The Long Awaited Nauvoo Pictures!

We had the great chance to go to Nauvoo about 2 weeks ago. We had a blast at the Waite reunion, and the time we got to spend with Brett's immediate family in Missouri. We luckily got out of Nauvoo (and Iowa) before the flooding kept us there permanently. It did take us 6 hours to get out of Iowa though, because we had to take back highways since I-80 was closed in some areas. Anyway, here are some of the highlights of the trip for us :)

This is on our trek to Nauvoo. The theme for my classroom is the Wizard of Oz, so we had to stop in Kansas to go to the Oz Museum. We got there 20 minutes before it closed, so we weren't able to go through the Museum itself, but we sure got some great stuff for my classroom! This is Kelli, (Brett's sister) me, and Brett outside of the Oz Museum.

Here we are in Missouri! This is in the Independence Visitor's Center. We had the cutest sister Missionary giving us the tour. It was a very unique experience in Missouri. We went to the Community of Christ Temple and heard their speech and then we went to the Church of Christ:Temple Lot visitors center and talked to the most senior apostle about their church. It's very interesting to hear the differences between their churches and the LDS church. It was really cool.

This is outside of the Visitor's Center in Independence. We look super sheek in our new shades!


The beautiful valley of Adam-Ondi-Ahman. This is my favorite site in Missouri and we spent a good while looking, meditating, and enjoying the evening there.
















We FINALLY made it to Nauvoo! (Do we look a bit tired??) We were so excited to finally be there!
This was one of our first stops- The Scovil Bakery. This is me in the Summer Kitchen making something delicious!!

This is Brett in all of his glory by the Outhouse. (His favorite place in Nauvoo...) We had to get a picture of him by it :)


















The "Cedar of Lebanon" growing in the yard of a Nauvoo log home. Notice how the pinecones grow UP!! Seriously cool!















This was after we had gone through the temple... it was SO beautiful! It was definitely the coolest temple I've ever been in.















Here's the Mansion House and the Nauvoo house. You can't see it in these pictures, but over by the river they were starting to sand bag everything because the Mississippi was going to flood.



















The Red Brick Store. This was the root beer that we drank gratefully after the Joseph Smith Tours. It was SOOOOOO hot and I was very glad to have something cold to drink. Next is me sitting in the upper floor of the Red Brick Store where the Relief Society started and where the first endowment took place.















Some of my favorite pictures from the trip. Our "Drunken Swagger" picture and our cute picture with our root beers outside the Red Brick Store.















Our last stop of the trip was to Carthage Jail. It's definitely a very unique experience to be in the same room where our beloved prophet was killed. This is me and my new family by the statues of Hyrum and Joseph.

Our trip to Nauvoo was FANTASTIC! We had so much fun and had such a great time. It really is one of the most beautiful places on earth and we're grateful we had the chance to go this summer! WHEW! We're done with this endless blog post :)

The GRE is finally OVER!

It's been a rough little week at the Waite household! Brett was frantically trying to stuff as much information in his head as he could before the GRE on Friday. Luckily, all of the studying, fasting and prayers did it's job because he did a FANTASTIC job! He said that he just looked at the screen after he was done and was like, "Is this really MY score? Are they sure it didn't get mixed up with someone else's?" So needless to say, we are both very very very very happy about it, and can't wait to start applying to Grad School. (Well, I'm excited about it, Brett feels like he's going to throw up every time he starts to even think about it!) And yes, Megan, he did send his GRE scores to some schools in Portland.... you might just get your wish :) We'll see.

So, after the GRE we went out to celebrate at the Olive Garden where we stuffed ourselves silly! Following our gorge-ment we went to go see our good friend, Steve, perform in Hale Center Theater's Little Women the Musical. WOW!! It was fantastic! I want to applaud the entire cast! I was crying like a baby, I laughed until it hurt, I was very touched and very impressed with the quality of the performance. It was AWESOME! So, thanks Steve, for letting us come :)

That pretty much sums up the weekend. We did go to a great ward BBQ, where I watched Brett almost pass out from playing football in almost 100 degree weather. We love our new ward and have been having a blast getting to know new people. Brett just got called to be the Sunday School 1st Counselor, I'm still waiting to be cool enough to get a calling. Maybe someday! Brett starts school tomorrow, and I'm still trying to figure out how to teach my 1st grade summer schoolers how to read. Any of you teachers out there have any suggestions? I'm so used to teaching comprehension strategies to fifth graders.... I don't know how to actually teach kids to read!!!!

Ok, I want to put a few more on :)

So, I decided to add some of our favorite pictures. This first one is when we were coming out of the temple. Brett was really nervous about stepping on my dress.

These were some of our favorite pictures. We didn't really talk about how we were going to feed each other the cake, but it was apparent we both had the same idea. (You only get married once, right? We had to live it up!)

There are so many good ones, but I LOVE this picture! I love how the temple is the major part of
the picture, and we're just kind of off to the side.... so pretty!













Ok, last one for right now. This is a really cool shot and I love it! It was my only really "bridal" picture :)

Time to catch up....

Well, we've already been married for about two months and I've been ridiculed by many people about not having wedding pictures posted. I've been having trouble getting them to upload, but we'll give it another shot! We got married on April 26, 2008 in the Manti temple. It was a nearly perfect day and we had a wonderful time hanging out with our family and friends... not to mention some of the best food EVER made!