Thanksgiving in Nauvoo

We are so, so, so blessed to have made amazing friends in graduate school. Most of them have moved far away (sniff!), but we're lucky enough to still have some of our dear friends within driving distance.

Several months ago Neil and I were discussing what we would do for Thanksgiving this year. Every single Thanksgiving since we were engaged has been spent with one or the other of our families, which has been wonderful and a blessing in and of itself, but this year my parents would be in Utah visiting my sisters and his parents would be in New Jersey, where they are serving their second mission, and I knew that our family would be a rather alarming descent for my grandparents! :-)

We'd been talking with some of our friends about trying to get together this fall, and I had this awesome idea that we should do it for Thanksgiving! Amazingly it worked out for all of us, and so I was totally giddy with joy about the idea of spending the long weekend with these great friends. You know how you're really lucky when you click with the mother of someone your child's age, because then playgroups are really fun, and you're REALLY lucky if both you and your spouse get along with a couple, and it's just like the most magical thing ever if both sets of parents get along AND the kids get along? That's what we're talking about here--but with three families!



We decided to rent a big house in Nauvoo, IL, since it was sort of central for all of us. We had six adults and fourteen kids and I loved every minute of it! The house was really big and we had tons of space--it never felt crowded (loud, yes! Crowded, no). There were three floors and lots of stairs for the kids to thunder down and launch airplanes and make gigantic thankful chains. The giant dining table was almost always covered with crafts and I loved, loved, loved how our kids picked up right where they left off--they were the best of buddies before moving away and it was just so wonderful to see them reunited!

One of my favorite things about planning this trip was that Melanie and Andrea are some of the most organized people I know. Andrea created a Google Doc very early on that we all used to coordinate Thanksgiving meal responsibilities, plus meal assignments for the other days, crafts, games, toys, etc. I actually felt like the weakest link! Every time I would get an email from one of the other girls I would just shake my head and think, oh man, I love people who are organized and on top of things! (We probably sent 30 emails in the 24 hours before we all left...I bet our husbands were glad that we'd stopped CCing them at that point!)

All of this super organization beforehand meant that we actually had an incredibly relaxed weekend and Thanksgiving itself was so low-key and enjoyable! I got up early that morning and ran down to the Mississippi River through the snow and spent awhile looking at the waves and thinking about my pioneer forebears who'd lived in Nauvoo before crossing the plains in the first company to reach Salt Lake in 1847 (I'm a direct descendant of Harriet Page Wheeler Decker Young, who was one of the two women in that company; the other is her daughter Clarissa Decker Young (hence my sister's name Rosalind Clarissa). Harriet's second husband was Lorenzo Young and Clarissa was married to Brigham Young. My son Isaac is named for Harriet's song Isaac Perry Decker, who was one of the three boys in that first company). I actually spent a lot of time while we were in Nauvoo reading up on another of my paternal ancestors, James Henry Rollins, who worked at Newel K. Whitney's store in Kirtland and Joseph Smith's Red Brick Store in Nauvoo, and whose sisters Mary Elizabeth (for whom my sister Mary Elizabeth and my daughter Juliet Elizabeth are named) and Caroline Rollins saved the pages that later comprised The Book of Commandments and then were included in the Doctrine and Covenants.  I probably drove my kids crazy spouting family history at them as we passed various landmarks but oh well. :-)

When I got back to our house, some people were finishing up breakfast and some people were finishing up their chocolate turkeys! It was so fun to enjoy other families' Thanksgiving traditions--Melanie's kids handmade everyone a darling little label to go with their turkeys. 

Later that morning Andrea & Tyler introduced us to one of their family traditions--making turkey cookies! The kids loved this (can you tell that we were totally not worried about sugar intake that day?!) and the dads loved it too...



I love this next picture--Emma's face is just too funny! She and Neil started playing this really elaborate game right after I took this picture where she would throw "nothing" to him, he would pretend to catch it, then throw it back at her, and she'd pretend to be totally bowled over by it...three-year-olds are awesome.

 It was seriously such a wonderful morning. I LOVED cooking with my friends (actually we mostly sat around talking that morning because we'd already done almost all of the prep work!) and just enjoying the chance to actually be together rather than texting or calling or emailing!



