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. :)

Pioneer Day

One of the reasons I love living in Utah is that Pioneer Day is a whole new holiday. An extra day to  do fun things and visit with family. :) This year we went to the Spanish Fork parade in the morning. One of our old singles ward friends was able to save us a spot last minute (thanks Emily!) and we had a pretty good view of the parade. Claire was mostly excited about the idea that candy would be thrown her way. Sadly we learned that unless we let our kids stand out into the street where we didn't want them to, you don't get much candy. :(  We were able to snag a couple pieces once though and I think she was happy with it.

We went back home after the parade and Scott got some sleep so that in the evening we could have more fun. We walked around the fair grounds in Spanish Fork, and visited family and got ice cream at Maceys and tried to waste some time until the fireworks started. They don't start the fireworks until 11 pmish. Late. :) Our kids had fun though. Around 9:30 pm, we headed to the sports park and the young ones played on the softball field with cousins. There were personal fireworks going off all around us and Claire and Everett got super excited about them. They then turned off all the lights at the park and it was so dark, but then our big show started right above us, and it was awesome.  :)

FHE to the Grotto

We've been wanting to take our kids on a hike for a while now, but we also worried we'd end up having to carry them the whole time. We decided to try a short hike for Family Home Evening up in Payson Canyon, to the Grotto.  It was the perfect first hike for our little ones. It was short and easy, lots of pretty trees and plants. They saw rocks and bugs and a waterfall. It was fun. I don't think they loved the waterfall at the end or taking their shoes off and getting their feet wet (I think the water was cold and rocks were rough on their feet), but they loved walking across the bridges!

After our hike we got some ice cream at Maceys, and decided to eat it at the splash pad. Our kids were already plenty dirty from the hike and then eating their ice cream so they got to play in the water and get a little wet as well. We had such a fun evening. :)

Weekend of Freedom

Our 4th of July celebrations were scattered throughout the whole weekend. Thursday morning we decided to check out the local balloon festival. We woke up the kids super early and made our way over to the festival as soon as Scott got home from work. For a while it was fun and exciting as they started blowing up the balloons. However, we weren't sure what was going on when they deflated a bunch right after blowing them up. We only saw one balloon go up into the sky before we decided it was taking too long and headed back home so Scott could get some sleep. It was a fun beginning to our weekend though.

On the 4th, we headed down to visit family in the afternoon. The kids enjoyed playing with their cousins on their inflated water slide bouncy house. We had popsicles and a nice dinner, but Scott had to work that evening so we headed home before fireworks.

Saturday we went to the Riverwoods and had some family fun. We got dinner at Bajio's and played some arcade games at the Provo Beach Resort. The kids each got to pick out a little toy with the tickets we won from our games. Claire chose a princess crown and Everett got a little flyer plane (which was broken by the time we got home).

We got home and tried to wait until it got a little darker, but not wanting the kids to be up super late, we started our little show early. We let them throw the poppers for a while first and then, after talking a little bit about safety with the sparklers, we let them each hold one. They enjoyed those until they both ended up getting small burns. :(

Their burns weren't really that bad, but band aids are always reassuring to kids. So once they got patched up they were up for more playing... only without the sparklers. They decided blowing bubbles was more fun.

After this, we got pajamas on the kids and then decided it was dark enough to try our one little fountain firework. Everett screamed a little when it started popping, but he was okay after a little reassurance. It was a fun weekend. We love our country. :)

mommy's birthday

my beautiful wife had a birthday the other day. i wish i could say that i had planned something spectacular for her, but we had a fun day despite my lack of grand plans. opposed to what i normally do, this year i started off by giving amber her big gift first - a new lens. i wish i could have bought it and wrapped it up nice and pretty for her, but there are so many lenses that amber wants that for her birthday i just told her she could pick out whatever lens she wanted (within a certain price range of course) and we'd get it for her. after much internal debate, she decided on one and we set out to get it. we found a store up in salt lake that had it in stock, so we decided to have a fun day up in salt lake. after buying her lens, we met up with my sister at the city creek mall and had some lunch. after lunch we walked around the mall (which had this fun little wicked display) and temple square.

after playing in salt lake, we headed home for dinner, then some chocolate mousse pie and a couple more presents (a flat iron and a fun ip camera so we can spy on our kids when they're supposed to be sleeping - we love it :) ). not the grandest of days, but an extremely fun one anyways. we are so thankful for this wonderful woman in our lives and all she does. we love you amber!

Swimming Lessons

Beginning of summer with a 3 year old (almost 4) meant we could finally put Claire in some swimming lessons! :) I was a little nervous about a few things, especially seeing them do the airplane ride with all 4 girls... but Claire did great, and she obviously loved it! She always had a huge smile on her face. I think she learned a lot too. Enjoy! :)