nauvoo, part one

nearly a year and a half ago, amber's parents were called to serve a mission to the nauvoo temple. as mom and dad's mission draws to a close, the entire mcclellan clan decided to gather together with our parents for a family reunion. and when i say entire clan, i do mean nearly everyone. which is a lot. all eleven kids (including amber's brother all the way from taiwan) were able to make it, so this was a big moment. back in my younger years, i was lucky enough to do the whole church historical tour thing and had been to nauvoo. i unfortunately can't recall too much of it as the years have pillaged my mind (and sadly blessed my gut with far too much bounty - stupid years!) 

our trip began very early thursday morning (3 a.m. - good gravy it was early). 12 of us utahns decided that driving just wasn't going to work for us, so we would be flying. my brother (at stinking 3 in the morning) was kind enough to use his big ole van and drop off most of us at the airport. bless that good man. now this trip marked a lot of firsts. this was claire and everett's first time flying, which claire was pretty excited about. she had talked about it for months leading up to the trip. this also marked amber and i's first time flying together. we learned a lot about each other. :) we had a quick stopover in denver, before flying to st louis. in st louis, we rented a 12-passenger van and drove the remaining 3 hours to nauvoo. it was a fun experience.

we pulled into nauvoo and headed straight to our campground to find most of the family already gathered. it's always so great to see family, especially when it's been so long. we set up camp, explored the campgrounds a bit, and got comfy.

the next morning we headed into town and caught a fun, children-friendly play. the kids loved it. it was especially fun seeing one of our nephews get pulled up on stage as part of the show. we then headed over to this area where they had lots of pioneer games to play. this was probably claire and everett's favorite part of the whole week. :)

we spent most of the afternoon playing around at the campsite. the kids loved the little towel swing their uncle set up!

in the evening we headed to the little festival they had back in town. we danced, colored, made dolls, raced in gunny sacks, rode in a pushcart, and watched a puppet show. it was a very fun evening. we then headed back to camp to get some sleep.

saturday morning we got the full nauvoo tour on a horse-drawn wagon. while fun, it was a little bit long for our liking. after our wagon tour, we headed down to the lake to play for a bit. that afternoon, all the adults went and did a session in the nauvoo temple. it was wonderful seeing nearly everyone in the temple. that evening we went and watched the beautiful nauvoo pageant. it was a late night so both our young ones fell asleep at the pageant (everett took a little bit more work than claire, but they both were out by the end). our week continued, but because of the length of this blog, we'll pause here and continue with part two after a word from our sponsors. :)