Can you believe I didn't take one single photo of the food? We had a completely amazing spread with two turkeys and about a bajillion different salads and every standard Thanksgiving side you can think of--and everything was DELICIOUS because these two gals and their husbands are all amazing cooks!!

I think after dinner the kids watched a movie, but I honestly can't remember. :-) This may have been before dinner. :-) It's all a happy blur. I know there was lots of late-night talking and board games for the adults!!

 On Friday we were pretty low-key. The girls went to the temple together in the morning and the guys went to the temple together in the evening. This was one of my very favorite parts--we sat together in the Celestial Room for about an hour after our session and just had this wonderful heart-to-heart together. It was a really precious time for me and I am so grateful for the opportunity to have had it!

Later that evening we took the kiddos on a walk/snow adventure; they all came back in totally soaked and we made dinner and then thought hmm, we need to occupy them for another hour or so until the daddies are back to help get these 14 kids into pajamas! So when the guys came back we were all in the middle of this very exciting obstacle course that we'd made up on the spot (after a rousing game of animal charades; I think I was a frog at one point) that had elaborate things like, "run across the basement with a pumpkin between your knees." Totally cheesy but the kids LOVED it; we finished up the night with a rhyming-clue scavenger hunt for popcorn and Rolos (thanks to Melanie's quick thinking on writing clues!)

 The next morning I went on another run and then we went to go tour the historic sites in Old Nauvoo. The kids had a blast, as always--we visited the Family Living Center, the blacksmith's shop, the bakery, and the schoolhouse...

 ...and then decided to go on a wagon ride!

 Nathan and Luke both conked out just minutes into the ride (don't worry, that's not blood on Luke's ear, just an earring inked onto him by some marker-wielding older sister).

 And then after our wagon ride we headed up to the temple to take a few more photos and say our farewells!

I love these two girls, and I LOVE how long they have been friends. My secret hope is that someday they'll be college roomies! I was thinking a lot during this trip about how grateful I am to have friends in my life--even if I don't see them as much as I'd like--who have been around for so long. For instance, Andrea is the one who first got me into a regular workout pattern; we started going to the gym together at 5:45 when we first moved here in 2006! She taught me how to make jam and we've had many a chat about parenting techniques or good bread recipes or the like. I've known Melanie since our BYU days; it was such a fun surprise when they ended up going to the same university for grad school, and she and I have spent many an hour commiserating over grad school life, whether it was while scrubbing her kitchen floor or my 'fridge or sitting at Applebees until the wee hours!

So when I look at my kiddos and these friends I hope they have the same kind of memories. :-)

I love these heroic dads!

And to take us out, two more shots of Abigail and Elise, who literally locked their arms around each other until the moment they finally said goodbye and sadly got into their separate cars. Sweet girls!

Nauvoo & friends

Even though I am his mother, I feel confident in saying that this is one of the most adorable little man-baby photos ever.  You agree? Yes?  Good.

This weekend both of the girls had fall break, so Neil worked like crazy for a few weeks and then we all took off very early on Saturday morning and drove to Nauvoo.  We hadn't been there since Isaac was a baby so it was fun to go back with everyone a couple of years older. 

Neil and I were both able to do an endowment session in the temple while we were there.  When my mother-in-law visited us just after Luke was born, I asked her if she had any family temple work that I could do.  She gave me several names and it has been really interesting to see how my temple experience has changed in doing family file names, even though I am "just" related to these people by marriage rather than as a direct blood relative.  At the very end of the session on Friday, I was one of the last people left in the ordinance rooms and I just closed my eyes and sat there and listened, and I felt tears welling up in my eyes while I thought about all the people who were having their temple work done that day.  Afterwards I sat in the celestial room for awhile and felt like I had some real answers to prayers and questions that have been troubling me.  I love how peaceful and assured I feel whenever I visit the temple.

