This is Us: Nauvoo

Here's a really funny video! Before Zach was born Tommy would swing the overalls around. So now that he's here, we can't not try it out!

This weekend we went up to Nauvoo. This year marks Tommy's parents 40th anniversary (That's so amazing!). Tommy's dad arranged for his kids to come up to Nauvoo and surprise his wife...how sweet is that? I once again forgot the camera and so most of the pictures look like we just hung out at home. I don't have any pictures of anyone! So I would love some if you have any!

Okay so we were scheduled to leave Friday morning at 7. Thursday night comes and I can't sleep. I was so anxious about the trip because GPS said it was a 7 hour trip so I planned for it to be a 9 hour trip with a baby. That's a very long time in a car seat! So 1:00 am comes along and I'm still not asleep. I probably fell asleep in the next half hour but at 3:30 Zach woke up to eat. Then Tommy took him to put in his crib around 4. At 5:00 am Tommy comes into the room and says, "Chelsea, I need you to take Zach. I've been trying for the last hour to get him back to bed and he just won't sleep." Awesome. Just plain awesome. I try for about 45 minutes and we decided to just give up. So we start getting ready and decide to leave a little earlier. This was Zach at 6:15 am:

HAPPY AS CAN BE!

So we pick up Tommy's brother Matt, pick up some doughnuts ($8 for 8 doughnuts! Curse you Manhattan for not having a dunkin doughnuts...what kind of town allows 4 doughnut shops to go out of business?!) and Zach is looking tired. So I tried to get a picture of him and at the last moment his eyes shot right open at the sound of my camera clicking (on my phone? come on blackberry...get rid of that feature. It keeps me from taking all kinds of funny pictures because ppl would hear the picture sound) But anyways here's the picture:

SO FUNNY!

Well, I forgot to calculate how off GPS is with timing because it doesn't calculate you driving any faster than 60 mph. Also, Zach is an amazing travel buddy. He didn't sleep much :( but was super happy! At one time I got him to sleep and with the car seat covered with a blanket, I started to fall asleep. Then I hear, "ohh, ohh, ohh..." from under the blanket. My baby had woken up. AHH!!! But here's some fun video of him he was so happy!

We made it to Nauvoo two hours earlier than expected! We went to the hotel to see if Tommy's parents were there and yep we saw their car right outside. But we didn't know if they might be walking around anywhere so we went to a park and hung out (we found out later they spent the whole afternoon at the temple!) But that's okay Zach was so funny. Tommy, Zach and I went for a walk and Matt sat and played his guitar. Here's a video of Zach talking. He did this all weekend long!

Well we certainly surprised Tommy's mom. She was so happy and so touched by the whole thing. I was so impressed things went off without a hitch! We may have gotten lost on the way to the restaurant but luckily Tommy's parents were 5 minutes late so we squeaked on in before they got there. The next day Tommy and I got to go to the temple because I had never done a session before there. They always say there's a special spirit about Nauvoo. There truly was something special about that session for me. The spirit was just so easy to feel.

Afterwards we went on a horse carriage ride. Then Tommy, Misty, Mark, and I went a grabbed something to eat. We caught up with everyone in old Nauvoo but it was super hot and Zach hadn't slept much so I decided to go back to the hotel. Plus, I've seen the sights a LOT in my life. I did stop at the Lucy Mac Smith house because I had read her book and just wanted to pop in. It was neat because her house was an original that had survived the years.

That night we went to dinner. Zach was being a little fussy, nothing bad but he just wanted to be held I think. Well we wanted to eat. So in the process of trying to find ways to entertain our little boy Tommy put a burp cloth on Zach's head. After that he was a happy little camper. What a funny little guy!

ALL SMILES!

Here are just a few pictures at the temple that we took. My favorite is the one of Zach touching the temple. I know it's a corny thing to do but it turned out great!