were from Florida and they were road tripping just like us. They were super friendly and we loved meeting them and becoming friends. We decided we had to get a picture of our families together. This was their last day in Nauvoo so we were also saying goodbye to them.
We were not done yet. Next we went on a Carriage Ride.
Once again the kids loved petting our carriage horses. Logan especially loved it and just walked right over to them and started petting them. Our carriage horses were Adam and Amos. They also took care of us on the ride.
The carriage ride took us to the upper part of Nauvoo which is less used. The missionary driving told us about some of the behind the scenes stories of Nauvoo which was a little more personal or spiritual than the stories told on the wagon ride. We were showed where some of the first houses were built, where they got some of the lumber for the temple, and the rock quarry for the temple. We were also told some stories about the first settlers of Nauvoo. It was really good. We also saw the barns where the animals at Nauvoo live and are cared for. The cool thing about the carriage ride for us though was that we knew the missionary guide! When we got on the carriage I looked at our driver and though that I knew him from somewhere. Then Russell saw him and thought the same thing. Come to find out, his name was Elder Andrus from St. George, UT! He was in our stake when we lived in the Bloomington house on Hopi Circle. It was cool to talk to him about the old neighborhood and our old ward.
When we returned from the carriage ride, we headed down to the Ox Cart rides.
This was also really fun to get pulled by the oxen. We didn't need tickets for this so there was a little bit of a line. While we waited we watched as the huge oxen pulled the cart oh so slowly.
When it was our turn, we all piled on the cart and got ready to ride. While on the ride, we learned more about ox cart travel. My whole life I thought oxen were a special breed of cow but they aren't! Oxen are just normal cows that have been trained to pull a wagon or farm equipment. The reason oxen were used for pioneer travel was because they were much less expensive than horses and easier to handle. To outfit a horse drawn wagon, would cost anywhere from $300-600. Whereas a yoke of oxen to be outfitted only cost $50-100. Another benefit of oxen was that they could eat any of the grasses along the trail so extra food did not have to be hauled for them like the horses. Oxen were slower than horses though but a little easier to drive because you walked along beside them yelling calls to direct them in the right direction.
The oxen were named Abe and Ike and they were so big and strong. They were also quite gentle and gave us a pretty smooth ride.
By this time we were starving so it was time for lunch.
We decided to have a little picnic near the Pioneer Past Times activities. The whole time we were on our trip we were worried about all of the little bugs and crawly things. One thing we were really worried about were chiggers. We sprayed ourselves with a ton of bug spray every morning. Traci had warned us not to sit on the grass so we were glad to have a table. There were, however, bugs all over the table as well... Oh well we survived with only a few chigger bites on our legs.
Pioneer Past Times was another really fun place for the kids.
They loved dressing up in pioneer clothing and playing some of the games that pioneer children used to play. They played games like Tug-o-War, stick ring toss, Table bowling, tops, stick pull and more. Charlotte loved playing with the little wooden animals and with the play food in the little cabins. One game Emily learned to play was called Fox and Geese. This is a game played on a board with little rocks or marbles. It is kind of like Chinese checker but not really. You have one rock that is your fox and he tries to jump over or catch all of the other rocks or geese until he is the last rock or marble on the board. It was pretty tough at first to figure out the puzzle, but then the sister missionaries taught us the little chant to go with it and we were able to win every time. It was so fun that I want to make my own game now. The kids loved the Pioneer Past Times and wanted to stay there the rest of the day. We did stay there for quite a while before we decided we needed to keep going and seeing the sites.
Another fun place for the kids was the Family Living Center.
In this place, we learned all about how the pioneers lived in Nauvoo. We learned how they made everything they needed in their homes because they couldn't just go down to the store and by things they needed. The missionaries taught us how to make bread in the brick oven, make candles, weave rugs, make barrels, and clean sheep wool and spin it into thread. The kids favorite was when the missionary taught them how to make a rope:
They learned that they had to have the tension on the twine just right before they could twist them together to make the rope. If they were not set right and twisted just so, the rope would not be very strong. This he said was similar to us and the gospel, if we are not tight in our faith and twisted and intertwined with the Lord, we will not be as strong. The family can also be alluded to in this that the three twines of family prayer, scripture study, and family home evening, form together to create a strong family. When they were done twisting, the missionary tied off the ends and the kids had their very own rope they had made themselves. The loved helping and making something cool.
We were able to hit one more site before they closed for the night: The Lyon Drug and Variety Store.
This store was owned by Windsor and Sylvia Lyon and they sole everything including medicine, fabric, household items, and hardware. It was sort of like the Walmart in their day. Lyon also practiced herbal and botanical medicine and would grow and sell his herbs in the store. While at the store, we learned about a bee box. It was very ingenious! What it is is a box that the pioneer kids filled with flour and then placed a bright colored flower inside on top of the baking flour. Then they would watch it until a bee would fly in and land on the flower. Then they would close the box and trap the bee inside. Once the bee was trapped, they would shake the box a little to cover the bee with flour. After they would let the bee go. Now that the bee was covered in flour, it was easy to follow because it was white and the flour was heavy so it flew slowly and low. Then the kids would follow the bee back to its hive and claim the honey hive as their own. The kids would then rush back home and tell their parents where to find honey. I think that is a pretty smart way to find honey! This is also where the song "Bringing Home a Baby Bumblebee" comes from. It is about the kids carrying home their bees in their bee box for their moms to put flour on them.
After leaving Lyon's store, we went over to Janet and Phil's place for dinner. They had pizza waiting for us and they were excited to have family over. It was nice of them to invite us and we loved hearing their stories of their mission and of Nauvoo. We had to eat fast though because we wanted to see the night performance of "Sunset on the Mississippi."
Before the performance, we found our friends, the Mein's, again and we were able to set by them during the show. Emily and Synevie were really excited to be in the children's parade before the show.
Each of the kids decorated their own hats to wear in the parade and then they were given a musical instrument to play and bang while they walked. Colby made his hat but he wasn't so sure about being in the parade so he just sat by us and watched. Logan and Emily were all about being in the parade and especially now that Synevie was there too. We all cheered for them as they walked on stage.
The Young Performing Missionaries were great in the show. They sang and danced and they were so talented! Not only did the young missionaries perform but the senior missionary couples joined in there too and did some singing and dancing.
The whole show was just funny skits and songs performed to make us laugh and have a good time. The best song I think is this one above. The three guys singing it were from places up north like Canada and Idaho so they sang about how many bugs there were in Nauvoo unlike the places they were from. They sang a parody song to "Stand By Me" it was called "Spray With Me." The whole song talked about swatting bugs and spraying bug spray all over themselves. We could totally relate to this song because we were not used to all of the bugs either. We all laughed so hard.
After the show, we got to hang around and meet the cast and the performing missionaries.
They were so nice and friendly. We had a great time talking to them and learning more about their callings and themselves. Charlotte had a blast running around on the stage like she was the best performer ever. She even tried all of the dance moved and tricks the other kids were doing. She was so fun to watch.
Emily and her new friend, Synevie, had a blast hanging out during the show and during the last few days. They even made up this cool friendship handshake. While we were talking with Synevie's parents in the parking lot, all of the kids ran off and played together. They played hide and seek, treasure hunt, and just had a good time running around. The Meins were leaving Nauvoo the next morning so we let them play for a while before saying goodbye. The really are a great family. The crazy thing about it though is that we found out later that Janet Mein was one of JeanMarie's mission companions in Hong Kong many years ago! Small world right?!
We had another fun and eventful day in Nauvoo. We learned so many new things and had a good time while we were at it.
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