We spent the night in Nauvoo (hurray for the Hotel Nauvoo dinner buffet!!  Seriously so good.  I could have eaten so much more deliciousness, but alas, our children were impatient and I knocked my glass into Luke's lap [note:  he is NOT a fan of ice!]) and so we left for our little log cabin, where we proceeded to spend the next three hours getting the children to sleep.  Too exciting and I can't really blame them.  I finally put Isaac in his car seat and we drove down by the Mississippi River and he fell asleep almost instantly while I watched the starlight sparkle over the river.  (Then I lay awake in our cabin that night listening to five other people breathing very loudly very close to me and thought about how grateful I am for our house.)

A few more pictures from the Pioneer Pastimes area at Nauvoo (genius.  Why have we never visited this particular site before?  The kids LOVED it).

I did not master the art of walking on stilts, but I sure had fun!

On our way home, we spent the night at the home of some dear friends who moved away three months ago--they were kind enough to let us descend on them (there are a lot of us now, you know?).  Our children have been talking about this for weeks and it was almost more excitement than they could stand!  We had a lovely time and I hope we can do it again soon.  It was so fun to watch all the kids playing together and to cuddle my sweet Kate during church today (baby Jess is missing from this photo, as he was having a diaper change.  Weren't they brave to host us when that meant 8 kids?!).

