Trip through the midwest

Here are some great pics of our recent trip to Chicago and Nauvoo. We flew to St. Louis, drove to Naperville to stay with Cindy and Steve (an hour outside Chicago). On Monday we drove into Chicago and spent the afternoon on Navy Pier, taking a boat ride tour along the coast, riding on the ferris wheel and driving through the very streets where Dark Knight was filmed.

Tuesday we drove up to visit friends, Kate and Christian Mitchell, in Whitefish Bay, just north of Milwaukee. Wednesday included some mountain bike riding at a nearby bike park still in construction as well as Chicago deep-dish pizza.

On Thursday we drove down to Nauvoo, getting there in time for a performance, "High Hopes and Riverboats," followed by a short tour of downtown Nauvoo and the festivities (puppet shows, handcrafts, games) and pageant that night.

My brother, Eric and his family of five were part of the Green family cast for the last week of the pageant. The pageant includes Parley P. Pratt's narration of the conversions and challenges of the saints leading up to Joseph Smith's martyrdom and the building of the Nauvoo temple. Throughout the story the temple is constructed as the backdrop of the stage and gradually fades away as the Prophet is killed and the Saints are driven from Nauvoo. As the characters re-appear in more glorious costume in the grand finale, the present day Nauvoo temple is then illuminated upon the hill in the distance. It is a very moving production.
(Eric and Terri and family are to the right below)


We watched the pageant Thursday and Friday night with a visit to the temple Friday morning and a tour and Q&A by Temple President Wayne Peterson and his wife. Friday afternoon we visited Carthage and saw a few of the other sites down Parley Street in Nauvoo. Saturday morning we drove back down to St. Louis and had an hour before we needed to be to the airport so we went to The Butterfly House for a quick tour of the tropical butterfly conservatory. The kids loved it!