Midwest Vacation

We had a family reunion in Nauvoo last week.  It was a Grimshaw reunion (my mom's side) and it was so fun to see so much family that I haven't seen in years.  We really only hung out with each other during meals and the rest of the time, individual families did their own thing around Nauvoo.  Here's a few things we did.  Beware, there are lots of pictures.

We went on oxen rides.

We played dress up and pioneer games.



We went to different places like the post office, printing press, and the brick shop.  We also went to the visitor's center and watched a show.

We played at the pageant carnival.  There was a wood cutting competition, tug of war, and stilts.  Grandma got

all the granddaughters bonnets.  Then we watched the Nauvoo Pageant.

We went to church.  Apparently during tourist season they have a visitors ward that can reach up to 1000 people.  Crazy. After church we took family pictures in front of the Nauvoo Temple.

We ate lots.  When we were with all of the family, we ate at Adventure Land where some meals were catered for us.  My mom's cousin owns it and they have the coolest play area.  Jocey loved the kiddy slide.

On the last day, some went to a session at the Nauvoo Temple then my family headed to Kansas for our own little Brough reunion.  We dropped Dave off at the airport because he had to go back to work.  The rest of us headed to The Great Wolf Lodge.  Coolest place ever.

We went to the waterpark every day.  I didn't get any pictures of the waterpark but look it up because it is so cool.  Jocelyn went down a big kid slide all by herself.  We got up to the top of the slide and they said she couldn't go down with me so I pushed her down.  Don't worry, she had on a life jacket and the life guard at the bottom pulled her out.  She was a little shocked but she didn't cry.  I was so proud of her.

We had breakfast every morning in our rooms.  I got a cute picture of some of the kids watching morning cartoons.

The kids went to the Cub Club and story time.

One morning we went over to Liberty, MO and saw Liberty Jail.  It was really cool especially the way they have displayed the jail inside the visitor's center.  After that we stopped by the Kansas City Temple and then headed to the Independence, MO visitor's center and watched a video and then the kids played in their pioneer area.

On our last night we went to a dinosaur restaurant.  It was really fun.  Jocey wasn't too fond of the dinosaur character.

After dinner we headed back to our lodge and all the grandkids got to build their own animal.  Jocelyn would not part from her cute little wolf. 

After the animal building, we said our goodbyes and went to sleep.  We had a 6am flight which meant we woke up at 3am.  Not cool but the morning went quickly and luckily Jocey and I were able to catch an earlier flight from Salt Lake to Sacramento instead of having a 3 1/2 hour layover.  We're home now and already miss our family.  We had so much fun and can't wait until the next reunion.