Nauvoo pictures

First of all, I probably would never have actually posted on this if my sister Elise hadn't kept nagging me about it. I have a hard time wanting to post about vacations and things like that, because there's so much enjoying the moment and forgetting to take pictures and then it just seems too enormous to tackle. Even a three-day trip. I didn't take very many pictures on this trip, mostly because I felt kind of rude snapping away while the senior missionaries were giving us tours of the homes, and also because it just isn't really an experience that you can capture with a camera, if that makes sense. What's so wonderful about Nauvoo is that it's a very spiritual experience--which isn't something you can photograph very easily. Anyway. Some pictures, mostly of the temple, because how can you not photograph it every chance you get? It's so beautiful. I like this picture with Abigail and Juliet on the steps because it gives a sense of how large the temple truly is. One of my favorite shots--I really liked the reminder that this temple was rebuilt on the original site and with the same architectural plan. A view of the temple on the bluff, shot through the window of the Scovil Bakery. Old Nauvoo is a combination of homes furnished in period style, which you can tour and learn about the people who lived there, and craftsman's shops, most of which offer demonstrations. We visited several homes, but spent most of our time wandering around from shop to shop, since this is what was most interesting for the kids. Our first stop (literally, five minutes after we pulled into Nauvoo, and after we went to the bathroom, where Abigail asked FIVE HUNDRED TIMES "Is this Joseph Smith's bathroom?) was the tinsmith. The most polite way to say this is that the girls had zero interest in learning about tin and just wanted to run wild like banshees outside (can you blame them after six hours in the car?) We did not stay at the tinsmith very long. We walked down the street to the bakery, where we learned about the people who built the bakery and all ate a gingerbread cookie (the sister missionary there told me that they had just finished the summer baking of 59,213 cookies, which they stashed in freezers all around Nauvoo in preparation for the mass migration of Utah tour buses). We walked around the grounds at the bakery and Juliet found the outhouse (why was that restored) and didn't want to leave, of course. Then we went next door to the assembly hall and listened some more and then decided that we needed to go check into our cabin and eat dinner, so that Neil could leave in time to go to the temple. After dinner, we went to go walk around the temple grounds (this statue of the Prophet's last ride to Carthage was new since the last time I'd been there). It was beautiful and sunny, and the girls got to touch the temple, which for some reason they'd been talking about for the last week. After Neil went into the temple, I took the kids down to the visitor's center and we wandered around the Women's Garden, which has always been one of my very favorite places (this statue of Joseph and his wife Emma is also one of my favorites). While we were there, I struck up a conversation with another woman who was there with her children, and discovered that she was in one of the other wards in our city. When I introduced myself, she said, "Oh yes, I've heard of you!" which is always an interesting conversation-opener. When we were leaving the garden, I realized that Isaac didn't have his pacifier, which was the only one we'd brought on the trip. We went back to the cabin, got everyone ready for bed, and proceeded to rifle through everything we'd brought, search the car multiple times--no pacifier. I prayed that we would find it--no pacifier. I put everyone in bed--the girls were quiet and presumably falling asleep, but Isaac was screaming like a banshee. He wouldn't stop. So I got the girls back out of bed, loaded everyone (in their pajamas) into the car, and started driving around to gas stations to see if I could buy a pacifier (remember, this is Nauvoo, where the only tiny corner grocery store closes at 7 pm). No pacifiers for sale. So we drove back to the temple and I hunted all over the grounds. No pacifier. Screaming baby. Tired kids saying, "Mommy, I please go back to the cabin and sleep now?" To make a long story short, we drove around Nauvoo and watched the sun set on the Mississippi, drove through all the darkening streets, watched some raccoons and cats hanging out amiably by someone's trash cans, and finally wound up on the bluff near the temple eating the "emergency suckers" I'd stashed in my purse while I told the kids stories. Isaac calmed down with all the driving, but I decided that we would wait for Neil to come out of the temple so that if he didn't have Isaac's pacifier, we could drive to another town to buy one ASAP instead of waiting for Neil to walk back to the cabin. Fortunately, Neil did have the pacifier, and at the end of it all I was glad that we'd had that evening together. It was beautiful watching the sunset and seeing the temple gradually begin to glow up there on the bluff, lit from within. The next morning we got up bright and early. Our first stop was at the wheelwright and blacksmith (Juliet is standing at my elbow right now explaining everything that's happening in the pictures), where we learned all about making wagon wheels (very cool!) and then watched the making of a tiny little horseshoe, which the girls got to keep. They also got "prairie diamonds," or horseshoe nails bent into the shape of a tiny little ring for their fingers. Then we walked down Parley Street to the river and talked about the pioneers leaving their homes. I got very teary-eyed, Juliet was very interested in the stories I was telling, and Abigail kept whining that her legs hurt and she couldn't walk this far, whereupon Neil and I said things like, "If you were a pioneer you would have to walk for months, and pick up buffalo chips while you're at it!" Such sympathetic parents. Next, we went to the brickyard, where we learned about the process of making bricks (most of the homes in Nauvoo are brick) and ended up with our very own brick to take home. During the course of the day, we also visited the Brigham Young home, the gunsmith (Neil's favorite), the Joseph Smith home, cemetery and Red Brick Store (owned by another church, so it's more a commercial endeavor, but we bought lemon drops there and the kids were in heaven), and the Family Living Center, which was my favorite--it was a huge room with all these different "stations" all around the room, where you could learn about pioneer things like making bread (very yummy!), spinning flax and wool into thread, weaving rugs and clothing, dipping candles, making buggies, and--my favorite--making rope. There were demonstrations for everything, and we ended up leaving with a ten-foot length of rope that Abigail and Juliet had made (see, I told you it was awesome!!) and wax candles. Oh, and we ate some bread. Then we had a picnic outside. The weather was beautiful, and the kids ran around laughing and happy and climbing trees. So, so, so fun. After lunch we went back to the visitor's center and watched the film Joseph Smith, Prophet of the Restoration. It was about the Prophet's life and was very, very, very moving. I was really impressed. And then we went to the John Taylor home (the third president of the church), which was one of the things the girls were most excited about. There was an article in the Friend a month ago about a little rocking horse that John Taylor went back to Nauvoo to retrieve (after the mobs have driven them out) when he realized that his son was very distressed about leaving it behind. Abigail and Juliet were SO excited to see this horse that the sister missionary asked them if they'd like to go under the rope (protecting the furniture) and go stand next to it for a picture. They don't look so happy in this shot, but trust me, they were. Overall, I was amazed at how gorgeous the weather was--we all discarded our coats and were just running around laughing. It was gorgeous. Oh, and since I'm not in any of the pictures, this is the best I can do to show I really was there: food I cooked. On Saturday morning, when we woke up to go to Carthage, it was snowing. So...not many pictures (if you're curious, the upper window in the left side of the picture is the window of the room where the Prophet and his brother Hyrum were killed--also the window that Joseph fell from). Short version (if you've read this far): PERFECT trip. Absolutely lovely--we had a wonderful time. And once again, I need to stop blogging and get everyone out the door for church, although Neil and Isaac are happily playing a game right now that involves Isaac rolling off the couch, laughing hysterically, and being caught by Neil right before he hits the floor. Oh boy...