Nauvoo

I have been home for 4 days now so I guess I should post about Nauvoo! I wanted to change the background of my blog since the 4th of July is long gone, but I can't get it to work for some reason. So, it might just have to be white for awhile. If any of you are seeing a background or have any tips please tell me. I have been using thecutestblogontheblock.com. The directions are really simple and I have followed them to a tee, but alas, I still have a white blog background.


















Now, onto the fun of Nauvoo.
It was AMAZING!! What an amazing place, with an amazing history, amazing Spirit and an amazing pageant. I could probably talk about it for days and days and days. Every night I hook the camera up to the TV and I tell Dan about all the restored homes/shops that we saw and everything about Nauvoo.
The Nauvoo Temple

I will start with the temple. Wow, what an amazing temple! I arrived in Nauvoo at 10 pm and when I rounded the corner of Mullholland Steet and saw the temple I was blown away. It is so beautiful and I couldn't wait to go inside! I went on a session with my parents and when we were getting ready to leave we had to wait a minute to walk downstairs so a lady showed us a table that had been inside the original Nauvoo temple and that was now restored and in the marriage waiting room. You could feel the spirit of those pioneers who sacrificed so much to build the Nauvoo temple. We got to walk up and down the spiral staircases and look out the red, white and blue star windows. It was incredible.



































The Nauvoo Pageant












It was so incredible to be a small part of this pageant. I don't know how all these people do it. Their is a core cast of about 20 people that audition and play the roles of Joseph, Emma, Hyrum, Parley P. Pratt, other apostles and significant women in church history. They actually get paid, but I am sure it is very little. The rest of the cast is all families who volunteer and pay their way to Nauvoo for two weeks. The first week they rehearse during the morning and afternoon and then do pre-show activities at night and then the second week they are in the show. My sister's family was in the first cast so they didn't have to do the pre-show stuff, but they still did A LOT of rehearsing in the horrid hot humidity of Nauvoo. I was very lucky and I spent a lot of time in the beautiful air conditioning with Dawson. I honestly don't know how they did it, wait, yes I do. They were blessed with the health and strength to carry on. I can tell you that Heavenly Father was blessing each person that was involved with this pageant. We literally saw miracles performed! It was amazing.

It was so cool to see Marci, Dan, Kelsey, Jenna and even Dawson perform. Dawson had a little part and he was so good. He actually LOVED going on stage. I watched the pageant 2 nights and so Dawson got to go on stage a lot more than the other nights, and he loved it. He liked the bright lights, singing and dancing. It was adorable. He was actually very famous. EVERYONE knew Dawson and everyone loved him to pieces. Whenever we arrived there would literally be a little
fan club of people flocking to Dawson. He was so cute in his little pioneer costume! The girls also
had little parts and there were several times where they got to be right up at the front of the stage and they did such a good job.













This is a really cool scene that brought tears to my eyes. The saints are mourning the death of a friends, King Follett and then out of nowhere these angels appear and you literally hear gasps in the audience because it is so powerful. My sister is the angel on right with her arm around the girl. What a powerful moment to tell the audience that we believe families can be together forever.


















This is Dawsie's scene. He is the son of some Irish immigrants. His mother wants to be baptized and his father is questioning the church and his conversion doesn't come so easily. Dawson actually dies as they cross the ocean to come to America. I taped that scene on my camera because I cry every time I watch it. I will try to upload it some time.



















This is Jenna at the pre-show as the sun is setting in the background.


















Dawsie and Mommy















This is Kelsey during the finale and you can see Dan, my brother-in-law, just behind her to the left.


Well, this is already really long and has taken me like 45 minutes. So, I am just going to put my favorite picture from Nauvoo at the end of this. I will probably post some more in the upcoming week. Let me just tell you that this was a wonderful experience. It was not easy and it was really not easy for those people who were actually in the pageant, but it was worth it! The Spirit we felt was worth it. Our pioneer ancestors went through unbelievable trials. They finally built their beautiful Nauvoo and finished the temple and then they had to leave and endure the horrendous trials on the plains. At the end of the trail of hope there is a list of 2,000 names of those who died on the trek west. I don't know how they dealt with the death and sickness. I am so grateful for their sacrifices and I am so grateful for the blessings we have today. I am so grateful for air conditioning, grocery stores, jobs, cars, the internet and that we don't have to wear 50 layers of clothing! I missed my hubby a lot, and I wish he could have been there with me, but I had a great time and I will share more with you later.

