Our First Anniversary

Carl and I celebrated our first anniversary on August 3. We decided to visit Nauvoo and we had an awesome weekend. We left on Friday, right after Carl got off work. It ended up being a really fantastic trip. Here he is loading all of our stuff into the car. Who knew we needed so much for weekend trip!

Just starting our road trip.

We went to the temple on Friday and we were able to be a part of a really neat session...it was an 86 year old couple and all their grown children. The feeling in the session was so amazing and it really gave Carl and me a vision of what our future could be.

After that we stopped for a bite at Dottie's Red Front Cafe. It was definitely a culinary adventure. Almost everything was deep fried or greasy but the place definitely had character!

We also saw the Nauvoo Pageant later that night. Since we had to get there early to reserve seats, we played a few pioneer games. Carl didn't quite master the stilts but we played some other games that were a ton of fun.

After the pageant, we headed back to Hotel Nauvoo and watched Shark Week. That may not sound like a lot of fun, but Carl and I don't have a TV that gets channels, so it was a treat for us. I have always wanted to stay there and I think this will be the last time we will do so. At 4:00 in the morning, the fire alarm went off. Since there is no overnight staff(actually, there is no staff past 8:00 pm), the alarm just kept going off. We eventually found an emergency number and called the owner who came and turned the alarm off.

After our little adventure at o'dark thirty, we slept in a little bit. The next day we saw the new Joseph Smith movie and toured a few of the houses in historic Nauvoo. The John Taylor home is one of my favorite places, so we went there early on in the day. Upon entering, Carl received a pleasant surprise. A couple he knew from Madagascar were serving a mission in Nauvoo.

The Andrus's ran the largest dairy in Madagascar and decided to serve a mission after their contract ran out. It was really nice to finally put a face to the name from all the stories Carl has told me about this family. After visiting a few more places, we made our way over to Carthage. On our way there, we saw one of the biggest houses we have have ever seen.

Once in Carthage, we took a tour of Carthage Jail. Since Carl had not been to Nauvoo nor Carthage, he really enjoyed visiting the church sites and feeling the Spirit.

We headed for home after Carthage and made it back to St. Louis in time for dinner. We went to Modesto; I absolutely love that place. On Sunday, we talk a walk in Forest Park and then sat by the lake and enjoyed each other's company and reflected on the past year. So many things transpired since we have been married that they are impossible to recount. We decided that while some of them have been very sad and very trying, these experiences have brought us closer together and helped us become more unified. Even though we have passed through some hard times, we feel so blessed and are happier now than perhaps we have ever been.