The One in Old Nauvoo

As you guys know, Ben and I were able to go with his family to Nauvoo as well as to some of the other church sites...and some not-as-churchy sites. We loved it. This whole summer for us has been one vacation to the next...and I'm not recommending that anyone quit their jobs...cause, gosh that would be dumb coughcoughnotthathatswhatwedidcough...but it has been quite the awesome adventure.  Here are the pics:
The kids favorite place was the Pioneer Pastimes. They loved dressing up like little pioneer children and we loved that they could be as loud as they wanted.

 Ben and I got to do a session at the Nauvoo temple. The temple is gorgeous-they recreated it how the saints would have made the original. So they had wooden stalls and faux candelabras for lighting.

 We got to go on a wagon ride that toured all of Old Nauvoo. We learned so much. The pioneers were so smart and resourceful.

 The place we stayed was right next to the river. We woke up to this:

 The missionaries there put on one heck of a play complete with singing, dancing and love stories.

 After Nauvoo we went to Worlds of Fun (its like Lagoon) in Kansas City. Ben and I skipped out early and went to see these kiddos. I was SO excited that we got to stop at my brother Spencer and Whitney's house. I know we saw them a whole TWO times already this summer, but I just can't get sick of them, so we signed ourselves up for round 3 with the Kansan Lifferths and we weren't disappointed.

 We stopped by the house of the outlaw Jesse James. These boys acted as the house's bodyguards. They never smile for pictures anyway, so it worked out for the best.

 This is the whole lot of us at Liberty Jail. Go ahead and count. 10 children. And we survived.

 Our next stop was at the Omaha Zoo in Nebraska. It was seriously the coolest zoo I've ever been to.
Here's Halle...remember how our laptop broke? I'm currently using my mother in law's iMac (or do you just say Mac? I don't know...) and I have no idea how to rotate pictures. So this is what you get.

 Some of the Pettingills. Little Bitty was probably my favorite person on the whole trip. She's so gosh darn cute and she sings on request. She goes, "La Laaaaa" complete with vibrato.

 Here's an animal pic to prove we were really at a zoo. Isn't that parrot awesome?

 Here'e Ben and I on the train ride.

Here's me at the aquarium, which was one of my favorite parts. They had a shark tunnel! It was awesome!

The trip was so good. I'm so glad that Mama Brown had the insight to plan this trip and take us all on it. We loved it!