Nauvoo trip

I was assigned to travel to Nauvoo, Illinois, with the Church's Young Men and Young Women general presidents from Sept. 22-25. What a busy, amazing assignment. 

I flew in Thursday into St. Louis and drove to Nauvoo early Friday morning, spending all day going from place to place with the leaders. But first I Facetimed my family from the temple and took this picture with my timer.  

The leaders held meetings with missionaries and potential missionaries and met with cast and crew of a new Church history film being filmed on site.  I also had such a fun time connecting with the area authority, who used to be my parents' stake president.

I ran into a family that my family knows. They are extras in the new film.

Saturday the leaders spent a lot of time with the youth from 17 surrounding stakes who came to Nauvoo or watched online to training meetings and devotionals. We also visited the set of the new film about the building of the Nauvoo temple. That story will be coming later. I wrote two articles in Nauvoo on the other events. I also got caught in two of the photographer's photos.

The Nauvoo Temple on the hill.

The Mississippi River behind me on the hill.

Sunday morning, I was back in St. Louis and went to sacrament meeting with President Lund as he attended the Parkway Ward. I went to church there as a teenager and it was a very tender moment for me. 

I was grateful to be home again Sunday afternoon with my sweet family! I shared with them my testimony of all the good work our Church leaders are doing, and the messages they shared with the youth — God loves you, and you have an important part to play in His work.

Cheer camp and dance

 Millie lived out a dream in September by taking part in the high school's two-day cheer camp. The cheerleaders taught the girls some routines.

"This is my exercise outfit."

Then, on that Friday night, they did the routine on the football field at halftime of the football game. Millie has her hands up in the picture below in the center, behind the girl on the ground.

She danced her HEART OUT. Andrew and James were so supportive and cheered for her. After the performance, I took these photos on the field.

Here we are watching the football game. We saw a lot of our friends from the stake, and several other girls Millie knew also were a part of the camp. Max and Ben were with JB in Kansas City and I believe they were at the airport at this point.

This fall Millie is also in a jazz dance class at one of the county rec centers. She just embraces every moment and I'm so proud of her, because I was such a shy child. She loves her teacher and makes the cutest effort.

She really wants to do tumbling and gymnastics. We try to only do one sport/activity at a time per child, so when her Jazz dance class is over, I'll see what is available.

Chiefs game

 It feels like time is speeding up, and we won't have these teenagers around for much longer -- especially our high school senior Max. They are big Chiefs fans, and JB took them on a quick trip to a Thursday night game earlier this month. 

They got into Kansas City late Wednesday night, and met my brother James for barbecue for lunch Thursday morning. He works and lives pretty close to Joes KC, our favorite restaurant.

Walking around the tailgate area was a blast.

Checking out Arrowhead Stadium for the first time.

The game was a thriller, and a great win.

Friday morning they went to the Kansas City Temple (which is actually close to Liberty, so it feels more historically significant to me in Church history). They were able to do a lot of baptisms and had the nicest guy helping them, who kept talking about the Chiefs win and how much it must cost to feed to tall teens.

They walked around the river walk before heading to the airport to come home.

We missed these three while they were gone! But what a fun trip and opportunity.

Museum and animal fun

This summer I've been able to take the three younger kids to do some fun things. In July, we won another free museum pass from the library. So we went back to the Leonardo downtown. The three youngest think this place is the best -- especially the Lego-building area, where they built these men and put them on each display shelf.

James tried the flight simulator

James and Andrew were fascinated by the sciency stuff

Millie loves this boat and toys

And we ended up back at the Legos

We went back to the Natural History Museum as well with Zap passes. This cave is a favorite.

And this dino head puzzle.

The color exhibit is a blast

She kept asking me to take her picture by these guys

On Friday Aug. 26, we went to the Discovery Gateway Children's Museum. I had free passes that would expire on the 31st, and we still weren't in school, so I moved my work hours around.

Here's the construction zone near the front.

The grocery store

The farm

This girl played doctor for a long time.

The Lego test track was going well, until one car kept winning and the other car kept breaking down, making the owner of that car rather upset.

We had not seen the new paleontology experience, and all three enjoyed this part.

When we came back downstairs to do all the first floor activites again, we found Suzanne and her children and so we kept playing with them!

On Wednesday Aug. 3, Suzanne had told me about a little animal show from Living Planet Aquarium at the Valley Fair Mall. We got there before the cousins, saw the animals, then saw the cousins before the next show started.

Then we went to Maceys grocery store for Kong Kones (large and cheap ice cream cones)

Looking back, it seems like we had a busy summer, doing lots of things. But most of the time we were mainly hanging out at home using different screens and trying to keep cool!