Nauvoo Pageant

Tonight was our combined youth activity to Nauvoo. When we rolled out from the church tonight our group was a 3rd of the size it was this morning, and we had way more siblings then youth going. The weather the last few weeks has been awful. The temps have been in the mid 90's with tropical humidity, which results in heat indexes (what it really feels like outside) in the 110-115 range. I think the weather tonight had some part in so many families deciding to stay home.

When we drove into the parking lot Rebecca real excitedly pointed and said "Look, the Temple!" She was so excited to see the temple and since no one had said anything about it up to this point, it showed us that she recognized it all on her own, and her excitement showed us that she knew it is an important place.

We got to Nauvoo with enough time to play some of the games. We started with a potato sack race. The 1st race the boys asked me to race with them-and I SMOKED them all!! But then I had to rest because I don't do so well in this weather. So I caught the 2nd race on film. Lots of smiles, jumping, falling and fun was had.




Corrine and Rebecca made rag dolls, Ammon and Simeon sawed a log, all the kids made button spinners and Rebecca played with the rope climbing bears.



We met a family in the pageant from Washington. After talking for a few minutes we found out that they also had a Rebecca as their youngest and they knew a girl named Corrine in the pageant. We got to meet Corrine, who lived in Rexburg Idaho, which is where Johann and I met and where we heard the name Corrine and fell in love with it.

The kids all enjoyed watching the pageant. Rebecca LOVED watching the temple being built and driving by the real temple in and out of town.

It was a nice night to remember the sacrifices that the early saints went through to build the temple and restore the Gospel.

Winter Quarters Temple

We've been to Omaha a few times, but have never made it up to the Temple before. We put the address into our GPS and it said it was only 2 miles from the Children's Museum. It took us to where the address said, but we were nowhere near the Temple. We knew we were on the right road, just miles away. The end of the road we were on was small, very old and ended up dead ending. We found another road going to same way and hopped on it. Again it was a small, very old road and not the best, so we found another bigger street to go on. We knew we were in the area by the house #'s so we turned up a street. We ended up going up one of the steepest streets ever. When we got to the top we turned right and within a few feet we were on a dirt road. This was NOT how we thought we'd get to the Temple. We took a left onto another dirt road hoping to get there, and within a block on this road, the Temple stood on the hill.
We went in the visitors center where a very nice sister missionary greeted us. She had a watch a 15 minute video about the pioneers, then proceeded to get the kids dressed in pioneer clothes and hats. Then she went into a 45 minute tour of the visitors center.







It was very interesting and had lots of hands on things for the kids, but Rebecca had had enough after 25 minutes, I tried to keep her occupied, but it wasn't to be, so we escaped outside for the last ten minutes.
Outside we found "Popcorn Trees". We smelt the blossoms, picked them up in our hands and blew them and sand Popcorn popping under the trees. This was more Rebecca style!



We took some quick pictures at the visitors center and Temple before heading back to the Museum (which was closed when we got there earlier.)

Waterpark & Omaha Zoo

We needed this trip. Each of us needed to get away from life for a few days and play, and play we did!!
We stayed at a Holiday in with an attached waterpark. Coco Keys resort. We LOVED this waterpark!! We've stayed at a lot of waterpark hotels over the years, but I think this has been our favorite so far. It had so many different areas with something in each that someone loved. Ammon and Rebecca spent alot of time in the kiddie pool. It was zero depth entry and only went to 1 1/2 feet, which was perfect for Rebecca to walk and crawl in and for Ammon to swim with his goggles. The play area was big enough for Simeon to enjoy, but small enough that Rebecca could also play in it without feeling overwhelmed. They had 3 good sized slides that Corrine & Ammon went down dozens of times that were big enough to be big slides, but not too big to scare them. Then there were the big slides. It took some convincing to get Corrine to go down them. The 2nd night we were there she went down with dad. She ended up going down both the tube slides 4 times each! They also had a 4 foot pool with 4 basketball hoops and climbing net (monkey bar style) over the water. Simeon spent a lot of time there. Ammon liked that areas of that pool were only 3 feet deep so he could swim and if he got nervous he could stand right up. And the lazy river was long and didn't shoot water at you-just how we like them!
I didn't take a single picture here. I decided I wanted to enjoy the waterpark with the kids, not just be stuck behind the camera and then worry about the camera getting wet or stolen. So no pictures-but know it was a blast!!

We hit up the Omaha zoo on Thursday. It's one of our favorite zoos. We like that it has both outdoor and indoor exhibits. It is a hilly zoo though, so we got lots of exercise today!



We headed to the bears to see the enrichment time. The water got turned on and the bears got much livelier. It was fun to see the bears walk right up the glass and look at you.


Ammon got a very close look at a gorilla!


The main gorilla exhibit was empty today because they were replacing a piece of glass. You could see where a gorilla hand had hit the glass-HARD-and cracked it.

One of our favorite parts of the zoo is the Lied Jungle. It's HUGE. You walk around the top of it through different area to see monkeys, birds, bats. There are vines the kids can hang on and sit on and a rope bridge to cross. Then you look down to see hippos and other animals. Then you can go down to the "floor" of the jungle and explore down there. The main trees that hold up the dome are massive and you really get the feel of walking through a jungle. The kids always love to go through the viney roots of a certain tree that's made just for kids. They also like to go through the hidden staircase to go up to the waterfall.





We also like to go through the desert dome and the kingdom of the night. While we were in the swamp part Rebecca came up to me and said "Scary-up please" She didn't like walking by the alligators and other animals in the dark.



The walk through shark tank tunnel was another favorite of the older 3 kids, but NOT by dad who escaped to avoid getting sick! There were a half dozen or so sharks in the tank, but the one with all the crazy sharp teeth everywhere was the most favorite to watch. The kids were counting how many sharks swam over them.

I love how into the shark tank the kids are in this picture and you can see it on their faces and how not a single one is looking at me.

The shark with all the teeth.