Myrtle

We came outside today to find Emma and James playing on the playset with a new friend. Watching James try to chase down this turtle and get it between his hands was hilarious! They found a box to put it in and fed it lettuce and bananas. Emma is SO excited. She kept wanting to check on it during dinner. She put out a box a put rocks around it and leaves inside for the turtle to eat. 

We'll keep it for a few days. :) Maybe we'll bring it to Utah. ;)

Emma: "Daddy, your job is to clean up his poop!"

A Beach in Our Own Backyard

What do you do when your kids keep digging up your yard? Build a designated digging area!

Andrew has fallen in love with Home Depot and decided it was time for another project (remember the tire swing and the playset). He's been dreaming of all sorts of creations using their bricks, and he finally found a use for them in his personally crafted sandbox. 

There were lots of trips to lots of hardware stores:

Of course the beautiful bricks:

Just remember, measure twice, cut once:

 

Once they had the size figured out, then there was the groundbreaking. We removed a nasty overgrown compost pile here, 

and dug the hole.

After that, it was just a whole bunch of hauling, a little bit of gluing, and a whole lot of fun!

Now we just have to deal with a bit of the beach in our house, and tub, and on the floor, and in the washing machine . . .

Grandma & Grandpa Part 3: Sights of St. Louis

For the final portion of their trip, Grandma and Grandpa enjoyed some of the great highlights of St. Louis. 

Washington University was beautiful with all the fall colors:

The kids had a BLAST at the zoo:

We are so lucky to live within walking distance of the farmer's market. They had an awesome setup for their harvest days, complete with a corn (not sand) box, slides, swings, and a western-themed play area for kids.

My personal favorite site in St. Louis is the Botanical Gardens. They were beautiful this time of year, and we had lots of fun in the children's garden, as well as the boxwood and Japanese gardens:

And of course, we ended our vacation with a trip up the Gateway Arch:

Thank you so much for coming, Grandma and Grandpa!!! So great to have our first round of visitors out here in the midwest. We LOVE you!

Grandma and Grandpa Part 2: On the Road

A big part of Grandma and Grandpa's visit was our church history trip, visiting nearby sites, including Carthage Jail, Nauvoo, Adam-ondi-aman, Far West, and Independence. Here are some highlights:

Carthage Jail:

During our time in Nauvoo, we stayed in a quaint little log cabin on the plains:

Isn't the Nauvoo temple beautiful? These pictures remind me of the phrase "Our shadow by day and our pillar by night." We walked the Trail of Hope, the path the pioneers walked in 1846 as they were forced to abandon Nauvoo. Of the experience, Newel Knight wrote: " . . . Here we all halted and took a farewell view of our delightful city . . . We also beheld the magnificent Temple rearing its lofty tower towards the heavens . . . My heart did swell within me."

Also in that exodus, Zina Huntington Jacobs Young gave birth to a baby, and she recounted: "I was delivered of a fine son. Occasionally the wagon had to be stopped that I might take breath. Thus I journeyed on. But I did not mind the hardship of my situation, for my life and been preserved, and my babe was so beautiful." Talk about looking for the flower among the thorns! I cannot believe the strength and power of the pioneers' spirits. 

 The mischievousness of James:

First of all, this little guy came hard-wired with a homing device for all things chords. Last summer in Dinosaur, Utah, he located not one, not two, but three vacuums: one in the dinosaur quarry, one in the hotel, and a third in the middle of a desert camp ground bathroom in Goblin Valley! In Capitol Reef park, he found the hose at our campground. And in Nauvoo, he did it yet again!

(right next to the prophet Joseph Smith's house!)

Next on this little boy's list was the play Rendezvous in Old Nauvoo. He actually sat really well through the entire play, which started after his bedtime. There was one character who was a really annoying woman, and her husband --who was fed up with her--allowed someone to take her in for examination on the premise that she was crazy. Just after she was carted off stage with loud protestations, James shouted for all to hear: "She go in BIG PIME OUT!!"

This next photo is perhaps inappropriate. I apologize, but Andrew just thinks it's so darn funny. James was trying to give the pioneers some oxygen ;)

Waiting for the wagon ride around town: 

I really wanted to get a brick from the brickyard, but I got so much more. The story the missionary told of the refining process required to produce such a brick was really beautiful to me. He spoke of the intense heat the bricks had to undergo, and pointed out that small rocks and other impurities cannot withstand the heat, so they shoot out of the clay while in the furnace. He likened it to our lives and how we must undergo a refining process, and the heat and trials we experience are required to remove our impurities and imperfections. It was a beautiful way to end my visit to Nauvoo.

In the Smith family graveyard, where the prophet, his brother, and many other are buried. Such a beautiful location:

Adam-ondi-aham took me by surprise, and was more of an experience than I had anticipated. The fall colors also made it a great shot for taking photos: 

Far West temple site: 

James was very helpful with our luggage in the KC hotel:

 Temple site in Independence:

 Visitor's Center in Independence: 

 (Isn't she darling?)

We were lucky that this WW2 memorial in Kansas City was open, just after the government shutdown came to an end!

We all enjoyed this view from the top, er. . . well, some of us enjoyed it, but we all went! :) 

We had to squeeze in one more temple site. Here's Kansas City temple:

SO fun with Grandma and Grandpa! It was wonderful to have all the time in the car to chat, and for the kids to have the constant attention of their adoring grandparents!