Nauvoo: Day One

After such a long car ride my girls were a little bit tired. 

So we made sure to let them get a good rest and then headed out to see some sights. 

It was really wet and chilly, but we still had fun. 

We first went to the brick yard and learned how the saints made their bricks for their homes. 

 Most of the saints were experienced in making homes out of logs, but the trees in Nauvoo were not good for building with, so they decided to make bricks instead. We learned how making a brick is a several week process, and it is really amazing to think that it took one family about 2-3 years to make their homes, and only got to live in them on average about 3-6 months before they had to leave. What faith, I don't know if I would have been able to leave all of that hard work behind.

Here are the kiddos climbing... they had a hard time listening in the brick making talk.

After we learned how they made bricks they gave us a brick that they made right here in Nauvoo. Almost the same way as they did back in the 1800s.

We then went to the Lucy Mack Smith home.

We learned a few little tidbits about the Prophets mother and the most interesting thing to the kiddos was the stairs. They were sooo steep! Its hard to tell in the picture, but the steps were a lot shorter than usual (I had to step my foot sideways walking down) and a much higher step than an average step. I guess it had to be this way due to how small the homes were, don't want to take up all of your space with a staircase.

We also went to John Taylor's home and learned about how he joined the church, and heard a cute story about a father's love and that old rocking horse (it is right by Sarah, we're blocking it). 

You can read the story HERE from the March 2010 Friend.

As you can tell from Sarah's face, the kids were getting a little tired from looking and not touching. 

We also went to the post office and learned how they mailed a letter without and envelope, went to a the Printing press, and learned about items they carried in their General Store. 

The last stop we made this day was to the school house. 

It was run by a doctor who not only helped with medical problems, but helped to teach the children to read and write.  

The kids were so excited to have something they could touch and play with!!!

The sister missionary there also quizzed us, and showed us some words that people wrote back then (before the doctor/school teacher came) and had us guess what misspelled word it was. 

Here are some that I remember:

youtensils - utensils

bertatoes - potatoes

shouse - shoes

uv - of

Pretty funny. Good thing that doctor came and help to teach them how to spell correctly.

As we were "in school" it started to down pour. We had to run to our car and got soaked. 

That night, my friend Joan's parents (who are the main reason we went, they're on their mission there) did a rehearsal for the play they are putting on in the summer, so Joan and her kids went to that. I was planning on going, but my girls (and myself) were far too tired and cranky. So we stayed home and went to bed early. 

What a fun day. I loved hearing all of the wonderful stories of faith of the pioneers.