4th of July

We returned to Hillsboro for the fourth of July. My brother and his family and my parents stayed and my sister and her family went to Nauvoo. We enjoyed seeing the Hillosboro 4th of July Parade, naps in the afternoon, PF Chang's for dinner and neighborhood fireworks show. My sisters neighborhood had some major fireworks! They were definitely illegal and awesome! We had a great day and it was fun to be with our Utah family.














Dan and I at the neighborhood party.














Ellie and Emma at the parade.














Dan sat with Jordan on the curb during the 2 hour parade! Jordan was mostly excited about catching the candy that was thrown out during the parade.














We are thinking this will be our next car!














I think I would rather have this PT Limo, but I don't think the gas mileage would agree with our budget.















This is Jordan with his LOAD of candy. I think it weighed at least 3 or 4 pounds. He was very nice and shared a couple pieces with us!

This summer has been a whirl wind for me! I am already 5 weeks into my vacation and it has flown by. I am off to Nauvoo to be the Daley family nanny for the next two weeks. I will try to do some blogging while I am there. I am so excited to see all the sites, go the temple and to see my sisters family in the Nauvoo Pageant. They did it a couple of years ago and I know it was a very spiritual experience for their whole family. I am so excited to see the girls and be part of this wonderful experience. I am not in the cast, but I do get a Nauvoo Pageant ID so I can have access to all the rehearsals, backstage, etc.

Family Reunion

This has been one crazy summer and there is more yet to come! We just returned from our family reunion in Lincoln City. We stayed at a wonderful beach house with my family for 4 nights and we had a wonderful time. We had treasure hunts, walks on the beach, kites, sandcastles, sea shell collecting, trip to the aquarium, hikes, games and lots of eating. Too much eating! It was amazing that we didn't really gain any weight! We took like 200 pictures so I just chose a couple to share.














Dawsie and Holly playing in the sand.














Ellie and Holly at the Oregon Coast Aquarium.














The whole FAM at the aquarium. Notice how most of the children are huddled around me, I must be loved! :)














The girls!















Dan and Dad flying kites.
















Danny and Dawsie at the beach.














Singing camp songs and roasting marshmallows.














Hike to Drift Creek Falls.















That is our house in the background. It was a little ghetto retro inside, but the beach access was awesome and it was huge and we loved it. I am already looking forward to 2 years from now when we can do it again.

Disneyland

We had the time of our lives at Disneyland! It was everything we had hoped for. We spent a total of 43 hours in the parks and went on almost 60 rides! We were lucky enough to meet up with the Perry/Later clan and it was so fun to spend the first day in the park with them. The coolest thing was Magic Morning. We were admitted one hour early into the parks on two days. On the first days we went on 10 ride in 2 hours. The park is so empty that you can basically walk onto almost any ride you want. I think our top three favorite rides were Soarin', Splash Mountain and Space Mountain. We were totally off of our lifestyle change and ate lots of yummy treats. I am happy to report that we must have burned all those calories walking because we each gained only one pound. We ate at the Blue Bayou with Sherri and Shayne and it was amazing. I have wanted to eat there since I was a little girl. If you are ever at California Adventure you must eat at Pacific Wharf Cafe. They have the best food for the best value. They had this yummy chicken salad in a huge sourdough bread bowl for $8. We also did pin trading. We bought this little starter set on the first day and we probably traded at least 25-30 times. It is the Year of a Million Dreams at Disney and we got two dreams while we were there. On our first pin trade the guy gave us a special dream pin that you can't buy and on the last day we were getting off Splash first thing in the morning and they were handing out special Dream Mickey ear hats. It was so fun to be there together with no kids. We saw kids left and right having meltdowns and tantrums and we know the next time we go to Disneyland we will be part of that crowd. We were so sad on the last night when the fireworks ended because we knew the magic was over. I did get a little teary eyed. We can't wait to go back with our kids and see their happy faces when they meet the princesses and other characters. It really is a magic place and the #2 best vacation of all times. (Our honeymoon is #1)

