Our trip to St. Louis and Nauvoo

As you know we went out to visit Leah and Christ and their family this past week.  We flew out Friday May 30th for St. Louis and the next day we attended Madison's graduation.  It was wonderful!!  Madison was recognized for her two scholarships she was awarded, Soccer at St. Charles Community College and a PTA cash award.  We are very proud of her!!  The picture at the bottom is of her and her high school soccer coaches.  They selected her for some very prestigious awards at the end of the year soccer picnic.  And besides all this she is a remarkable person!  Just like all of our incredible grandchildren and our children and their spouses!! :):)

We attended a Cardinals game with Chris and Leah and Madison and her friend.  We had a blast at the game.  We are officially Cardinals fans, t-shirt and ball cap and all.  HOWEVER, we are still Rockies fans too. :)  We figured it didn't matter so much and so we are fans of both. :)

We got to see the Arch too from a distance while we were downtown!  They were doing construction there so we didn't go and visit. 

We had rented a car at the airport when we flew in and so on Wednesday we made a trip up to Nauvoo about 3 hours away and spent the night.  We toured some of the restored homes and buildings.  At the Land and Records office we found out where my Great Great Grandfather Laban Morrill in the 1840's lived in Nauvoo.  So we went and took pictures of that.  It is now a cornfield. :) We also took a picture of the Mississippi River where the saints left in the winter and crossed the ice covered river for their trek west to Utah.  We got to see a musical put on by the senior missionaries about Nauvoo, and we got lucky and were in town in time to see BYU's Living Legend, a group of dancers performing Polynesian and Native American dances.  It was spectacular!!  Literally!  The costumes were incredible but even more so were the amazing dances.  It was a real treat.  We spent the night in Fort Madison Iowa and then went back to Nauvoo in the morning to attend a session in the Nauvoo temple.  Beautiful!!!  Such a very sweet experience there!  Then we drove back to Leah and Chris's.

When we got home that evening, we attended Olivia's dance recital.  Man that girl can kick it up!!!  She is so good.  She did a tap dance solo, a tap dance with four much older girls, a hip hop with a bunch of girls and a guy, and then some modern and some ballet dances.  It was incredible.  She is very talented.  We thoroughly enjoyed it.  They said we couldn't take pictures so we didn't get any of her dancing, but here's a couple of cute ones of her.  She is really growing up. :)

So we rented a Kia this time.  We didn't particularly care for the look of the style, but we did like the car and how it handled and the comfort (for a smaller vehicle).  Anyone know anything about them? 

 

 We also went to Leah's workplace and saw her office and met her boss.  It's a very nice office and I discovered something about Leah.  She is a mixed artist!!  She made this artwork to go above her desk!!  Ask her about it.  I told her she should put it in a show or something.  :):)  Seriously, it is really cool artwork!  Leah's going to kill me for including a photo of her.  She didn't have makeup on that morning because she had an early morning doctor appointment and she had been up really late with Olivia's recital the night before.  So Leah, don't be too mad please?? :)  We had lunch together at Jimmy John's (my new favorite sandwich shop) and after that we flew home. 

 

 

Now we are waiting to visit with our Bishop on Tuesday night to wrap everything up with our mission papers and then get an appointment with our stake President.  It's getting closer!!