Some summer fun

We've managed to have a little bit of outside fun, despite our rain every day. Here's some photos of picnic's in the park with friends (under the shelter of a tree of course), feeding the ducks with a walk around the lake, playing on the swings and slides, visiting Indiana Land (indoor play area), and visiting Tanaghmore Gardens and Farm. We've spent a lot of time inside drawing, painting, watching movies, and baking too, just never think to take pictures until after.

Wanna be Princess Samantha

Samantha can't seem to wait to grow up, be a princess, find her prince, and always look pretty with her makeup. Good thing she's got a few years to perfect the look based on the photos I took the other day. On a more painful note, she knocked her cousin Andrew in the head yesterday with her 2 front teeth, and one is sore and wobbling. I thought I'd look on the Internet as to what is done in that situation and the answer seems to be nothing!! What's worse is, if the tooth is damaged bad enough it dies, turns grey, and eventually black - aahhhhhhh !!!!!!!! That's it until she gets her permanent one through. They don't remove it as it can mess up the new teeth coming in. Here's hoping we don't see any signs of grey in the next few days or her dreams of being a princess will have to be put on hold for a few years, she'll look more like a pirate, and we'll look like bad parents who don't know the first thing about dental hygiene!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Carthage Jail

This was a wonderful place to visit. We visited there on a Sunday, our last day in the Nauvoo area. It amazes me that people in Carthage would have had issue with Joesph as it is about 25 miles way, so in those days would have been a 6 hour horseback ride. I was a little stressed throughout our tour as it is such a sacred place for so many of our faith, and I didn't want our girls to ruin the experience for anyone. They did really well, and we sang I am a child of God at one point in the tour and Sophie stopped her fussing and just listened. As we entered into the room where the Joseph and Hyrum where martyred the missionary leading our tour told us we would have some time to reflect about the events there and if anyone wanted to share any thoughts or feelings they were free to do so......silence.....my worst nightmare with 2 young kids. I quickly said a prayer in my heart that Sophie would be quiet and this is what she did whilst we all sat quietly for a few moments, it was precious.

Can you believe the door has been preserved all these years with the bullet hole that killed the Prophet's Brother Hyrum?

The window out of which the Prophet Joesph Smith fell to his death and sealed his testimony with his own blood.

The well marks the spot where Joesph lay dead after falling out of the window of the Upper room in the jail, I believe he actually lay there for 2 days before being taken away for burial.

Mum, Dad, and me. I hate all these photos, I think I managed to gain about 10 pounds in the 2 weeks we were away. It was very traumatizing, but thankfully about 6 pounds of it turned out to water weight from the heat, but boy did I start to look and feel very prego on this trip!

Nauvoo continued

Below the Tagged and Noah's Ark entries

Tagged

The rules of the game are each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.
10 Years Ago: I had been on my mission for 5 months and was stuck inside an apartment with my companion in a little farm village called Benhausen. She had run into a tree on her bike the first day I arrived in the area.

5 Things on my to-do list today: 1. Dry my hair, 2. Get the girls dressed 3. Babysit for my sister while she's at the dentist 4. Go to the dentist myself 5. Help Deldon update his CV.

Things I would do if I were a billionaire: Rent our house out, buy 2 homes - one in the USA, one in Ireland and live between the 2 countries the rest of my life. Pay off all family mortgages and find some great charities to work with.

3 of my bad habits: 1. Eating too many packets of crisps and chocolate bars 2. Speaking before I think 3. Being pessimistic

5 places I have lived: 1.Belfast, N. Ireland. 2. Lisburn, Northern Ireland 3. Provo, Utah. 4. Solingen, Germany 5. Sacramento, California.

5 jobs I have had: 1. Balancing check books and a/c statements for my dad. 2. Customer Service advisor for Etams 3. Clerk and phone technician for BYU IT Services 5. Network Documenter for BYU IT Services 5. Broker Coordinator for a Mortgage company called Loan City.

5 things people don't know about me: 1. I have a bronze level medal for Latin American dancing (got it when I was 6 lol). 2. I'm a wanna be scrapbooker, cutsie craftsie person 3. I love the smell of America (it has it's own distinct smell, you smell it as soon as you set foot in the airport after you land) 4. I have 2 veneered front teeth 5. Thanks to this pregnancy so far I am 2 pounds shy of 12 stone, yikes!!

I tag Jen Ruggles, Amanda, Tom & Amy, Rachael Johns, and Natalie Hart.