Poundage

So, awhile ago Dan and I did RESET through USANA. It was really good for us, but so so hard. We absolutely love food. We love watching food on TV, making food and eating food. I especially love to bake cookies, cakes, pies and other treats. After RESET we both lost about 5 pounds. We have changed our lifestyle and we don't buy ice cream, anything with white flour, candy, cookies, fast food, etc. Dan gets the award for sticking to the plan and losing weigh. He has lost almost 15 pounds!!! I am so so proud of him. I am still at 5 pounds, but I blame work. My work is evil! Since I work with a bunch of overworked and stressed women we always have chocolate, candy, chocolate, cookies and more chocolate lying around. Since I love chocolate I always eat it. I have no self-control.
I guess what I really need to do is exercise more. I read other peoples blog's and read that they love to exercise. Oh how I wish I loved to exercise. I absolutely hate it. I need to find some form of exercise that I enjoy so that I will do it more often. (I am open to suggestions...)Dan has been running almost everyday and he is awesome! My goal is to lose weight this summer so when I go back to work in the fall people won't even recognize me :) (yeah right)

My Kids

So, It is almost the end of the school year (only 11 work days and 6 school days!) and I am swamped with progress reports, Kindergarten transition stuff, IFSP meetings, home visits, parties, field trips and other assorted Head Start stuff. It is such a busy time of year, but this is when I start to really appreciate the kids and think about how much I will miss them. Even though it is not always easy to be in charge of 19 young children I really grow to LOVE all of them. You get used to their issues and behaviors and you all learn to work together. I love my class. I feel like we are a little family at school. Last year I did get a little teary eyed when the buses drove away. I will probably never see most of these kids again and I just hope that they can succeed in life with the many problems and issues that they face. The other day I was talking to one of my kids on the playground and we were talking about all the people in his family. I told him I just had two people in my family and no children. This is what he said to me, "Teacher Holly you have us kids at school. We are your kids." It was very cute. I say the same thing all the time. I do have 19 kids and I love them. So, even though I religiously count down the days until summer I will miss the kids and I will miss my co-workers.

Sultry Spring

I feel like Jimmy Stewart! No, I'm not having hallucinations at Christmas time, but I am baking in the sweltering spring heat and I get to listen and watch the interesting things that happen in NE Portland. Luckily we haven't seen any potential murder mysteries, but we have heard and seen some other curious happenings. In a matter of a week we have gone from a cool 50 degrees to the mid 90's!! It feels like the middle of July. We have all the windows open, fans blowing and it is still very hot. Last night we were watching the Jazz game and we had the sliding door open. Every time Kobe was fouled or the Lakers made a shot we could hear some people cheering. It got really annoying because the Jazz were sucking it up. It reminded me of Rear Window, the greatest Hitchcock movie ever. It's funny how in the summer we can suddenly see into our neighbors apartments and over hear their conversations. Another exciting event happened last night at midnight. We were baking on the couch and we both started to smell smoke. We went out on the deck and we could see smoke to the east. So, we got our clothes and camera and ran to the car. We drove down the street and sure enough one of the industrial building close to us was on fire! We didn't get any pictures and we didn't see any flames, but it was a fun adventure. The heat also reminded me of Rear Window, but luckily neither of us are in a full leg cast! I feel so bad for Jimmy Stewart when he has to sit in that apartment when it is 100 degrees in NYC! I hope that people are not looking into our house and over hearing our conversations, but I'm sure they are. It is now 10:30 pm and we have all the blinds open and the fans are going. Maybe I should sit at the window with my binoculars and I could potentially solve a murder mystery!