Noah's Ark sounded pretty good yesterday

We are having a miserable summer here, in fact you couldn't even call it summer. I keep telling Samantha that our baby is coming in the winter and she keeps reminding me that it is winter already. I feel so bad having to tell her it is actually summer, even though it's so dark and wet outside we have to put our house lights on by 3pm in the afternoon...aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!
I have never ever in my life feared the risk of flooding in this rainy country, but yesterday for the first time I was worried!!! I kept looking outside my front window thinking this place was going to flood. I have been sick since last Sunday and Deldon was gone at YM's camp this week which was a complete wash out, they had to abandon camp after the first night and seek shelter in a portacabin building of a branch of our Church in Omagh. When he arrived home yesterday afternoon I was itching to get out of the house despite the torrential downpour outside, so I ventured into town to go shopping for baby boy clothes. I have to say I am becoming more and more disappointed with the lack of cute baby boy clothes compared to girls, it's been bursting my bubble of joy a bit. I've gone shopping twice, the first time came home with only a hat and matching mitts and the second time came home with 7 body suits and 5 sleep suits - woo who!! I'm ready and willing to spend, just can't find stuff I really like. Oh well, at least our bank account will be healthier for it. But back to the flooding, the roads were wild and when Deldon went out that evening to get our Saturday night Chinese just around the corner, he was greeted with sand bags, a closed confectionery store, and a closed chippy obviously trying to keep the water out. A big thank you must go to our brave Chinese Takeout that was still open despite the start of a swimming pool in it, so I could enjoy my yummy half chips / half fried rice with curry sauce, and battered chicken balls with kung po sauce. Here's a photo of a new underpass about 10 minutes drive from us joining one of our motorways with a place called the west link. Someone will be on the chopping block for this engineering disaster!

Nauvoo continued.......

Few realized precisely where Joseph and Hyrum Smith were buried. In those days of the early 1840's there were many, especially from Missouri, who despised Joseph and because there was a bounty on his head, close family members feared that his body would not be safe.
Thus, after Joseph and Hyrum's bodies had finished lying in state in the dining room of the hotel wing of the Smith's Mansion House, their coffins were filled with sand and rocks and buried near the temple. For protection, Joseph and Hyrum were buried behind the foundation of the unfinished Nauvoo House, and remained there until 1845. Then, at Emma's instruction because construction work was resuming at the site, their bodies were buried under the old springhouse, in the corner of what today is the Smith family cemetery.
There the bodies laid, in unmarked graves, marked only by a spring house, until, with time, the wooden structure itself collapsed-and then the spot was forgotten. In 1913, a dam was built on the Mississippi at Keokuk, Iowa, just 12 miles downriver from Nauvoo. By 1928, since the river had risen, President Frederick Madison Smith of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints hired a surveyor to locate the bodies of Joseph and Hyrum. They searched the area, finally found the former location of the spring house and moved the bodies only a few feet and marked them with a stone.
Recently and gladly stone markers have also been placed on the graves of the prophet's parents, Joseph Smith Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith.

Sitting outside the Smith home, and the grave site of the Prophet Joesph Smith. Deldon and I took turns visiting the grave markers whilst the girls were napping in the car. It was lovely just to stop and think about all Joesph did and gave in restoring the Gospel to the earth.

Deldon outside the Mansion Home of Brigham Young, pretty nice for the 1800's.

This was a cool little stop, where you get to learn about how they made bricks in Nauvoo. Each family receives a brick to take home as a souvenir. We also visited the Blacksmiths where they give you each a prairie ring (a horse shoe nail bent into the shape of a ring - very cool)


In the concluding dedicatory session of the Nauvoo Temple, President Hinckley made a special request of all those who were then in Nauvoo. He asked everyone to take a few minutes to "walk down Parley Street to the waterfront," to the landing on the Mississippi River from which the Saints departed Nauvoo and crossed into Iowa on their westward trek. He asked members to leave behind the comfort of their air-conditioned cars, to walk along this sacred path and take time to read the plaques along the Trail of Hope. We did this, but I'm afraid we stayed in our air conditioned car, I've never felt heat like I felt it there. Here's just one of the 30 plaques we read.

I loved walking around the Women's Garden at the Visitor's center. It portrays the life of a women from a little girl, to a fulfilled mature women at the end of her life and all the milestones in between.




Me hoping for my boy

Daddy and his girls


The Sunday evening before we left for Missouri a family testimony meeting was held and it was lovely to hear every one's favourite moments of the trip so far,and to be reminded of what binds us eternally as a family.

Some of Deldon's family outside the Nauvoo Temple